In 2004, the number of international adoptions was breaking records around the world. In the US, at least 23,000 children were adopted from overseas, a historic number. Since then, however, the rate of adoptions between countries has nosedived, primarily due to a tightening of regulations. Some countries were accused of illegal adoption activities as early as the 1980s, prompting them to implement stricter control over the practice. That has now brought about a dramatic 72 percent fall in US adoptions from 2004 to 2014, according to the website priceonomics