Here in Australia, it is sooooooo hard to adopt children. Besides the fact that there are so few babies available and so many infertile couples waiting, the bureaucrats just stand in the way to loving families adopting children. There are many children removed from their families every year due to neglect and abuse due to drug use, mental illness, domestic abuse etc etc etc, and they just keep giving the kids back to the mothers if they think they are "all better now" etc. It is like the bio mother's rights is more important than the children's rights. Those poor children go from foster home to foster home, and end up so tarnished that they often can't be productive in later life.
Also, it is so bureaucratic here, that we can't make private arrangements, like they can in the USA. We MUST go through the Department of Community Services, whether it be domestic or international adoption. I can't, for example, go to Russia and adopt and take home one of those poor babies in orphanedges and give him/her a loving home. We don't have a connection with Russia, so that is not possible. There are only a few countries we have connections with, and it all must go through the same department. Not only that, it is soooooo expensive!! We were thinking of adopting a little girl from China, but we can't because we can't afford it. Altogether it would cost between $25,000 and $30,000, and we just don't have this money. It is more than alot of people earn in a year.
So, here we are, a loving family of 4, who would love to add a precious child to our family to love, but the bureaucrates have stood between us and those children who desperately need a loving home. So sad, isn't it.
