July 18, 2007
The process

If you are planning on a adopting from Liberia there are certain things that have to be done on Liberian side as well as on the American side (if that’s where you’re from). The American side is very standard; everyone does the same thing and fills out the same forms. But on the Liberian side many things change and unexpected forms have to be filled out at the last second (if your not careful). Here’s what happens on the Liberian side

The process starts when the closest relative places the child in an orphanage and signs a form releasing his/her “rights” as a parent or guardian to the orphanage (However, the parent still has rights and can withdraw the child at any time for any reason). After the form is signed, the orphanage can care for the child until he/she is adopted or becomes older than 16. The rest of the adoption process is not started until a family is located for the child.

Once a family is found, many things happen all at once.
- A history is compiled of the child’s family and background. In theory it should be some what like a home study, where a social worker visits the relatives of the child and writes down their story. However in Liberia just finding the parents could take many weeks.
- The child is taken to a clinic for a medical and physical check-up, all necessary vaccinations are done at this time also.
- The proper papers are gathered like birth and death certificates, releases and court papers.
- A passport can also be applied for at this time

Once all those are finished then everything is sent to court. This is where the Liberian government cross checks all the information and makes sure there is no “foul play”. They then make the adoption legal on the Liberian side. The rest is preparing to adopt in America.
Really the only thing needed after this is a visa, passport and travel arrangements for going to America. Once a passport is applied, it shouldn’t take more than 4 weeks to acquire. The visa is the same way but you should except to wait a little bit longer because the embassy also does a cross check of all the information and gets the adoption ready to become final in America. Fortunately both the passport and visa can be processed at the same time. The last thing is to send conformation is the American family saying that everything is complete and they can pick up their new son/daughter.

There are a few things I would like to note about this process for those who what to or are going to adopt.
- Many unexpected things can and probably will happen if you decided to adopt so plan for at least 6 months to a year before the adoption becomes complete.
- Adoption is not something that should be taken light heartedly; it is something that will change everything about your life, and the life of the kid(s) you are adopting. (it’s a forever thing)
- Go though an adoption agency; there are many things that are best handled by people who have a good name at the various government departments here. Also they know what they are doing.
- The cost for adopting is around $4000 to $6000 USD in Liberia.
- The cost for staying in Monrovia is high compared to other places and you should expect to pay about $50 a day per person if you want everything you have in America (food, hot running water, internet, and your own room).

(Please know that I don’t know everything and I might be wrong about a few things contained in this blog entry. I am just stating what I have observed and what we were told while staying here in Monrovia.)