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International Adoption in Latin America

AGBF

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I wanted to start a new thread on international adoption in Latin America because I don't think we have ever had one before and I know that at least one Pricescope member is in the midst of a Latin American adoption right now. I thought that perhaps her new experience and the experience of some of us who adopted from Latin America in the past might help other people who are seeking to adopt now.

When I wanted to adopt a baby I hoped to adopt from Korea, but was told that, at that time, Korea was closed as a "source". (I wanted to adopt from Korea because I had decided to adopt internationally and our next door neighbors' son and his wife had adopted a son from Korea.)

I was very disappointed that a "known" quantity like Korea was unavailable, but even worse was that for a Latin American adoption in Connecticut at that time I wasn't simply referred to an agency that would handle everything for my husband and me! Instead I was referred to an organization called LAPA, which stood for the Latin American Parents Association.

LAPA was a volunteer group made up of parents who had adopted children from countries in Latin America and wanted to help other people to to adopt children from there. One could call a member and find out when a workshop would be held at a member's home, then go there and start to learn about adoption sources in Latin America. One could also learn the basics about adoption at a LAPA gathering if one didn't know them, things like that everyone who was going to adopt-internationally or domestically-had to have a homestudy done!

I am hoping that this thread will draw other participants to it. I am going to post a link to a LAPA webpage that people anywhere in the United States can use:

http://www.lapa.com/Faq.cfm#NOTINNY

Good luck to anyone who wants to build a family using adoption!

Deb/AGBF
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AGBF

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This is a rather painful translation into English of an article written in Spanish about adoptions in Colombia in the 1990's. I chose it because it discusses the organization and orphanage from which we adopted our daughter, CRAN. I am also familiar, through LAPA, with another of the "sources" discussed in the article. "La Casa" used to be another LAPA source in Colombia. If you read this translation, you will see that that the adopting Swedish couple is, "high" and blonde with blue eyes. You'll have to take a leap of faith that the author wrote, "tall" in Spanish.


http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-132004&ei=Cz1wTtmiFsfDgQfqtNCMBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CD4Q7gEwBQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcentro%2Bpara%2Brehabilitaci%25C3%25B3n%2Bde%2Blos%2Bninos%2Bbogota%2B%2522ximena%2Blleras%2522%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1680%26bih%3D848%26prmd%3Dimvnso


Deb/AGBF
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diamondseeker2006

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LOL, Deb!!! It took me a second to get the thing about high and tall!
 

AGBF

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diamondseeker2006|1316136567|3018589 said:
LOL, Deb!!! It took me a second to get the thing about high and tall!

Hello, fellow adoptive mother! I am so glad you posted! I wanted this to be an inclusive thread, not an exclusive one and I am afraid that by labelling it, "Latin American" I may have done the opposite of what I intended! I am glad that someone with a child adopted internationally (but not from Latin America) read the thread and posted to it! (And I am also glad it was you!)

I had felt that there were very few threads that mentioned children from Latin America specifically and now that orbaya was adopting from Honduras, I started thinking about it. But in reality, many families I know have one child from one part of the world and another child from another part. Once one gets in the swing of international adoptions, one starts to get plugged into the networks and starts hearing about sources and suddenly it seems that there are children available everywhere. At least that is what happened to me! When we first started out, it was all a mystery. By the time we had adopted we probably could have had a second baby within three or four months had we wanted another one! The networking is unbelievable!!! And it crosses continents!

Deb/AGBF
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orbaya

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Hey Deb!

Great idea for a thread! I'm definitely more than happy to do what I can here.

As for us, our dossier will be heading to Honduras on Monday!!
 

orbaya

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Hi Deb!

I wanted to let you know that we went to NYC on Tuesday to get our letter from the Honduran Consulate! We appreciate your help with my questions in the other thread. Hubby got out of work early and we stayed overnight in New Haven at Omni Hotel at Yale, and took Amtrak into Penn Station.

Our agency will be submitting our dossier to Honduras either tomorrow or Tuesday! Once it's translated into Spanish, we will find out what else IHNFA will want added to our paperwork. They have requested additional stuff from every family so far, and we expect the same thing.
 

AGBF

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orbaya|1316357645|3020087 said:
I wanted to let you know that we went to NYC on Tuesday to get our letter from the Honduran Consulate! We appreciate your help with my questions in the other thread. Hubby got out of work early and we stayed overnight in New Haven at Omni Hotel at Yale, and took Amtrak into Penn Station.

Our agency will be submitting our dossier to Honduras either tomorrow or Tuesday! Once it's translated into Spanish, we will find out what else IHNFA will want added to our paperwork. They have requested additional stuff from every family so far, and we expect the same thing.

Hi, orbaya! A couple of days ago, when I was in Virginia, I started a reply to you, but I had to do something else and-while my back was turned for a few seconds-the computer ate my reply. I was too overwhelmed and busy there to start writing again, so I waited until I was back to Connecticut, but that meant a long drive and unpacking, then having to spend time soothing my daughter, etcetera!

I was so very happy to get some details on your trip to the consulate and I immediately started to share similarities and differences between my experience and yours (we had a facilitator, so we didn't have to deal directly with the Colombian consulate). I won't get into it now, but I wanted to let you know I had been excited to see this posting of yours and I am hungry for more news!!!

Hugs,
Deb/AGBF
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orbaya

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As far as I know, no other country requires their prospective adoptive parents to visit their Consulate to obtain a letter for the dossier. It basically states that our agency is approved to complete adoptions in Honduras, which seems rather pointless because they already know that. We were at the consulate for less than hour.

It's hard to believe that our dossier will be in Honduras soooo soon! I thought we'd be done with paperwork for a while, but Honduras just changed their psych eval requirements so we need to get that together and sent down there.

I have a blog for our adoption. I wish I could somehow give you the link!
 

orbaya

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OMGosh!!

I just found out that there is a local church who does mission trips, fundraisers, etc to support Honduras!! I wish I had found out about this a long time ago! I emailed them and told them that I would love to help out (excluding mission trips due to my son)! I'm not a member of any church, so hopefully that won't be a problem. I'm so excited about this!!!! :appl:
 
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