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International Adoptions
A Healthy Leap of Faith By Kelly Burgess
When Bridget Lahti's second daughter, Caroline, arrived in America, she had problems that Lahti had not expected. Meanwhile, the problems she had anticipated turned out to have already been addressed.
"I had requested a child with special needs and was told that she had bilateral club feet and would need extensive correction for that," says Lahti, of Cincinnati, Ohio. "When she got here, we realized that her feet weren't a problem but she did have speech delay and sensory integration issues."
According to Sandra Iverson, a certified pediatric nurse practitioner and co-founder of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota, Lahti's experience is typical of foreign adoptions. "In the last couple of years, we've continued to have the largest numbers of adoptions from countries where they use institutions," says Iverson. "At the same time, the amount of information we receive on the children has declined and may vary from a few lines to a complete medical report with a photo or video. Sometimes we just have to take a leap of faith."
In 2001, according to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) statistics, there were more than 19,000 foreign children adopted by families in the United States. Often, because of the distance, expense involved and a country's adoption rules, prospective parents may meet the child once, twice or not at all before they arrive in the United States. By the time they meet them, the adoption is already a done deal.
Complicating the decision is the fact that children from Russia and other East European countries generally have only spotty medical histories, and, if the adoptive parents are lucky, a snippet of video. Other countries give even less information.
Even when the prospective parents do have medical information, it can be confusing, unreliable or even downright grim. Iverson explains that a prospective parent can't necessarily take a negative report as a reliable guide. "Medical reports can have information that needs to be placed in the context of the country of origin," she says. "For example, I've seen cases where a child was reported to have a serious heart condition when it turned out to be a rather minor heart murmur. In the case of a video, we have to keep in mind that it's just a moment in time, and the child could be feeling unwell that day. It's hard to make an informed decision based on two minutes of that child's life." 