Jelly-4 is absolutely correct.
Since the Diaz family adoptions, the STRICT (and severely red-taped) Hague Convention regarding international adoption was put into place in the U.S. on April 1, 2008. Since then, Russia has banned the U.S. from all adoptions. Meanwhile, international adoption has dropped by 85% as of today. This is because the rules and requirements are very tight, difficult to navigate, time consuming, and extremely limited.
You can no longer receive a foreign child(ren) without new special courses via the Hague Convention Approved home study which includes an entire course on Attachment Disorder, and longer waiting periods for approval from Homeland Security, FBI, and state police. There are also new demands on the physical and psychological health profiles of adoptive parents (e.g. more specific medical and mental history, no depression med usage, certain weight restrictions to avoid obese parents), more invasive study of your life and all finances, and an increase in the years of follow-up (photos, reports, etc.) by the child's original homeland - if not followed thru as the country dictates, the fines may be expensive ($1000 average payable to agency in 2012). There are new guidelines for basic foreign language ability (for the older children) and an emphasis on the child's continuing connection to their homeland culture, and certain expectations of how to properly treat and interact with the orphanage staff, doctors, and court officials.
While the Diaz family would have been better prepared and more knowledgeable if adopting now, the new process would not allow for the three children at once (unless they're a sibling group like the twins). They would have been judged harsher, educated more in depth, and inspected beyond what they were. It takes many months to prepare and then YEARS to wait now. The point of the Hague Convention for Adoption was to ensure that children are no longer going to unstable, sickly, or ignorant families AND to ensure that the children themselves are proven without doubt to be officially orphaned (thru death, abandonment, or relinquishment). No stolen babies will get through, but eligible children are getting through at a snail's pace now...they are languishing for years and the government(s) is looking to reform some of the Hague procedures to better protect the children and reduce population while attracting potential adoptive parents again.
Many U.S. couples had previously turned to foreign adoption to either avoid the domestic problems due to the increasingly open adoptions that often require uncomfortable or heavy involvement with one or more birth parents (creating more of a "guardianship" of sort), but I'm not sure why the Diaz couple didn't adopt within the U.S. Afterall, they weren't looking for infants and there are numerous "waiting children" like Masha (and sibling groups like the twins) ready for a "forever" home.
It is NOT cheaper to adopt internationally either. It was about $40-50,000 per Russian child in 2012 (total for all fees, including paperwork processing/approval, home study, class courses, and agency costs). That's why the wealthy are generally those that have adopted internationally.
Moreover, ALL adoption is being impacted by the increased ease of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) including IVF, donor egg/sperm, and surrogacy to make babies a reality for people whom in the past would've only been able to adopt.
"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
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