Monday, December 18, 2006

Haiti vs Russia

We had some friends come home this weekend with their newly adopted baby boy! It was exciting to see everything work out so well for them. It's also very interesting to see how different an adoption experience can be depending on the country one chooses to adopt from. Our friends adopted from Haiti.

Here are some of the main differences:

Haiti: 6 hour flight
Russia: 20 hour flight

Haiti: 1 trip to Haiti
Russia: 2 trips

Haiti: Time in country is about 6 hours. You get the kid, sign some doc's, and go home.
Russia: Time is country is about 4 days the first trip and 2 weeks for the second trip. You get there the first time, meet your child, fall in love with your child, accept the referral of the child and then go home for a month. The second trip, you go back, spend time with the child, wait for a required 10 days while the government enjoys your contribution to their GDP, stand in front of a judge to officially sign and finalize the adoption and then you come home.

This all makes perfect sense, right?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This sounds a lot like what Gwyn and David had to do. Several trips...not cheap;-)