Why adopt from Haiti, rather than U.S.? Local experts explain the factors

With the effort to adopt Haitian orphans now in full swing, some are asking why prospective parents pursue international adoptions rather than looking toward U.S. orphans.

Sarah Hosland, a social worker at New Horizons Adoption Agency in Fairfax, said parents have varying reasons for choosing to adopt domestically or internationally.

Of the 60 to 80 adoptions Horizons facilitates each year, about half are domestic and half are international.

“It depends on the person and what they want to go through,” she said.

International adoptions are usually more expensive because translation of documents and travel requirements. Some countries require several trips to the country. The fees are set by the individual country.

Placement fees for domestic adoptions vary from $15,000 to $20,000, Hosland said. A required home study is a separate fee.

The time frame in international adoptions vary from country to country.

Parents may receive a picture of their child and then have to wait for months or years to bring the child home, which can be painstaking, Hosland said.

Domestically, the time frame varies from family to family. Some domestic adoptions take two months and others take two years, Hosland said. Adoptive parents can bring their child home several days after birth. Internationally, it is rare to adopt an infant.

Adoptions take less time for older children and children with special needs, both domestically and internationally, Hosland said. Adoptive parents can request an older or special needs child.

In the United States, it can be harder to adopt if a parent is older than 40 or 50, Hosland said. It is also more difficult to adopt domestically for single parents.

“A lot of times when women give up babies for adoption, they want a two-parent family,” Hosland says.

Another factor in deciding whether to adopt domestically or internationally is the amount of contact the parents want the child to have with the birth parents.

“Some want less contact with birth parents, others may want more,” Hosland said.

With some adoption agencies, birth mothers can change their mind and choose to keep their child, which may scare off potential adoptive parents, Hosland said.

In many cases, children from other countries were abandoned and placed in an orphanage, making it difficult, if not impossible, to track down their birth parents.