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.

We're still hanging in there!

It's been such a long time since the last post, people must be wondering what is happening. There were major changes that recently took place in the DIF of the state where we submitted our dossier. So adoptions have been on hold until a new adoption committee is formed. We hope things will move forward again by the beginning of next year. In the meantime, we are trying to remain patient and to not have unrealistic expectations.

It is very common in Mexico for major staffing changes to happen in the DIF offices of each state. It happens all the time, especially after elections. The DIF told us we are still on the waiting list and not to worry. So we just have to wait and see what happens.

Tick Tock, The No News Clock

No news. No news, no news. Sorry, we have no news. It's sweet that people ask, it shows they are excited and interested, which we so appreciate! Waiting for news is not easy, especially when we have no idea how long the wait will be. And for now, no news is simply no news, nothing more, nothing less.

Even though we've been working very hard on this for over a year, it has actually only been two months since our dossier has been in the hands of the people who will provide the referral. It helps to keep perspective.

Bilingual Households

One of the readers asked a great question. Are we going to be raising our kids in Spanish? We would love to! One of the advantages of adopting older children is that the children will already have a foundation of Spanish. Our hope is for our children to be able to build upon their Spanish and not lose it.

Coincidentally, a few days ago I found out that I won, via the Spanglish Baby website, a copy of the book 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child by Naomi Steiner. I am looking forward to receiving it, as we have been putting a lot of thought into how to raise children bilingually. That blog has a lot of useful information and links regarding this topic.

We have already starting collecting a few children's books that are versions either written in Spanish or are bilingual. We saw many wonderful children's books in Mexico that we resisted the temptation of buying when we were there in May. But now that we know where the bookstores are located with the large selections of children's books, we'll certainly be buying more when we return. It will be easier to chose which books to buy when we know their ages and interests.

Children learn new languages quite easily. P moved to the United States as an adult without knowing any English, and now he is completely bilingual. Our bigger concern is for our children to be able to build their Spanish vocabulary and grammar. Since half of our family speaks only English, and the other half of our family speaks only Spanish, our goal is for our household to remain bilingual.

We are looking at different options for how we can nurture bilingualism in our household as well as researching schools. We are seriously considering implementing, at the very least, the One Parent One Language method for raising children bilingually. P would only speak in Spanish to the children, even if we are around people who don't speak Spanish. When addressing the group, he would speak in the group's language, but when speaking directly to the children, it would be in Spanish always.

We will both be speaking Spanish with them when we meet them. I'm not fluent, but I have been working on my Spanish for years. I hope that speaking Spanish to them will come naturally to me, even though Spanish is not my first language. I think it will help us all bond as a family if we all speak the same language at first. I hope to continue speaking as much Spanish as possible with them even after they become fluent in English. Speaking Spanish at home would benefit all of us in building and maintaining our Spanish fluency.

I know that even with the best of intentions, it can be a very difficult endeavor. We've seen it with friends who have had challenges raising their kids to speak Spanish in the United States. But we think it is well worth trying!

Photo Albums

I already mentioned how I have been doing a lot of reading to occupy some of the waiting time that comes along with the adoption process. Another thing I have been doing has become a new hobby. I have been making scrapbooks and photo albums.

We made a photo album that we gave to the DIF along with our dossier. The album will be a way for the DIF to introduce us to our future child or children. It wasn't a requirement for our dossier. It's something extra I wanted to add, because I am a very visual person. I made two albums with the exact same photos and layout, so I have an extra nearly identical album at home. Inside the album are a few photos of us, our house, some family members, our neighborhood, parks, school, grocery store, etc. The kids will be able get an idea of the things we will do with them and places we will go as a family regularly.

These albums are called Peek-a-Boo Albums because they have windows in some of the pages to see through to the next page and some of the pages are made out of clear acrylic to also allow views of the next pages. In hindsight, it wasn't the most practical album style to use for making my first album, since it is extra complicated. This particular album required a lot of advance planning, so that the layers of pages not only look well coordinated, but also make sense thematically. It would have been much simpler to make a more traditional album. But I enjoyed the challenge.

I have also tried to include a variety of textures for tactile appeal, using felt, ribbons, different textures of paper, 3D paints, etc.

These albums are small, perfect for little hands. They are 6.5 inches square.

I am not really sure how the kids will respond to the albums. I showed one to a 5 year old I was babysitting, and he spent a lot of time focused on why some pages had holes while others didn't! It was cute.

We do know that the DIF certainly appreciated receiving it. They said it really helped them to visualize the life that our kids would be living. I have really been enjoying putting these albums together. I already have more blank albums similar to these with papers and themes already picked out for future scrapbooks! I have been reading about Life Books and look forward to helping our kids make them too. I plan to share more about Life Books later.

We're on the Waiting List in Mexico!

We are approved to adopt in our chosen state in Mexico and are on the waiting list! We are very excited!

We are so pleasantly surprised at the fast timing of our approval process. But be aware that our timeframe would not necessarily be an accurate expectation for other international families. We did things differently than it is normally done, and there is no predicting how things will be done in the future. We didn't have to, but we delivered our dossier in person to the DIF. We had arranged with the DIF in advance of our trip that we would be submitting our paperwork to them in person, and that we would be available to meet with them at any time while we were there. We ended up meeting with them in person three separate times, and we answered many questions. So, I would like to stress that everything differs depending on which state you chose and your particular circumstances.

Also be aware that the process of submitting the dossier differs by state. Some states require that the dossier be submitted to Mexico City first to be registered there. Other states have a different process or different order to the process. So if the state you are adopting from requires that extra step at the beginning of the approval process, it could add quite a bit of time before your paperwork reaches your chosen state.

We are very happy and grateful we were able to meet with the DIF in person, and that we were able to get to know each other. We are extremely impressed with how they conduct adoptions and with the care the children are receiving. We so look forward to returning! We miss it already!

Submitted Dossier

UPDATE: Verify current requirements for submission of dossiers. The processes and rules change. We have been hearing that dossiers must be submitted first to the SRE in Mexico City (Secretary of Exterior Relations). The SRE then sends dossiers to the National DIF in Mexico City and then National DIF sends it to the state.

Our dossier is in México. We're very enthusiastic! We know it is there safe and sound, since we delivered it ourselves. After a year of paper chasing, we felt a very deep need to carry our dossier to its destination. We visited family too, so it was a trip well worth while. We feel such peace.