Product Description

The go-to guide for everything you want to know about international adoption



From the initial decision—Is adoption right for you?—through returning home with your child—How can you ease the transition?—The Complete Book of International Adoption takes parents step by step through the entire process of adopting a child from another country.


You will find:

• An easy-to-understand analysis of the differences between domestic and international adoption

• Advice on choosing a country, including 25 important factors to consider, such as the waiting times involved and the estimated costs for each of the top placing countries, with charts for easy comparison

• A detailed discussion of the potential health issues based on the latest research and interviews with doctors who specialize in international adoption

• Worksheets and a suggested system for preparing and organizing the extensive paperwork involved

• Parenting tips to enhance attachment and suggestions for addressing the issues that come up in raising an internationally adopted child

• Real parents’ stories and advice at every stage of the process

• Plus all of the information you need to select your agency, plan financially, prepare for the home study, travel sensibly, evaluate your child’s health and integrate your new family


More than just provide the facts, The Complete Book of International Adoption also helps parents manage the emotional rollercoaster that comes with the territory. Sensitive, wise, and often witty, this book is a must-have for any parent considering building their family through adoption.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64549 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-07
• Released on: 2006-11-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 393 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Davenport, an attorney, has firsthand experience with international adoption; she's the mother of four children, one of whom was adopted from Korea. An attorney and avid researcher, Davenport leaves no stone unturned as she guides parents through the adoption process, covering such subjects as choosing between domestic and international adoption, deciding on a country, locating an agency, determining adoption costs and wading through the often overwhelming amount of paperwork. She also delves into emotional issues, including how to know when you're ready to adopt, anxieties about the health of the baby, worries about becoming a parent and telling other children and/or friends and relatives. Though upbeat, the author doesn't sugarcoat the experience, exploring the risks of adoption (i.e., developmental delays, attachment issues and other potential problems) as well as the rewards. Interspersed are poignant accounts from parents who have adopted. A comprehensive resource guide is included, as well as an invaluable chapter on what to bring and expect when traveling to pick up one's child. Davenport has aced the complex preliminary footwork; parents considering or in the process will find this to be an essential companion on their adoption journey. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Dawn Davenport is a mom of four through both birth and international adoption. She is a researcher, writer, attorney, and adoption expert. She can be reached through her website at www.findingyourchild.com. She speaks at many conferences on this topic and is interviewed frequently by national media. She lives in North Carolina.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
Is International Adoption Right for You?


Where DO Babies Come From?

After three doctors, two surgeries, and three failed in vitro fertilizations, Elizabeth and John were running short of time, money, and patience. John in particular was tired of the infertility merry-go-round and their life being defined by infertility. He felt their money and energy would be better spent on a surer bet. Elizabeth wasn’t ready to give up her dream. “The tension between us was building and I knew our relationship needed a break from infertility, but it was still something I had to process at my own speed,”
she recalls. After six more months of talking and continued treatments, Elizabeth began to get excited about the possibility of becoming a mom even if she couldn’t become pregnant. Elizabeth and John are now the proud parents of Emily and Lia, both adopted from China as babies. “I truly wonder now why we didn’t do this much sooner,” says Elizabeth. “I couldn’t possibly love them more or feel more like a mom if they had been born to me.”

People come to adoption from many different places. Single women adopt when they want to be a mom, but haven’t found the elusive Mr. Right and think a sperm bank is silly when kids are already out there who need a mom. A growing number of couples with one or two kids consider adoption because there are kids who need homes and they believe they could be just that home. Many people, however, turn to adoption because biology failed them. We are a “pull yourself up by the boots traps” nation; anything can be conquered with grit, determination, and money. Not so infertility. What was supposed to be as simple as buying a bottle of wine, lighting the candles, and ditching the condoms becomes a medical ordeal that sometimes no amount of money or perseverance can overcome.

Some couples caught up on the medical treadmill that is infertility are so focused on get ting a child that they jump immediately on to the adoption treadmill. It is important to slow down and give yourself time to grieve the losses of infertility before you assume that adoption is the right path to parenthood for you. Parenting through adoption is different from parenting through birth–not worse, not second best, just different. Your child, regardless of how she joins your family, deserves parents who want her for who she is, not because she is all they can get. Take the time to make sure you are that parent.


Is Adoption for You?

Answer the following questions honestly. No one is going to see your answers, so forget about political correctness and answer how you really feel.

1. Do you spend time imagining the child of your dreams–the perfect (or not so perfect) combination of you and your spouse’s genes?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

2. Do you long to be pregnant or see your spouse pregnant?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

3. Does it bother you that future generations of your family will not be related by blood to you and your ancestors?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

4. Does it hurt you to see a pregnant woman or nursing mother?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

5. Do you find it hard to talk about your infertility without crying or intense emotions, or do you avoid talking about your infertility at all?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

6. Are you furious at God for afflicting you with infertility? (Why not boils or locusts, for goodness’ sakes!)
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

7. Do you feel like you are less of a woman or man because you can’t biologically have a child?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

8. Do you feel pressured to hurry up and get past infertility and get on with adoption and the rest of your life?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

9. Do you get angry at the thought of having to prove yourself worthy to adopt?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom

10. Do you wish you could skip all the adoption education and just jump straight to the part where a child is in your home?
___ Frequently ___ Sometimes ___ Seldom


Adoption professionals and psychologists strongly recommend that infertile couples resolve their infertility issues before they adopt. Coming to terms with infertility takes time. If you answered “frequently” to more than a few questions, you need more time to grieve.

Infertility robs you of m ore than just the opportunity to parent. It also takes away your dreams of pregnancy, your dreams of childbirth and breast - feeding, your dreams of biologically continuing your family line, and your dreams of your perfect child. In fertility also affects your sex life (privacy and spontaneity are the first victims) and your finances. I’ve included this litany of woes not to add fuel to your pity bon fire, but to help you see that adoption addresses only one of the many losses associated with infertility–the loss of raising a child.

Take the time you need. The decision to adopt, or not, is a process, not an event. Join Resolve, a national infertility support group. Read some of the infertility books and magazines listed in the Resource Guide at the end of this book, especially Adopting after Infertility by Patricia Irwin Johnston. Ask your local Resolve group or your infertility doctor for a referral to a therapist who is familiar with infertility.

Resolution does not necessarily mean that the grief entirely goes away, but it’s a matter of degrees. Many parents I interviewed said they knew they were ready to adopt when they wanted to parent more than they wanted to be pregnant. When you can answer sometimes and seldom to the adoption quiz questions, then it is time to go forward and find your child through adoption.


Adoption Facts vs. Myths

Adoption is often misunderstood, even though it has been around since the beginning of time. Even if you don’t believe these myths, others do, so it helps to address them at the beginning of your adoption journey.

Myth #1: Adopted kids grow up to have lots of problems.
Life experience should dispel this myth. Ask around and you’ll be surprised by the umber of well-adjusted people who have been adopted. Fortunately, we have more than just anecdotal reports; longitudinal studies have found that adoptees fare well in adolescence and adulthood (Bohman and Sigvardsson, 1990; Kelly et al., 1998).

Myth #2: You can’t really love an adopted child as much as you could love your
“own” child.
Oh yes you can! Love is not limited to biology. I love my husband more than life itself and he is not biologically related to me. Love for your children, by birth or adoption, grows from parenting, from nurturing, and from sharing your life. Your child is yours regardless of how he joined your family. Shortly after we adopted our daughter, a neighbor said to me that she couldn’t really love someone else’s child. Without realizing that she was inelegantly making a reference to our adoption, I replied wholeheartedly that I couldn’t either. All of my children are my own, and I love them each with a passion that sometimes scares me and often annoys them.

Myth #3: Your adopted child will never really consider you her real parents.
This is the flip side of myth #2. Real parents are the ones who stay up until the wee hours with a sick child and then a few years later are up in those same wee hours waiting for her to get home from a date. Real parents limit TV and candy and push educational games and vegetables. Real parents have gray hairs from worry and laugh lines from joy. Yes, adopted children have two sets of parents: one set who gave them life and one who raised them. But I know of no adopted child who considers their adoptive family any less than their real family, and this feeling is not lessened if they later decide to search for their birth family.

Myth #4: The kids adopted from _________ (choose one: Russia, China, Guatemala, Vietnam, India, etc.) have all kinds of problems.
There are no guarantees in parenting – or in life, for that matter. Birth children and adopted children can have health, learning, or behavioral issues. Possible problems are discussed at length in Chapters 2 and 8, but research over many years of adoption has shown that the vast majority of internationally adopted kids thrive. Early-life experiences do matter, but you can lower the risks of adopting a child with health or emotional problems by following the steps laid out in this book.

Myth #5: Adopting a child of another race or ethnicity is bound to cause problems
for the child.
International adoptions began with American families adopting Korean War orphans in the 1950s. More than fifty years of research on these transracial/transcultural adoptions, as well as research on African American children adopted by Caucasian parents, disproves this myth. Transracially adopted children usually adjust well, with strong racial identity, self–esteem, and attachment to their family. This does not mean that transracial adoption is for everyone or that transracial adoptees don’t have issues to face as they mature, but ultimately transracial adoptions can work. Refer to Chapters 2 and 10 for a
complete discussion on the issues to consider.

Myth #6: Adopted children should/will feel grateful to their adoptive parents.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but gratitude is not inherent in the nature of most children. I will get an occasional spontaneous “thank you,” a few more when demanded, and even more when they want something, but usually my children take what I offer as their due, which in fact, I suppose, it is. This is the case regardless of whether your kid becomes yours through birth or adoption. I am to...

Customer Reviews

Review from RainbowKids.com
When my husband and I started our adoption journey, there were a lot of books about international adoption we didn't buy. This is a major statement from two book lovers, but a true one. It seemed that the majority of the books on the adoption bookshelves were either too negative (focusing solely on the challenges of parenting a child through adoption), too shallow (treating Guatemalan adoption the same as Russian adoption) or just too dry (and when you're in the middle of paper-chasing, you need a real page turner to keep you going). So we went against our nature and mined other resources in order to become educated and bolstered throughout the process. Our minds expanded with new information, though our nightstands lacked the expected adoption reading.

My nightstand void remained until I received Dawn Davenport's The Complete Book of International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child (Broadway Books) to review. Having been in the process with either our daughter (now home) or our son (still in Guatemala) for 14 months and being blessed/ cursed with an ever-so-slightly obsessive personality, I consider myself to be well-informed about international adoption. Davenport's book, however, presented me with even more information than over a year of experience, other research, friendships and internet groups have. Furthermore, it was a pleasure to read.

The Complete Book of International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child actually lives up to its title by carrying its reader through the initial considerations of whether or not you should adopt internationally to adjusting to your child's first months home to celebrating his/ her personal history and birth culture. It's a great find, with clear, detailed, and up-to-date information on the international adoption process between the U.S. and 17 other countries: China, Russia, Guatemala, South Korea, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, India, Colombia, Philippines, Haiti, Liberia, Taiwan, Mexico, Poland, Thailand and Vietnam.

Davenport covers the emotional and practical aspects of international adoption evenly and seamlessly. Some of my favorite sections dealt with how to find and choose an ethical agency, how to survive the wait, how to travel internationally and still keep your sanity and how to deal with insensitive adoption comments. To broaden her coverage even more, Davenport includes several pages of perspectives from a variety of adoptive parents at the end of each chapter.

Best of all, I loved Davenport's voice. From her incredible "My Prayer for All Children" in the beginning of the book to her 50 page-long resource section, she comes across not only as an expert, but as a mom you'd want to sit down and chat with. Her compassion and sense of humor reach out to you and draw you in.

Whether you are embarking on your first or fifth international adoption, I highly recommend The Complete Book of International Adoption: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Child as one of the best books on the subject. Davenport will open your eyes and brighten them as she carries you through the life-changing journey of international adoption.

Violeta Garcia-Mendoza

Highly Recommended!
This is by far the best book on international adoption out there and
I've looked at plenty. Actually, this book is for anyone thinking
about any form of adoption because it has a great and succinct
discussion and comparison of all forms of adoption. Although the book
goes on to a thorough coverage of international adoption, Davenport is
clear that all forms of adoption should be considered and there is no
one type of adoption that is best for everyone.

I love Davenport's thoroughness and her compassion for parents and
kids. The book covers everything a prospective parent needs to think
about, but Davenport is nonjudgmental about many of the choices parent
will have to make. With each choice she urges parents to be honest
with themselves and to put the interest of the child first.

Because we are at the beginning stages of considering adoption, I
found the first couple of chapters most helpful: are we ready to move
on to adoption, what type of adoption is best for us, how to choose a
country, and how to choose an agency. I especially loved the chapter
on choosing a country and the charts at the back of the book on each
of the top 17 (?) placing countries. Davenport has a website
[...] that keeps these charts up to date.

Regardless of which type of adoption we choose, I know that I will use
the rest of the book as a reference, especially if we decide on
international adoption. Davenport takes your hand and walks you
through absolutely every experience you may have from finding the
money, to surviving the homestudy, to preparing the paperwork, to
waiting for your child, to traveling to meet your child, to the first
days together, to the first year home. I liked her lists of questions
to ask agencies, references, your child's caregiver, etc. I also
loved her section on attachment and how to help foster it. She
explained it in a way that I understood and left me feeling hopeful,
not scared.

The Complete Book of International Adoption is a gem and a must for
any parent thinking about adoption.

Everything you need to know- and entertaining!
Davenport's book claims to provide a step-by-step guide, and she succeeds with humor and honesty. The book offers an overview that I found useful in an initial cover-to-cover reading, and enough specifics in the chapters that as I'm completing the paper chase, I find myself going back to re-read. Some adoption books emphasize the risks so much that they're unreadable, and some gloss over the risks so much that they're unrealistic. Davenport finds the right tone by presenting the experiences of many adoptive families at the end of each chapter, offering a balanced viewpoint of each step in the process. Her suggestions are concrete, her information is accurate, and her resources are useful. All in all, the best book I've found.