Information overload

I talked to the adoption agency this morning. So far, they are just as good as they look on paper. The woman I talked to was so nice, patient with all of my questions and extremely knowledgeable. However, after 45minutes of information gathering, I'm feeling a bit intimidated. It almost amazes me that people do this all the time. She gave me a brief overview of the process and while she assured me they will be there every step of the way to help, I still feel overwhelmed and a bit lost.

I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself and focus on step one, picking the country. So here is the breakdown on Ethiopia and China.

Ethiopia: They are by far less complex than China. It sounds like they are becoming a very popular program so the actual time to complete the process (application to picking up the baby) could take 12-14months. Anything could happen so it could go faster, fortunately it shouldn't take any longer than 14months. You need to travel to Ethiopia to pick up your child. Total stay is typically 4-7 days. The average age of your baby at the time you bring her home is 12-21months.

China: They are a Hague country so the process for China is a bit more complex. A Hague country means they are part of the Hague Adoption Convention that puts policies into place for the protection of a child. I forgot to ask them about the specifics of Hague, but from what I've found it looks like all countries follow the policies. I'm not sure what the benefits to us are (if any) , but so far the big con is a longer wait. Several steps have to be completed before immigration will consider your request to adopt internationally. If we go through Ethiopia, immigration will start to consider our application almost immediately. Once we finish paperwork and complete the home study process, they will review those papers and in turn will have a faster approval (hopefully).

They confirmed that in China, the wait for a healthy baby girl is 42-44months. That takes us to special needs girls. The needs vary to minor and possible miss-diagnosed issues to very severe. Once you are approved by immigration, you are logged as eligible by the agency. This gives you access to the special needs list. Every 6 weeks China gives a list to every agency they work with of all the children available and lists their issues. You search the list and if you find a child that you think will work with your family, you select her. You will then be given medical records to have reviewed by a doctor (if you are smart, you will have them reviewed). Assuming you are still comfortable with taking the child, you select her again and move along with the process. Here is where it gets tricky---you have to keep in mind that every agency in every country gets the same list. If 10 people fall in love with the same girl, it turns into a first come first serve issue. You could easily lose out on that baby and then have to wait 6more weeks for a new list. Then you have to hope that in 6weeks the list isn't filled with children whose needs are greater than you can handle. For China, you can also have a baby in 12-14months from start to finish, but you could also be waiting a lot longer than that. The potential for heartbreak also skyrockets with China. The truly sad part is when I asked her why it took so long to go through China she told me that even though it is clear to everyone on the planet that China can't handle the amount of children they have in that country, they are very proud and don't want to admit that. They purposely extend the waiting periods for children so they wont be adopted. The only people that suffer are the kids. The stay in china is about 2 weeks and the children are around 12-18months when you get them home.

She did mention a third option: Russia. Russia is one of the fastest programs. Start to finish is 8-10months. The children are 12months + when you bring them home. The downfall to Russia is you have to make 2 or 3 trips. Both parents have to go for a week to go to court. About 6-8weeks later, both parents have to go back for another week to finalize the adoption. Then both parents can go home and (one or both) can come back in 10 days to pick up the child or one or both parents can stay the 10days in Russia and then bring home the child. Because of all the travel you are looking at close to $50,000 for a Russian adoption. WOW!

The thought of having our baby girl with us for Christmas this year was a really exciting thought. Unless we go through Russia, it looks like we'll just miss Christmas. When Jon gets home tonight we're going to have a lot to talk about.

We'll let you know.