It seemed like a simple transaction when Tamara Lackey brought her adopted son from Ethiopia to Chapel Hill four years ago: The child had been living in a spartan orphanage, and Lackey was willing to provide a loving home. She filled out paperwork, and five months later her bright-eyed, smiling baby was home.

Hundreds of other families in North Carolina and around the country are discovering that it's no longer so easy to take in the world's neediest children.

Just as international adoption has become a mainstream way to build a family -- helped by celebrity adoptions such as those of Angelina Jolie, who has children from Cambodia and Ethiopia -- the practice is in crisis. Allegations of baby-selling haunt some countries, and some say international adoption's popularity may be creating a worldwide backlash.

Adoptions have recently become difficult or impossible in China, Guatemala, Kazakhstan and Vietnam -- four of the main countries that send orphans to the United States. Hundreds of adoptions are in limbo.

"Everything is so volatile right now," said Gail Stern, founder of Chapel Hill-based Mandala Adoption Services, which arranges inter-country adoptions. "If you called me today and wanted to adopt a child, I would tell you to sit on it. We cannot in good conscience tell people that if they start today, things will be smooth."

Concerns about corruption have previously halted adoptions from Romania and Cambodia. But Stern and other experts say they've rarely seen so many countries having problems at once. On Monday, Kazakhstan unexpectedly shut down adoptions with little explanation.

China, the largest sender of orphans, has recently scaled back its program so severely that couples might wait more than five years, said Diane Kunz, a Durham lawyer who founded the non-profit Center for Adoption Policy, which promotes adoption. The country now excludes prospective parents who are single, recently divorced, over 50, on antidepressants or overweight -- restrictions that Kunz says ruled out about 60 percent of Americans looking for Chinese children.

Guatemala, another top sender, recently closed adoptions after allegations that babies were sold or stolen. Similar concerns have also arisen in Vietnam.

Those awaiting Vietnamese children are facing months-long delays as the U.S. government investigates each case. The government is threatening to deny some adoptions because investigators can't get the children's hospital records.

In the meantime, families who have invested as much as $20,000 or $30,000 are wondering whether they will ever see the children they hope to adopt.

Delays, no explanation

William Zuercher of Durham said he and his wife began trying to adopt a Vietnamese child in May 2006. They had seen friends adopt a Vietnamese infant, and they were drawn to the idea of helping a child who would otherwise languish in an orphanage or be doomed to street life.

"It seemed like a good thing to do in the world," said Zuercher, 36. "There are these kids out there that need love, that need families. We thought, if we could give that, what a great thing that would be for them and for us."

With that sentiment came an added benefit: International adoption was generally easier than domestic, which often requires foster parenting or years on a waiting list. Until recently, applicants to foreign countries frequently had their children before their first birthdays.

But nearly two years after applying, Zuercher and his wife don't know when they will get the baby girl whose pictures arrive in the mail.

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