Adoption Update

Our family and friends all know that we are in the process of adoption. Susan and I have planned to adopt a girl from Korea for years and years, since before we were even married. Susan came home to her forever family in 1974 with the help of Holt International (www.holtintl.org), the pioneer agency in international adoption. She is so thankful that God found a family just for her, and she wants to do the same for another little girl. I thank God every day for Susan's parents, for if they hadn't seen her photo in that HiFamilies magazine in the early 1970's and made that decision to make Susan part of their family, I would never have found my life partner.

Some prospective adoptive parents keep track of the exact dates of every part of their process. You can just read the posts on the online adoption forums to see how anxious they are. We didn't feel the need to do that. We decided to go through the process, and just accepted the fact that it would take as long as it would take. Of course, we have already been blessed with a biological daughter, so that makes it easier for us.

We were waiting until Audrey was about two years old before beginning the process, because we expected it to take about a year and that Audrey would be 3 and the baby would be 6-12 months old when she arrived... about right, we thought. We began a home study with Holt (Kansas City office) last summer after Audrey turned 2.

The home study actually took only several weeks. The first part (and in retrospect the most difficult part, sans the subsequent and current waiting) was filling out a very lengthy questionnaire; detailing why we wanted to adopt; what our views were on many issues, such as religion, disciplinary measures, how we work out disagreements with each other, finances, health issues, on and on.... Then we needed to meet with the case (social) worker (SW) a total of three times. This turned out to be pretty straightforward, because we had already worked out most of our issues when writing our responses to the questionnaire.

We also needed three letters of reference from people other than family members, physical exams for all three of us including TB and AIDS tests, past years' tax returns, background checks with the division of family services and highway patrol including fingerprints (trip to Jefferson City), fingerprints again with the USCIS (trip to Kansas City), and paying large fees both for the home study and the USCIS paperwork.

We recieved the USCIS preapproval in November, and thought we were ready to go. A few weeks later I wondered if I needed to send a copy of that to our SW. Turns out I did. So that delayed our application a month. She said it probably wouldn't, but it seems as if it did.

As I mentioned, I feel that we've been really patient. But finally last week I emailed our SW to see if we could get an update. Here's part of the reply.

"Your documents were mailed Dec. 10, 2004. It may still be some time. You might look at some of the children who are listed on the website, if they have acceptable medical issues, as this would speed the process. Otherwise we have to patiently wait for Holt-Korea to make an assignment."

This is not very encouraging. "Some time" isn't very helpful. And there are no girls from Korea at all on the waiting children list. Holt has been averaging 7-12 months to make referrals, according to others posting online, while other agencies are much shorter. For example, see an excerpt from this recent post I read.

"My husband and I are working with AIAA in Michigan (although we live in Massachusetts). Their partner agency in Korea is SWS. Our homestudy went to Korea on May 5, 2005. We had a referral nineteen days later on May 24, 2005. And we should be getting our son's travel call this coming week! It doesn't get much quicker than that!"

I can parrot all the reasons for the disparity in these timelines. Holt is the first and largest agency placing children from Korea. Hence, they have the most applicants and the longest wait times. Girls are more in demand for adoption than boys. But it looks as if it is going to take us 18 months from start to finish, when others are getting through the entire process in a matter of a few weeks. This is getting tougher to handle.

I don't know that we would change anything (except being a little more communicative with our SW to avoid any delays). Susan feels a real connection to Holt and Korea--both of her sisters have adopted through Holt. One sister has adopted three times from Thailand, and the other once from Romania. We firmly belive in the mission of Holt, and have sponsored children for years. But it is getting harder and harder to wait, and we are getting older. And if it takes too much longer, our USCIS preapproval will expire and we'll have to get fingerprinted and approved all over again.

I still feel as patient as I can. But I know that only a small percentage of the children in the orphanages get adopted at all. It seems such a shame that it is so difficult to match them with families who want only to love and take care of them... forever.