Adoption from Vietnam

[snowdon04]

I have just adopted a child from Vietnam. If anyone is thinking of doing this i would be very happy to help.

[RebeccaRabbit]

Snow - do you live in the UK?

[RebeccaRabbit]

Sorry, forgot to say congratulations

[tesrocks]

Just wanted to say congratulations - I wish you every happiness with your new family. I'm going through the fostering process at the moment!

[snowdon04]

Thanks very much for best wishes. Yes i do live in the UK.

[RebeccaRabbit]

Snow - my DD was adopted from China and, whilst I'm not looking to adopt again, I am interested to hear about your adoption. I know that adoptions to foreign nationals was suspended in 2003 and, according to the DCSF website adoption from Vietnam is now only permitted under certain circumstances:

"Have been living, working or studying in Vietnam for at least six months

Have a spouse or parent who is a Vietnamese citizen or of Vietnamese origin (Vietkieu)

Have a relationship with the prospective child?s family or have already adopted a sibling of the child."

Did any of these apply to you?

[Kewcumber]

I was also told that Vietnam is not possible - would interested to know if that is not the case - even the US have suspended adoptions due to allegations of falsified documents.

I moderate a country specific web-group but am also interested in giving people more options.

[ConnieComplaint]

My SIL & BIL were going through the process of adoption from Thailand & last month they were told they have suspended adoption from there for 7 years. They had travelled out there to meet their social worker & got on fine, but at this end their SW left & hadn't been replaced - unfortunately their case wasn't far enough up the list to qualify before the new 7-year rule came in.

They are heartbroken(I don't know many details but she said Thailand was one of the few countries where her history of skin cancer wasn't against them).

For now though, they have shelved all adoption plans & are living in their own little bubble of devastation, with spartan visits from me & dh

Congratulations on your adoption, I will look forward to reading more details.

[Kewcumber]

No not a UK thing - Thailand announced in Feb that they have so many applications that they won't take any more in 2010. Not sure about the 7 year rule but it may be that they have such a backlog that they expect it to take 7 years to place everyone.

I don;t know how old your SIL & BIL are but it may be a possibility for them just to keep applying and keep plodding on and wait the 7 years. Alternatively I now a couple who decided they couldn;t stand the wait for CHina any more and decided to look at domestic adoption again and have now had a sibling group placed with them ranging from 18 months to 6 yrs.

Intercountry adoption can be soul destroying at times. My heart goes out to them. It was worst fear that Kazakhstan would change the rules just as I was ready to travel.

[snowdon04]

I was resident in Vietnam for 10 months. You need to be resident for 6 months to be able to adopt. They say they are tightening the laws, but i dont know to what degree. There are still many thousands of adoptions a year from Vietnam to France, Spain and Italy. I am not sure where else. The agreements broke down with the US and Ireland in the last year or 2.

[snowdon04]

I was resident in Vietnam for 10 months. You need to be resident for 6 months to be able to adopt. They say they are tightening the laws, but i dont know to what degree. There are still many thousands of adoptions a year from Vietnam to France, Spain and Italy. I am not sure where else. The agreements broke down with the US and Ireland in the last year or 2.

[Kewcumber]

ah OK so not a route available to anyone who can;t be resident for at least 6 months. Presumably you didn;t have a problem getting an entry visa for your child as there's no real guideline as to how long you need to live with the child overseas before being able to apply to return home without doing a UK home study.

Did that make sense?!

[KristinaM]

congratulations snowdon

i assume you will have to re adopt your child in the British courts, as vietnam is not a designated country?

[snowdon04]

I did my home study here in the UK before i left. Moved to Vietnam for 10 months. The visa for our adopted child was issued within 4 weeks. We are now adopting our child here in the UK, having done 6 months residency here. It is really relatively straight forward.

[Kewcumber]

and you didn't have any problems getting DCFS giving you a certificate of eligibility for Vietnam? Sorry to be nosy but my experience of DCFS is anything out of the ordinary tends to take forever!

Being even more nosy - so did you both up sticks and move to vietnam?! Blimey I was in Kazkahstan for 3 months and that felt long and lonely enough!

[snowdon04]

Dcsf fine about issuing cert of eligibility. I upped sticks with my son age 4, husband stayed here. The cert of eligibility (CE) is only valid in vietnam for 6 months as are all the other papers, police checks, medical, so i moved to Vietnam before we had the CE. By the time the papers were ready here i had done my 6 months. It is a bit tricky but no harder that doing a degree or a half demanding job. Vietnam was great. excellent expat community. We had a great time, it is still deemed a hardship posting for people that go there to work. It is a developing country. Great to have spent so much time in the country of birth of our adopted child, we know vietnam so well.

[Kewcumber]

thanks for the info. May well pick your brain if it ever becomes necessary - I think most people aren't in a position to move for so long for financial reasons but its possibly an option for some.

Do you know if they allow single adoptions?

[snowdon04]

Yes they do allow single adoptions. It is not that expensive in Vietnam. It is not like living here, but not cheap as chips either. If it is just you you can live in Danang or somewhere cheaper and spend about $600 a month tops. I stayed in Hanoi as i had a child to think of and i had to pay for school and a reasonable place to live. Depends of how you want to live. You can share a house with other expats and you could work. would cost almost nothing, you may even make money. There are plenty of jobs available to Expats once you get there. Teaching is easy to come by.

[KristinaM]

i admire your dedication snowdon. Its quite something to move to another country with your 4 year old and leave your family, home , work and husband for 10 months, then arrive home with a new baby. Your older son/daughter must be very adaptable.

Best wishes with your UK adoption and in your new family life

[brainmish]

lovely to read you story Snow. We adopted from Thailand 18 months ago and would love to adopt again but the wait for Thailand is prohibitive.WE might look into this route. We aso ove Vitenam and spent some time there 2 years ago and a friend of mine lives in Hanoi working for UN.congratulations on your expanding family.

[Kewcumber]

Brainmish and Snowdon - if you are in the london area, would you be interested in a trans-racial adoption group?

[brainmish]

sorry- over in Wiltshire where we have a great ICA toddler group.thanks for asking though.

[Issy]

Hi Snowdon, I'm a very irregular visitor to Mnet but occasionally browse the Adoption threads. I just wanted to say "Congratulations" on your VN adoption. We adopted DD1 from VN in 2001 when DD1 was 4 months old. I spent about 5 weeks in Hanoi and we're hoping to make a return visit next year. We're not thinking of adopting again though! We adopted DD2 from Cambodia in 2003 and we're done .

Hi Kewcumber!

[Kewcumber]

Issy! Mwah mwah!

How are you and your family - how exciting a broth country trip - so jealous I'd like to go back every year if funds allowed...

[Issy]

mwah mwah Kewcumber!

We're all really well. How are you both?

We have asked for and social services are supplying :faint: some very light-weight intervention for DD2. She's absolutely thriving at home and at school but, on a very subtle level, is finding it hard intellectually and emotionally to integrate her pre-adoption story into her life and we and the SWs thought that some very gentle, very low-key therapy now might help her to do that and avoid more significant problems later.

The birth-country visit is just pie-in-the-sky at the moment but I want it to happen when DD1 is old enough to understand and explain how she feels about the experience but young enough to avoid an adolescent maelstrom. I suspect that gives us about a six month window of opportunity.