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International Adoption
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Approaching Adoption: The International Option
Every child deserves a place to call home and loving parents to raise it. Sometimes the parties must travel thousands of miles to meet each other. International adoption is a process which can take anywhere from nine months to several years depending on the child's country of origin. Unlike domestic adoptions, international ones usually involve children that are placed in orphanages or have been made legally available by their parents.
Would You Adopt Locally or Abroad?
Celebrities have become the poster children for adoption. Meg Ryan and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt created families from children from around the world while Sharon Stone built her brood by adopting American babies. Mothers and fathers have reasons for making their choices as lil ones everywhere are in need of parents that love them.
International Adoption Sanctions Affect Many in America
While international adoption investigations hope to end corruption, what happens to children in need of families? According to a New York Times report placing suspensions and more stringent guidelines on the process has had a major impact on American couples seeking to adopt kids from countries like Vietnam and Guatemala. It said :A major change in the adoption landscape is the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, a treaty involving more than 70 countries and recently signed by the United States.
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Making Room For an Adopted Family Member
Newborn adoptees can be anywhere from hours to weeks old when placed with the families that will raise them so the process is similar to bringing home a baby from the hospital. Moms and dads who opted for an international adoption process or are adopting older children may be faced with some challenges as all parties mesh into a family. Here are some tips for easing that transition.
- Make the child's room a safe place for them by surrounding them with familiar sights, be it photos of their hometown, a favorite stuffed animal or blanket they brought with them, or CDs filled with music they may have listened to prior to entering your life.
- Give the child time to understand who the new family is before allowing others to spend excessive amounts of time in your home. Avoid overnight guests for the first month or so until the tot is comfortable with the people he sees on a daily basis.
Creating Families: The Surrogacy Option
The true sisterhood of women is showcased when one woman carries a child for another. Domestic and international adoptions may be the most common ways families introduce nonbiological children into their lives, but last year's movie Baby Mama and Sarah Jessica Parker's recent addition of twins have made surrogacy a common topic. Though there are no national statistics on the practice, it is estimated that approximately 1,000 such births occur each year.
After dealing with infertility and still desiring a family, some couples turn to another woman to carry their baby. In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate is artificially inseminated, by either the child-to-be's father or an anonymous donor, while in gestational surrogacy, an egg is removed from the future child's mother and fertilized with sperm from either the father or an anonymous donor. The fertilized egg is then implanted in the carrier via IVF. Similar to the adoption process, families interested in surrogacy often work with an agency to help them find a suitable surrogate, handle the legal issues that the transaction involves, and help them through the process.
Our Favorite Blended Celebrity Families
We've spent the week celebrating the ways families are created with in-depth looks at adoption and surrogacy. Some of Hollywood's most famous clans include children who came together through these alternative means. We've rounded up some of our favorite celebrity blended families starting with the Jolie-Pitts who have welcomed offspring from Vietnam, Ethiopia and Cambodia via international adoption and biological babies as well.
Creating Families: Which Birth Option Would You Choose?
Couples facing infertility still have childbearing options available. For those who decide to forgo medical treatments, they may choose to build a brood by alternative means. Additionally, some hopeful moms and dads that can have biological offspring prefer to share their love with living children in need.
Creating Families: Which Method Did These Celebs Use?
This week we're celebrating the ways families are created. From domestic and international adoption to using a surrogate, celebrities have become the faces of alternative means since they are in the spotlight. See if you can guess how these celebabies entered their parents' lives.
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