Alex and I are from Canada Tyan, but to answer your question yes we have rights to adopt... in fact because I'm a multi-millionaire I would have right to adopt anyway... but just know that it doesn't matter how rich or what type of couple you are... adoption is really really a difficult process and even more with China and Haiti who are both homophobic countries... but we had an army of lawyers ready to challenge them on every grounds. At the end who will benefits from it? Them or the children? In fact both to adopt in China you can be sure that it will cost at least $30 000 in court and other fees, while in Haiti the government makes pretty much $25000 for each children that get adopted. We could have gone for national adoption, but somehow International adoption takes less time and less headache. Adopting nationally would almost take 5 years, while adopting internationally takes 2 to three years.
The administration for adopting children is completely stupid... while I understand they have to do their research to make sure the children aren't going to be enslaved or used in wrong way, they should definitely take in consideration that we had children of our own before and there's a ton of proof you have to provide, they come and check every little detail about you... not just your financial. They even found all the record where Alex tried to kill himself when he was 19-21 years old and they needed a current psychiatric profile of him. So trust me it isn't an easy task...
Now for you to understand that being gay wasn't the only obstacle, I don't know how much you have read about us... but you may have realize that Alex and I are in fact a interracial couple, I am African American and Latino Decent and Alex is Caucasian... so here's two little problem we faced when we ask for children in China... first Chinese government do prefer their children to be adopted by Asian (preferably Chinese of course
), but in the event that Chinese parents are not possible, they will then favorize two straight Caucasian couple... so now you can just imagine in what hot sauce we got ourselves into... First I'm black, rare are black who'd adopt Chinese children and the opposite is very true... so there was the xenophobia barrier to brake right from the start. For Chinese government Alex was okay (he's Caucasian) but I was somewhat the problem and it was very difficult for them to understand that I was the one with the huge bank account, and obviously they watch american movies and TV like every other people in the world and they had their own misconception about black people... so for them I was either a Hip Hop star or an international drug dealer lol.
Yes my friend it's that sad... in two years I have been enduring a little bit more abuse than Alex on that front... so while Alex had to prove that he was sane, I had to prove everything else... my degrees, my job, my assets, even my parents, friends and acquaintances had to vouch for me... and want the worst... my son and daughter wrote a witness letter to the committee, my late Shaolin master' sister herself wrote a letter to vouch for me... that as a black dude I was all about Chinese philosophy.
Alex faced a little bit of the same with the Haitian government but because there was a black guy in the couple, it has been much much easier for him. But trust me they didn't make it easy for him either. Alex would burst in tears every time he'd hook off the phone with the agent.
In a way by deciding to adopt, I've learned what my parents went through... and trust me I understand now that adopting a child is a lot of work... one can talk about their 8 hours labor before delivering, try 2 or three years of labors before you even get an answer whether you're accepted or not... in the mean time you can start counting a lot of thousand dollars spent in legal fees and procedures and yet you haven't been confirmed if you'd receive the kids.
Because we were gay, the Chinese government wanted us to take a kid with some genetic problems... something like dawn syndrome or other genetic malformation. Honestly we wouldn't have care to have one... but this was just pure discrimination and we refused and officially complaint to the International Adoption Society...
Alex and I have our own children, I have two and he has 1 and they all come from our own sperms, we could have just say fuck it... but this was a battle that we were not ready to loose and we didn't. So the children will be naturalized Canadian no later than next week which will place them under Canadian legislation and laws way before we go and pick them up... from now on Marika and Sasha will be Canadian with full rights.
So guys if you're thinking about adoption... be ready it's not a little adventure.
