More About Adopting in Mexico

The adoption path has twists and turns and sometimes it is hard to see what is ahead or where the path will lead.

We receive questions from time to time about adopting in Mexico, and we try to answer. We tend to get asked the same questions, so I am putting the basic questions and answers here. Of course, we enjoy hearing from others who are adopting in Mexico and hope we continue to meet others in the process!

A lot of people want to know what state we are adopting in, and although it's not really a secret, we're just not comfortable disclosing it on the blog right now. We believe people should find their own path. It may not be the same path as ours. Mexico is a complicated country to adopt from in that things vary a lot from state to state. We picked our state for a variety of reasons, a big factor was that we have family there. But mainly it was a gut instinct. We have questioned and re-evaluated our decision to pick the particular state over and over. So far each time we have felt reaffirmation that this is where we are supposed to be right now.

Others have also asked whether we are using an agency or if we are doing an independent adoption. We are using an agency. We chose our state ourselves, but that doesn't mean we are doing an independent adoption. We appreciate having the support and experience of an agency. If we had chosen to, we could have put everything in our agency's hands, and the agency would have picked our state and coordinated everything. But since P is Mexican, and we are finding that we are able to communicate with the DIF, we decided to maintain close involvement. Not everyone wants to do that, but it works for us. For example, we didn't have to submit our dossier in person to the state we chose. Our agency would have coordinated that for us. But we were going there to visit family anyway, so we took the opportunity to visit the DIF in person.

UPDATE: We cannot recommend doing what we did, as in the end it did not work out.

Some people hope to discover a state that is easier to adopt from than others, or a state where they will be able to adopt the youngest children possible. If there is such a magical state, we don't know which one it is. We called every state where we have family and spoke with adoption coordinators of the DIFs before deciding on our state. We found that in the states we called there were at least 100 Mexican families already waiting to be matched, some states even had over 300 families on their waiting list. In general, the children that are more readily available for international adoption in a quicker timeframe would be older children or larger sibling groups or children with disabilities or special needs. We shared with our agency the information we learned from the states we contacted, and our agency has contact with even more states.

UPDATE: We have heard that the National DIF will be deciding which state that dossiers will be sent to. Finding your own state might not be an option anymore. Check into current regulations and processes. Things change.