Saturday, May 5, 2007

China Adoption

Country Profile: China is one of the world's oldest civilizations. It is rich in history and culture. China is a vast country with 1.3 billion people. In 1979, the Government of the People's Republic of China implemented a new law in efforts to control their growing population. This law allows most families to only have one, sometimes two children. It is called the "Planned Birth Policy", but is known most widely as the "One Child Policy". Because of China's birth control policy, many children are abandoned each year. Most are girls, because of the old preference for male children. If you have additional children then what you are allowed you can face heavy fines. Each year thousands, perhaps even millions, of children are abandoned.

Children Available: Children age 6 months-13 years are available. The average age of child at time of coming home is 10-13 months. China does not allow the adoption of two unrelated children at once, sibling groups (other than twins) are not available. Twins are available, although limited. 95% of the children adopted from China are girls, although there are still many, many precious boys waiting for families in China too.

Requirements: Married couples age 30-50 for the non-special needs program. 50-55 for the special needs program. If neither of the parents has been divorced, the length of marriage must be 2 years. However, if either parent has been divorced, the length of marriage must be at least 5 years. A total of no more than 2 divorces is allowed for China. There is a limit of 4 children (biological or adopted) in the home at time of adoption. Unfortunately, China is not accepting single applicants at this time, however, there are many countries that do. On May 1, 2007 China's new requirements for adoptive families went into effect. For a complete list of these new regulations click here.


Special Needs/Waiting Child Program: After reading the requirements, if you do not already know, you may wonder what China's special needs program is exactly. China's special needs or "waiting child" program is a very good option for families interested in adopting from China. Different agencies are given waiting child listings from the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) for the agencies to place. The children on these lists have minor, correctable special needs (examples are cleft lip/palate, hepatitis b, missing limb, heart defect, clubfoot, birthmark, etc.) and/or the children can be older. My little sister, Sarah Lu, has a corrected cleft lip and was on a waiting child list.

Time line: The wait for healthy referrals is looking like it is about 18-24 months for dossier submission to referral. From referral to travel, it is about 6-8 weeks.

The wait time for special needs is significantly lower (Sarah Lu was home 6 months after our dossier submission).

Cost: $15,000-20,000

Children placed in 2006: 6,493 children came home from China to the USA in 2006 and was the 1st most adopted from country of international adoptions from the United States.

Adoptions Agencies for Adopting from China:

*Information is subject to change. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at bound4meimei@yahoo.com

Our China Adoption Story:


1 comment:

MFJ said...

That movie was absolutely amazing. I cried during most of it! lol. I was beautiful, you did such a good job. Sarah will charish it when she's older I am sure.