Vying to be Among the Chosen, Page 2

Couples Find Placement is often up to Biological Parents

Just two weeks before their adopted son was born, the Salaverris -- he is a hotel executive in Boston, she is on leave from a marketing job -- feared his birth mother wanted an economic inducement. During a face-to-face meeting, the woman suggested to the couple: ``Maybe we can make a deal.''

``My heart just sank at that point,'' recalls Georgia Salaverri. They refused, even though they had already spent much of the $17,000 the process would eventually cost. The woman placed her child with them anyway, says Salaverri, because ``she was just very determined to give him a better life than she thought she could provide.''

The birth mother gave up her baby last June, when he was four days old, because his father was terminally ill and she was on welfare and could barely support the 12-year-old daughter she already had. She told the Salaverris her decision was abetted by new welfare regulations that prohibit higher payments to recipients who have additional children.

Federal government no help sorting tangle of state laws

Whatever its other problems, the maze of state rules and statutes is undoubtedly adoption's most vexing and cost-raising quandary. Except for establishing adoption guidelines and incentives for adopting children mired in foster care, the federal government has not stepped into the breach. As a result, there is little conformity and no coordination of even basic issues.

For example, states allow anywhere from a few days to a couple of months for birth mothers to change their minds and keep their babies. This is generally the tensest period for all concerned, and would-be parents dread it.

It is common for prospective parents to pay agencies and lawyers in at least two states -- their own and the one where the biological mother lives. And it's not unusual for adoptive couples to scour the nation for a favorable place to adopt, because even within states, different courts and individual judges interpret laws differently or set standards based on little more than their personal beliefs.

``The judge in the area of Pennsylvania where we lived said it was immoral for anyone to use a private agency in another state to find a baby. She used the word `baby-selling' for the price the agency charged,'' recalls Ryan Vandrow, a television producer who now lives in western Massachusetts. ``She said she wouldn't approve it if the adoption came before her.''

Vandrow and his wife employed four agencies in three states, plus an attorney, before moving the proceedings to Massachusetts, to adopt their daughter three years ago. By the time they were done they had spent more than $30,000.

``It wiped us out,'' says Vandrow, who quickly adds that he has ``no regrets whatsoever.'' He and his wife, who asked that their real names not be used, are now considering adopting another baby.

International adoptions don't always ensure smoother ride

Rather than face the perils of domestic adoption, perceived or real, tens of thousands of Americans have chosen to seek children abroad. Over the last decade a soaring percentage have looked to China and Russia.

In 1985, 20 children were brought here from China and none from Russia; last year, the respective numbers were 3,597 and 3,816. Apart from those who want to incorporate another culture into their lives, people opt for international adoptions for an array of reasons: most foreign children come from orphanages, so dealings with biological parents are infrequent; some prospective parents are older or single or have some other trait they think might make birth parents reluctant to choose them; and many believe, incorrectly, that adopting from another country is much cheaper or quicker than it is here.

After factoring in agency fees, lawyers' charges, and the money for travel and accommodations in China, Russia, or another country for several weeks or longer, adoptions abroad generally cost at least $20,000.

It takes anywhere from a few months to two years to complete most domestic or foreign adoptions. And, while the vast majority proceed with few complaints, glitches are routine.

Russell and Susan Correia of Portland, Maine, had what he called a ``very easy, very positive experience.'' They adopted a 10-month-old Chinese girl last November.

The Correias, both social workers, took out a home-equity loan to help pay the $18,000 their 18-month process entailed. They had expected to spend more than $20,000, but ``really lucked out'' in finding airfare and hotel bargains.

As they arrived at the orphanage in Gao Ming, outside Beijing, they glimpsed an infant being carried from the new, brick-and-tile building. It was their baby, Hope, being taken to a hospital for treatment of bronchitis and pneumonia.

``I'm not religious, but I thought that God's not going to send us all this way for something horrible to happen,'' says Susan Correia. It didn't. Antibiotics quickly helped, and Hope's parents took her home a week later.

Not all problems are so easily resolved, and not all adoptive parents take their setbacks so well. In addition, the explosion in foreign adoptions -- especially in some parts of Eastern Europe, where laws and standards are minimal and where unregulated ``facilitators'' sometimes make their living helping arrange adoptions -- is contributing to a little-reported phenomenon called wrongful adoption.

© Adam Pertman