My last blog began to address a reader’s questions about whether health conditions would disqualify someone from adopting. In that blog I talked about possible impacts on domestic infant adoption and adoption from state foster care. This blog will talk about possible impacts a health condition could have in pursuing international adoption.
For international adoption, someone with a serious health issue may very well be disqualified by certain countries. Other countries can set their own standards on who is eligible to adopt. They often do not have the same anti-discrimination laws we do. Various countries have set conditions that their country’s kids may be adopted by only married couples, who aren’t overweight, who don’t have more than four kids, etc.
A friend of mine who’d been hospitalized and now permanently takes medication (on which she does very well) adopted a child. She and her husband were very honest with the worker who did their homestudy and submitted a statement from her doctor that she was very compliant with treatment and treatment was working very well, etc. The social worker was satisfied with this, but thought that her counterpart in the overseas agency was likely to be biased about certain health issues, so she was careful in what she sent overseas. She may have written in the official homestudy a phrase like “she has no condition that would prevent her from caring for a child” and then sent the official study overseas while keeping the supporting, more complete information in the U.S. files.
In my own experience, the Korean agency staff were concerned about medical issues. They asked for more information about a medical condition I had. I had initially been told that I’d provided enough information without my doctor’s letter. Then when the Korean agency waited for the doctor’s letter. This delayed our adoption for several weeks. I advise having copies of any records or letters you may need ahead of time, so you can submit then if they are asked for.
I understand and actually appreciate the Korean agency’s concern. Some people were surprised. They wondered why the Korean agency would care, as long I was willing to take a child off their hands. But in my experience, the Korean workers truly loved the children and wanted to place them in happy homes. I understand their caution about health issues. After all, adopted children have already experienced the loss of one or more significant people in their lives (birthmother, perhaps multiple foster mothers, etc.) and had to move to a new home. I understand trying to minimize their chances of losing an adoptive parent, either to death or because the parent is unable to care for them.
My recommendation is to be very honest with yourselves and your homestudy worker. They will find out if you are not honest with them. And of course, you want to be realistic for the sake of yourselves and of the child as well. Perhaps some agencies will suggest waiting for a certain period of time to see if a remission from cancer seems to be long-term. Your doctors can advise you and your social worker on this point.