Adopt a child

At a mere 25 years old, my best friend and her husband were told that children would not be possible for them. She had some medical issues that had never been a concern until she decided to try to start a family. Of course, she was devastated. I cannot imagine my life without my daughter, so I can only imagine being told that I can’t have children. After a few depressing months, they decided that they would that begin the process to adopt a child.

They had a great deal of concerns about looking to adopt a child from our own country. We’ve all heard the horror stories about the birth parents who return to take their child back years later. Though it is very rare, those instances do exist. That isn’t something that they even want to think about dealing with. As a couple, they attended some seminars that pertained to international adoptions and met with an adoption agency. Amazingly, to adopt a child from another country isn’t as easy as one would imagine. In fact, it can end up costing even more money than an American adoption. Plus, to adopt a child internationally, there are quite a few more restrictions and concerns. It didn’t sound like it would be a happy experience until they arrived back on American soil to start their new lives as parents.

Her husband’s company would aid in adoption fees, but that only amounted to $2,000 of aid. Sure, every penny counts and it was more than a wonderful offer, but the costs and legal fees are still a small fortune. Somehow, it doesn’t seem fair that it would cost so much money to adopt a child, but that’s just the way it works. I would think that giving a child a safe and loving home shouldn’t need to cost a small fortune. My friends were looking into getting a home equity loan just to be able to adopt a child. The bank bent over backwards to get them that money and they began the international adoption process. Along the paths of their research, they learned about some of the strange requirements that some countries require for international adoption. China has some strict guidelines that they didn’t meet, which left out the possibility of being able to adopt a child from China.

Finally, after a year of research and exhaustion, they decided that they wanted to be foster parents first and hoped to adopt from that experience. Once you decide to adopt a child that was in foster care, the fees are almost nonexistent. Plus, the process is a lot less painless. It is now a year later, and they have managed to adopt a child, an infant, through a foster program. I’ve never seen her smile wider, or more exhausted.

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