Full Description
Examine the pros and cons of nontraditional adoption!
Welcome Home! An International and Nontraditional Adoption Reader is an essential guide to the process, pros, and cons of adopting children from outside the United States, with special needs, and/or from a different racial/cultural background. The book documents every aspect of the adoption procedurefrom working with facilitators, adoption agencies, and attorneys to mixed reactions over a child's possible loss of heritage as the result of a transracial or multicultural adoption. Parents and adoptees offer unique, firsthand perspectives on the cautions and benefits of nontraditional adoption.
Americans adopted more than 20,000 children from other countries in 2001, a number that reflects humanitarian motives, the desire to adopt a child from a specific country, and/or frustration with the domestic adoption system. Including a foreword by United States Representative Ted Strickland, Welcome Home! is a practical resource for anyone thinking of establishing a family or adding to their own. The book provides insight into the adoption process, open adoption, biracial adoption, adopting a special needs child, cultural attitudes, and how to handle an adopted child's questions in later years. It also addresses specific adoption issues, including: how to verify an agency's credentials; how an agency negotiates with the birth mother; state and country laws and practices; tax benefits; and expenses, including legal and medical costs; and includes research findings on the Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Projects (N2CAP)
Welcome Home! tells the stories of:
Naomi and Fred, an intermarried couple (she's Jewish, he's not) who adopted a Greek baby in 1962
Tina and Lee, a lesbian couple, who adopted a baby from China
Marianne, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Lund in Sweden, who adopted babies from Iran and Thailandseveral years after her divorce
Pamela, a divorced mother of four biological children who has adopted babies from Viet Nam and China
All of her biological children
MildredPamela's mother and the children's grandmother
Karen, adoptive mother and national chairperson for Families for Russian and Ukrainian adoption (FRUA)
William, adoptive father of miracle sisters from Romania
and many more!
Welcome Home! is an invaluable source of unusual insight for psychologists, psychiatrists, marriage and family therapists, adoption agencies, counselors, social workers, attorneys, physicians, academics, and, of course, anyone considering adoption.
Contents
About the Editors
Contributors
Foreword
Chapter 1. Opening the Door
Why Adopt?
Where Do We Begin?
What Are Our Options?
Other Considerations in Creating a Family
Introducing Personal Stories
Chapter 2. Welcome Home: From the Perspective of Research on International Adoption
The Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Projects (N2CAP)
The Questions: The Family Questionnaire
Survey Findings
Summary and Concluding Remarks
Chapter 3. From Couple to Family
How We Got to be a Family of Seventeen
And We Wait and Wait and Wait . . .
The Transatlantic Phone Call
We Get to Go Home
We Very Quickly Become a Family of Five
Addendum by Deborah Johnson
Chapter 4. Coming Home from China
The Potential Parents
Our Experiences en Route to the Adoption
Becoming Gianna
Beginning Life with Gia
Keeping in Touch with the Chinese Culture
Gia's Adoption Story
Chapter 5. The Family I Wanted
Getting Started
At Long LastA Daughter
Our Family Expands
Taking the Plunge Once Again
And Then There Were Four
Suggestions for Those Contemplating a Larger Family
Chapter 6. Our Daughters from China Have Two Mommies
Making The Decision to Adopt
The Adoption Process: A Circuitous Paper Chase
Lia: Our First Daughter
The Decision to Adopt Again: Getting Amy
Adoptions from China Today
Chapter 7. From One Wondrous Second to Countless Memorable Moments: Adventures In Adoption
Adoption Wonderings
Adoption Disappointments
The Arrival of Zoë
The Arrival of Zachary
Zoë and Zachary Then and Today
My Adoption Insights
Reflections Today
Addendum by Karina Barragar
Addendum by Reese Barragar
Addendum by Samantha Erin Barragar
Addendum by Krista Barragar
Addendum by Mildred Peterson
Chapter 8. Welcome HomeLiv, Kim, and Love
Swedish Adoption
Why Did I Adopt a Child?
Experiences en Route to the Adoption
Costs of International Adoption
My DaughterDelivered at Stockholm Airport
My Older SonA Happy Encounter in The Land of Smiles
My Youngest SonA Less Dramatic Start
Who Am I?
Going Back: Searching for Roots
Reflections
Chapter 9. A Perfect Lottery
Preadoption Considerations
The Adoption of Carolina Martha Linnea Kaufman
Jonathan Edgar Erik Joins the Family
Our Three Children
Telling Children About Their Background
The Present
The Adoption Process
Chapter 10. Adopting from Eastern Europe 101
Deciding to Adopt
Finding a Child
Adoption and Heritage
Zoë Today
Chapter 11. Miracle Sisters from Romania
Our Decision to Adopt
Joanna's Half Sister Arrives
Chapter 12. Adventures in Adoption: From Russia to America
The Preadoption Phase
The Adoption Is Finalized
Peter Enters Our Hearts and Our Family
Reflections
Chapter 13. Four Roads Less Traveled but They All Lead Home
Factors Leading to My Adoptions
A Full Circle
The Miracle Baby
Jo Arrives on the Scene
CharlesA Fight That Had to Be Won
BriannaA Very Different Story
A Retrospective Glance
Chapter 14. Problems, Perils, and Pleasures of Multicultural and Biracial Adoption
Reasons for Seeking to Adopt Abroad
Multicultural Issues
Coping with Uncertainties and New Realities
Reflections
Legal Concerns
Postscript
Appendix. Adoption Resources
In the United States
Outside the United States
Bibliography
Index
