As Americans we send our dollars

sailing down the drain........
My Mom called me saying she was listening to a Radio station from back home in Ireland and they were talking about adoption. Specifically adopting from Vietnam. She found it very interesting that these people in Ireland were adopting from Vietnam and not one of them was talking about the cost. This convinced my mother that it must cost nothing in Ireland. Of course I knew this couldn't be true...so out came the laptop and the search began....
turns out to adopt from from Vietnam in the US it can cost up to $27,000 of hard earned scrimped and saved, begged and borrowed dollars as many of you know. To adopt from Vietnam in Ireland costs $6700 dollars, yes dollars....that's 4,521.80 Euro, barely two months salary for most people. How outrageous is that, in my mind even more so because they pay in dollars the same currency we pay in. I am so sick. The cost is low as far as I could tell because all adoption is overseen by the adoption board so we don't have organizations, and yes I admit these people do wonderful work, getting a bulk of the money. Wouldn't it be better for the countless number of orphans and childless couples out there if we could get the same "deal" over here. It's obviously administrative costs driving it up if the Irish pay in the same currency and have the same time lines as here. I couldn't bring myself to look up other countries. The sad thing for me is I'm Irish and I could pay that if I was there. I used to think it was the costs keeping us out of the international adoption arena now I know it's the people creating the costs.