I wanted to take a moment to share some things about the China adoption process.
There are more boys waiting to be adopted than girls! It used to be normal for girls to get adopted from China due to their strict one child policy. But since they have changed that and they now offer their own domestic (in country) adoptions, there are not as many girls available as there once was.
I am not buying a child. Yes adoption is expensive, but most of the costs go towards legal and administrative fees, agency fees, travel costs, and other fees to facilitate an adoption. Some of the costs associated with our adoption are: $6,000 for the agency fees; $4,000 for international fees; $6,000 for legal fees; $6,000 for orphanage fees; and $7,000+ for travel fees.
There is no such thing as a non special needs adoption. This does not mean that our child will have "problems". But the more familiar you become with the adoption world the more you hear the term "Special Needs" everywhere. Yes, some children do have medical needs. They can range from something that was already corrected, to life long care. But every orphan has experienced trauma that has created unique psychological and biological needs for them as well. There can also be attachment issues that arise.
Abandoning a child is illegal in China. This means that birth parents have no choice but to do it in secrecy. So all of the children have been found and their is NO biological information with them. It is very rare that you know anything about the birth parents, siblings, etc.
We have no clue when we will travel. Sure we have an idea based on the timeline so far, but something could happen and throw everything off. It is all a process...a long process. There are so many things that have to be done before we are able to travel. But once travel approval is obtained, we may leave in 2 months or we may be told we have to leave in 2 weeks! We won't know until it's time.
If you have questions about our adoption journey or adoption in general, please feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer them or direct you in the right direction.