This week we received word that the Pittsburgh agency that we have been working with is closing their international adoption program. This won't directly impact our adoption as we are working with two separate agencies and the one coordinating with Bulgaria remains open. However, the Pittsburgh agency has the social worker we have come to know and love, the one who wrote our home study, who has spent a lot of time with our family, and the one who is tasked with taking who we are and making a case to Bulgaria for why we would make a good family for an adoptive child.
They site declining numbers as the reason for closing the program. In 2004, there were 23,000 children adopted to the US from other countries. In 2018, this number had fallen to 4,000 nationally. For the organization we were working with, and many others, it's not feasible to continue with the high cost of accreditation only to complete maybe a dozen adoptions a year.
We obviously feel sad. We are losing our Pittsburgh partners and the organization who was supposed to do our post-adoption reports (once the adoption is finalized, we will send reports back to Bulgaria every 6 months for 2 years). More than that, they were the only Pittsburgh agency facilitating international adoptions. Brad and I had thought we could be a resource to others who decided to pursue international adoption, and while that may still happen, it's becoming harder and more costly to adopt internationally.
I also can't help but be interested in the reasons behind the downward decline. We know that countries want children to be adopted domestically if at all possible, and that's a very positive trend. I have also heard that The Hague Convention, which was created to bring structure and transparency to international adoptions has aided in making it much more difficult to complete an international adoption.
For those of you interested in the declining numbers, here is an article that explores the numbers over the past 2 decades and possible reasons for the decline. For us, we will keep pushing forward, working every day to get our child one step closer to coming home.
Finally, we have sold 200 puzzle pieces! 2/3 of the way there!!! Thank you again to everyone who has donated to this fundraiser! If you haven't, and you want to, click here.
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