Hurdles to Adopting Child Are Daunting

Because my wife and I met late in life, we only had enough time to squeeze out two kids.

We comforted ourselves knowing that we could simply adopt our third, which seems like the right thing to do in our overpopulated, highly impoverished world. (For a variety of reasons, we do not want to adopt within this country.)

But then I read this heart-breaking story in The New York Times about how difficult it has become to adopt from abroad, which leads me to wonder if we will be able to do so ourselves.

There are numerous obstacles we would have to overcome:

• On the demand side, there are just too many younger, wealthier, childless parents wanting to adopt.
• On the supply side, it appears there are plenty of wonderful kids out there but that political corruption, wars and cultural attitudes are creating major roadblocks.
• Many nations, including China, are prohibiting parents over 50 from adopting. That just leaves seven years for Anne and me, not a lot considering we need to raise about $30,000 to adopt from most nations. At least some of those costs can be tax deducted, but still, that’s a lot of money for us.
• Our current apartment is nice, but it is far too small for two kids, much less a third.

For some reason I’ve always wanted at least three kids playing together in the back yard. It’s a dream I hold onto, but at the moment, things look grim.