how impossible to adopt?

[drmc]

I read the sticky and a few threads on adoption. I have lived in the DR over a year and will be there a year more ...mostly teaching and working at an orphanage. My husband and I are not yet 30, but once we are we will meet all of the requirements from what I can tell.

From working with CONANI (occasionally) in what I do here I know that everything through them moves incredibly SLOW ...just wanted to know your opinion on how long the process would probably take if done as described in the adoption sticky. Living in the country 60 days and waiting for an available child I know might be time consuming, but what about the paperwork process ...does it ever move along at a decent pace?

Any other suggestions? It kills me to see so many orphaned and abandoned kids here with such a complicated process of placing them with a good family. I know I could try the adoption route in another latin american country, but my heart is in the DR.

[Matilda]

I have been trying to adopt my two step children for 2 years now. They have lived with me for thepast 6 years so it should be easy. Conani change the rules all the time, it is expensive and now they have lost all of the papers so we have to go back to the beginning. One of the children will be 18 now before we can finish so I have given up.

Good luck

matilda

[Fabio J. Guzman]

The main problem right now is that there are few children available for adoption so applicants have to wait quite a while before getting a child assigned to them. Once this is done, however, the process goes quite smoothly in our experience.

[drmc]

do you know why there are so many orphanages then? Why aren't those children available for adoption?

[Hillbilly]

Just a couple of thoughts on this. Not legal advice.
1) Most of the kids in "orphanages" have families, but they are not equipped to take care of the children. It is difficult for a Dominican family to let go of a child, even if they have put it is an orphanage/shelter (albergue)/
1a) A sizable number of these children are truly 'damaged goods' insofar as drugs, mental or physical issues or horrible abuse in their biological family settings.
2) There are other ways around this problem, as I have mentioned in other adoption=related threads.
For example, you can give "birth" to a tiny baby when its mother abandons it at a clinic or hospital...Your husband goes and declares that you have given birth to so and so at such and such clinic or hospital, and bingo! the baby is yours. This can be risky, however, in the case of HIV mothers, or people with mental deficiencies, but you could luck out.
See my post of the Luckiest baby ever...

HB

[margaret]

Originally Posted by Hillbilly

Just a couple of thoughts on this. Not legal advice.
1) Most of the kids in "orphanages" have families, but they are not equipped to take care of the children. It is difficult for a Dominican family to let go of a child, even if they have put it is an orphanage/shelter (albergue)/
1a) A sizable number of these children are truly 'damaged goods' insofar as drugs, mental or physical issues or horrible abuse in their biological family settings.
2) There are other ways around this problem, as I have mentioned in other adoption=related threads.
For example, you can give "birth" to a tiny baby when its mother abandons it at a clinic or hospital...Your husband goes and declares that you have given birth to so and so at such and such clinic or hospital, and bingo! the baby is yours. This can be risky, however, in the case of HIV mothers, or people with mental deficiencies, but you could luck out.
See my post of the Luckiest baby ever...

HB

I LOVE heart-warming stories, thank you!

Today was the birthday of one of the luckiest kids in the DR

How is Luis Alfonso today?

[Hillbilly]

Doing well. Loves his Dad and family....doesn't really know any other. In first Grade!!

Healthy and happy.

HB