the hoops of adoption

while watching GMA this morning and watching their update on haiti and the adoptions being made i learned some new bit of information. to be able to adopt a child from haiti you must be married for 10 years, have no biological children of your own and you must be 19 years older than the child you're adopting. no where else in overseas adoptions are there these kinds of stipulations.

if one parent is 35 and the other is 28 they can not adopt a child that is older than 10. excuse me what?! these children are orphans with no parents, no running water, no clothes or food most days and you want to put those kinds of "rules" on someone who wants a child and that can give them a better life?! you're crazy! the normal process to adopt a child from overseas is:

National Requirements

- you must be a US citizen

- if you're unmarried you must be 25 years old

- if you're married you must adopt jointly even if seperated (but not divorced) and spouse must be a US citizen

- meeting certain requirements about stability including; background checks, finger printing and home study.

in addition to the national requirements you must meet your state's individual requirements as well as the country from which your adopting. even after the adoption process is finished some countries require a post- adoption process as well. they require the parents to give reports on the welfare and health of the child.

as i sit here and read several requirements to adopt a child from China i am amazed that anyone wants to jump through so many hoops to have a child. i am all for adoption please don't get me wrong but it's so easy to get pregnant [for some] and any idiot can have a child but for someone to want to adopt, who can't get pregnant or who wants to open their home to a child they have to go to the ends of the earth and even then sometimes it's years before they're able to get that child.

in china, both parents must be between the age of 30-50. most women have already had all the children they plan on having by then. just this morning on GMA they also spoke of a woman's fertile years. by the time she reaches 30 over 90% of her eggs are gone for good and by 40 she only has about 3% left. so why do they make the requirements of age so high to adopt? do they think a 30 year old is more stable than a 25 year old? if i were to have a child when i was 30 i would be 48 by the time they graduated high school! granted 48 isn't old but my parents were 38 and 43 when i graduated. they also state your income my be $80,000 a year as a married couple. to define married by china it is one man, one woman and they must be married for two years. if either spouse was previously divorced they must have been married for 5 years and only 2 divorces are allowed.

as for the health requirements... check these out! if this were the requirements to get pregnant in the US there were be a lot less pregnancies. i mean they measure your bmi?! seriously!!?!

Health Requirements: Both partners must be physically and mentally fit, with none of the following conditions:
AIDS;
Mental disability;
Infectious disease that is actively contagious;
Blind in either eye;
Hearing loss in both ears or loss of language function (those adopting children with hearing or language function loss are exempted from this requirement);
Non-function or dysfunction of limbs or trunk caused by impairment, incomplete limbs, paralysis or deformation;
Severe facial deformation;
Severe diseases that require long-term treatment and that may affect life expectancy, including malignant tumors, lupus, nephrosis, epilepsy, etc;
Major organ transplant within ten years;
Schizophrenia;
Severe mental disorders requiring medication for more than two years, including depression, mania, or anxiety neurosis; and
Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or more

i just found so much of this intresting, yet disheartening. matt & i had considered and talked about adoption and considered china but with stipulations like these we're excluded in one category [previous divorced because my ex & i weren't married for 5 years] so if we never have the daughter we so despiratly want then we'll just have to deal with it because it seems that even though we could love a child and give them a wonderful home and wonderful life it isn't good enough and obviously to their standards isn't even good enough for the 2 children we have now.

http://adoption.state.gov
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/adopting-children-haiti-questions-answered/story?id=9693297