24894: Pickett: (asking about adoption)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

<Richard.Pickett@CSRTechnologies.com> -----

Subject: Adoption

Hello All,

My wife and I are starting the process of adopting three siblings (two
brothers and their sister) in Port-au-Prince.  Right now we are
collecting the birth certificates of the children and the death
certificates of their parents.  They have been in the orphanage for
about 3 years, we have been supporting them for 2.

I have visited the orphanage and stayed in it for nearly a week and my
wife will accompany me on a trip next month to visit the children again.
At that time all of the paperwork should be ready on the part of the
children.  I have a number of links from the US State department and
adoption agencies and believe I understand the three-step process well.

My question is on actually performing the adoption.  We found one agency
that will do the adoption for $7,500 per child (a total of $22,500) and
we found a Haitian lawyer that would do it for $2,000 per child.  While
that is a little more reasonable ($22,500 is out of the question) I'm
still wondering if that is necessary.  Do I need a layer?  Is this
something I can do myself?  Are there organizations available that want
to help the children instead of just make money off of them that could
help us with the adoption?  It would be great to find someone on the
inside of the process that can help, or someone that has adopted before.

If you can help, or know someone that can help us in this matter it
would be greatly appreciated.

God Bless,

Richard Pickett