Paper Pregnancy

Although international adoption is not common in Japan, it does happen. There are a handful of US agencies that do Japanese adoptions, but we could also forgo a US agency (except for the homestudy) and just work directly with a Japanese agency.




PROS to adopting in Japan:

• We'd have the opportunity to adopt a VERY young infant. Some families adopting from Japan have brought home babies as young as two months old. This is very unusual in international adoption. Less time in an orphanage means fewer risks of attachment problems, institutional delays, etc.


• I'm a bit of a control freak, so the independent nature of the program - us working directly with a Japanese agency - would give me a greater sense of control.


• We're pretty DIY people, so I think we could handle gathering and assembling our own dossier, making our own travel arrangements, etc. We don't necessarily need someone to hold our hands every step of the way.


• We'd get to spend up to two weeks in Japan!


• Although we haven't contacted any Japanese agencies directly, the families we've spoken to who've recently adopted from Japan have all received referrals within six months, and most were given the the option to specify gender.


• The children are generally very healthy, and the quality of care provided in Japanese social welfare institutes is very high.

CONS to adopting in Japan:

• The adoption is not finalized in Japan. The baby would enter the US with a Japanese passport bearing her Japanese name. We would have to finalize the adoption in our home state. This means additional fees in the US for finalization costs and obtaining a certificate of citizenship for our child.


• We've heard that the program can be very affordable, but we've also talked to families who spent $50,000 or so to adopt in Japan. We can't afford to spend $50,000 on an adoption. It just isn't feasible.


• The quick timeline could end up working against us if we have to come up with the funds for huge fees shortly after submitting all of our paperwork.


• Because we'd likely be working without the aid of a US placement agency, if something DID go wrong while in Japan, we'd have to figure out how to fix it on our own.