Reality

In 2009, one major Ohio adoption agency matched just under 150 Caucasian and biracial children with loving families. That same agency matched approximately 18 African American (AA) children with loving families. The difference isn't because of a lack of AA children. Its because most adoptive parents are white and they typically want white babies. Because of this, agencies are forced to call around, even out of state, looking for families to adopt AA babies. Every agency I've talked to in the past few weeks have informed me of reduced or waived fees, waived travel for consultations or training, some agencies are even offering special grants if you are willing to adopt an AA babies.

After discussing the potential issues we could face with the Georgia agency with Jon and a lot of praying, we have decided to continue looking for an agency to complete our adoption. I talked to one today that typically does not let parents specify the gender of the child they want to adopt. Since they are in such need of parents wanting to adopt AA children, they told me if we go with them, they will help us locate a girl. Because of this, I wont be mentioning the agency name. They currently have over 40 families waiting to adopt children (of those, only 1 family is open to an AA baby).

I don't understand why this is such an issue. If you are willing to open your home to a child that is not yours biologically, why does the color of their skin matter? It makes me sad, but reinforces my willingness to adopt a little girl--any little girl---any color. I will be doing some research on our potential agency tomorrow. If everything checks out, we will be 1 step closer, again, to our girl. Details to come....

Could you be more vague?

Just when we were about to sign on the dotted line with our Georgia agency, we got a call alerting us to a potential problem. Our social worker is working with a couple in a different county who are trying to finalize their adoption. The courts denied their adoption because they used a consulting firm---or was it a facilitator??? Even though no one seems to know what the legal definition of a facilitator and a consultant are, facilitators are illegal in most states--or are they? While pretty much everyone says they are illegal, I can't find it in a written law that they are illegal and have found a site talking about how in Ohio and California, facilitators are allowed to charge for their services---but they are illegal.

I was told to call the probate court and talk to the magistrate. I called her and while she said Ohio has not been in favor of these situations in the past, its really up to the judge we get when we try to finalize. However, when she was talking about the situation, she described what a facilitator does, not a consultant. When I told her we were working with a consultant, not a facilitator, she didn't see a difference?!?!

It gets better. I called Courtney, our Georgia contact and part owner, and explained the situation because, of course, our social worker is gone for the day. She explained they are in the process of getting licensed by the state of Georgia and since facilitators are illegal (maybe), if they were a facilitator, they could not be licensed. Also, they are currently working with another couple in Ohio (we are in the process of finding out what county) who originally had the same issue, but once the process was explained, everything was fine.

So what is a facilitator? Most people think of baby byers when they think facilitator. A facilitator will say pay me $10,000 and you will have a baby in 2 months. The client pays, a birth mother is found and at the last minute the adoption falls through for what ever reason. Since the facilitator lived up to their end of the bargain, you are out $10,000 and have to start all over again. That is why they are illegal---maybe!

The consultant passes your information on to agencies and attorneys. Once you are matched with a birth mom, they step out of the picture and you complete your adoption with the birth mothers agency/attorney and your social worker and if you like, you can hire an attorney too. Which is why they are legal---maybe! Or they are legal, but the courts don't recognize them. Or some courts do, it just depends on the county and then the judge you get!

HUH?????

Anyone know a good attorney?

Georgia peach

I spent last week talking to between 15 and 20 agencies, consultants and adoption attorneys. We got a lot of good information and learned a little bit about different state laws. We were torn for about a minute between an attorney that was referred to us in River and a consulting firm in Georgia. The attorney is significantly cheaper, which was very appealing. While she seems very knowledgeable, I just didn't see us getting along. She has a very strong personality and was borderline condescending. I think my personality is borderline (yes Jon, just borderline) sarcastic and I don't respond well to condescending!

We decided to go with a consulting firm in Atlanta. They are basically the middle man. In this case a middle man is good. Jon and I will start working on our family profile. Its basically the story of us with a lot of pictures. Once we are done with the home study, Courtney (our contact) will be able to start "showing" us. When she learns of a baby that meets our criteria (a girl), she will bring us the social and medical history of the baby, let us know the state and agency the mom is using and let us know what the fees will be. If the situation is something we feel comfortable with, we will give the ok and Courtney will give our profile to the birth mom. The birth mom will then either select or reject us.

There are 2 really good benefits to using a consultant. First, we will be presented to moms all over the US, not just in Ohio (or the state what ever agency we picked is located). Second, since Courtney has one set fee regardless of who we go with, when we adopt or how much we pay, Courtney can be completely honest about the agencies. If a mom is working with an agency that has a poor reputation, she can tell us with out worrying about any ethical or contract issues.

Another really good advantage is time. Since Courtney works all over the US, the wait for a baby is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. In my last post I mentioned we could have a baby by the end of the year. With Courtney, it is very possible we will have a baby by the end of summer!

We're trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves though. We will most likely be moving Sam into Bens room so we want to make sure both boys will be ready to share a room. We want them to understand (as much as they can) the adoption process and what it means to have a new baby in the house. We want to be comfortable with where our girl is coming from and what kinds of things she has been exposed to. We want to be sure that we can afford the process. Since things could be moving significantly faster, we wont have the next year to continue saving money. The cost will be pretty close to the original Ethiopia cost. It will all depend on the state the birth mom is in and what the agency fees will be.

Right now we just have to finish the home study, start our profile and continue to pray for patience.

We flopped

I think I'm about to make my mother very happy. Due to the changes in the Ethiopia program, Jon and I have decided to switch to domestic adoption. I should clarify that she will be happy that we are not going to get on a plane (twice) and fly half way around the world. It has nothing to do with adopting from Ethiopia.

We said all along that if it wasn't meant to be, God wouldn't let it happen. We've hit several road blocks in the past three months. We kept explaining them away as tests in our faith and the plan. We kept praying for a sign that we were on the right track and we kept getting hurdles.

Jon and I have been struggling to come up with the full amount of the adoption costs. Once we found out we will need a second trip which would add on another $5-7,000, we had to sit down and really think about the process.

We are still completely committed to the adoption process and bringing a little girl into our family. Now that we have more information about domestic adoptions and know that it isn't this scary, unpredictable process, we are comfortable proceeding in that direction. We are looking into agencies and consulting groups across the country. Bellefaire (the agency doing our home study) will finish our home study as planned and instead of proceeding with Holt (the international agency) they will forward our information to our domestic agency. We decided not to use Bellefaire for the adoption because they will not allow you to select the gender of your baby.

So instead of an older baby, we will be getting a new born and it is very possible that we will have her before the end of the year. While nothing is set in stone, we will most likely still be adopting an African American baby. We are heavily considering a consulting firm, but have one or two more agencies to talk to before we make a decision. Once we do that, I'll explain the consulting firm vs agency and hopefully have more details on time frame etc. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the cost of domestic adoption is pretty much the same as the Ethiopian adoption (before the second trip was added) would have been. Please keep praying that God will help us find the rest of the money to complete the adoption.

While I'm a little sad that we wont be going to Ethiopia, I'm very excited about moving forward and completing our family. I think some day there will still be a trip to Addis Ababa in our future!

Changes

Ethiopia is going through a bit of change. They made 2 major announcements last week. The first was the country is now doing a more thorough investigation into the orphan status of the kids. Apparently a news show did a story claiming Ethiopian moms are being approached to give up their kids by adoption agencies. No one seems to know where that claim came from, but its great that they are looking into the accusations. However, it could result in more delays in the process.

The second change is huge. Adoptive parents are now required to make 2 trips to Ethiopia. In most countries, adoptive parents need to be present at the court hearing. Ethiopia did not make that a requirement, until now. We would travel to court, meet our girl, become official (hopefully) then leave her. We would fly back in 2 or 3 months to pick her up and bring her home. It doesn't sound like their is a lot of information regarding this decision right now. Our agency is trying to get details from their Ethiopian office, but communication is often difficult and slow. While we are waiting for more details, we will examine the impact this will have on our family and we'll keep you posted.

And how do you feel about that...???

Jon and I are going through the interview part of our home study. Apparently we are talkers because we each had to schedule a second interview. It seems that most people can finish theirs in one meeting. The interviews are a little bit like therapy. She asks a general question like "how do you feel about your childhood?" and you ramble on until you realize you've been talking for 10minutes straight or until she has to get a new pen because she's taking so many notes she ran out of ink! I finished mine this week (thank you Corrie for babysitting) and Jon will finish his on Monday. We have our fire inspection Tuesday and are in the process of scheduling our final interview. Our social worker will come to the house for that one. She will talk to both of us, inspect the house and even talk to Ben. Once that is done, all thats left is for her to write the report and our home study will be done!

Ben has been all about a sister recently. Every time I leave the house he asks me if I'm going to get his sister. I keep telling him she wont be here for a while, but he doesn't have any concept of time yet. I finally told him she wont be here until he turns 4. I knew I made a mistake as soon as I said that because now, at random times of the day, he'll say, "when I turn 4 I can have my cake and get a sister?" So now we are working on she wont be here for his birthday, but she should be here at some point when he is 4.