How long did your adoption journey take?

[Funny Face]

From when you first started contacting agencies to when your child came to be with you?

[SundayCrepes]

April '07 took open adoption class, decided to wait until Sept. to start homestudy

Sept '07 started homestudy finished our end of it in a couple weeks.

Nov. '07 all references, fingerprint clearance, etc. finally in hands of sw, waiting for her to write homestudy

Feb. '08 broke off with agency. Homestudy still not written

Mar. '08 Started homestudy with agency that does not match.

May 8, '08 certified by courts to adopt

June 17, '08 parentprofiles.com ad up and running (they were on vacation for a couple weeks so we had delay in getting online.)

June through Aug '08 networking via internet, placing newspaper ads, etc.

Aug 5, '08 Mailed letters to 112 obstetricians around our state

Aug 10, '08 ob called us about just born baby. Nursed our daughter at 6 hours of age.

Aug 13, '08 mom's TPR signed.

Oct. 20, '08 dad's rights terminated. Dad unknown

Nov. 15 '08 Finalization day.

[crl]

First adoption, DS now age 6 from China took about a year and a half. We had a few minor difficulties with getting paperwork done (military medicine and physicals, ect) so that took us about 5 or 6 months.

Second adoption, who knows? We started our paperwork for China sometime in the spring of 2006 and sent it to China in the fall of 2006. We anticipate that a referral from China would take another 5 to 13 years based on the recent rate of referrals. We've also tried to adopt from Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. We just began efforts for a domestic adoption.

Catherine

[Sierra]

Well, we were fostering but decided to transfer our license to the state to take part in foster-adopt. We decided that in the early spring of '04, and contacted the state at that time. It took all the way until January of the following year to receive our signed and completed homestudy and new foster license in the mail...part of that was our fault (the mountains of paperwork took a while to sludge through and finding mutually agreeable appointment times also took some work), and part of that was the state just being slow.

We received our first new foster placement with the state in March, but that was designed to be very short-term (definitely weren't looking for foster-adopt). In April our son arrived, both into the world and into our home. His adoption was finalized 13 months later, which was pretty quick. So that was about a full year, all-in-all.

Our next placement came by surprise just a few months after that, but we did not finalize her adoption until nearly three years later.

[alicia622]

We became foster parents first. It took 8months to become licensed and a month wait for DS to come. Because it was fostering, reunification was the initial plan. It took 1.5 years to get totermination of parental rights and another 6months for finalization.

[Lollybrat]

I am an adult adoptee, not an adoptive parent. So from my perspective, I think it's strange that you seem to consider having a child placed with you or even the finalization of the adoption to be the end of the adoption journey. Adoption is not an event; it's a life-long experience. My adoption is very much a part of my identity and always has been. I am 36 years old and I have been on my adoption journey for 36 years so far.

[puddingpop]

DH and I attended an information session hosted by the agency in January 2005, began our homestudy in May, received Ministry approval in September, jumped for joy to get our referral in November and traveled in February 2006 to bring Adam home (who was six months old) from Korea.
With Leah, we began the homestudy in April 2008, received Ministry approval in October, had our referral in March 2009 and traveled in May to bring her home (who was nine months old), also from Korea.

[Sierra]

Originally Posted by Lollybrat

I am an adult adoptee, not an adoptive parent. So from my perspective, I think it's strange that you seem to consider having a child placed with you or even the finalization of the adoption to be the end of the adoption journey. Adoption is not an event; it's a life-long experience. My adoption is very much a part of my identity and always has been. I am 36 years old and I have been on my adoption journey for 36 years so far.

That's a good point, and one I think that becomes more clear to most prospective adoptive parents as they begin the journey.

Still, I don't begrudge the initial question in and of itself, which is a legitimate question.

[icy02]

Officially signed with agency May and baby was born in December. Only about 7 months til we had our beautiful baby in our arms!!!

[rebyell]

I am really interested to know that answer to that question for us!

We started researching in Early 2008, started homesudy in June 08, turned in dossier for Ethiopia Nov 08, left that agency for ethical questions Jan 09, had to wait and save money we lost to that agency and just became official with a domestic agency July 09... so it will probably be over 2 years.

[rebyell]

Originally Posted by Lollybrat

I am an adult adoptee, not an adoptive parent. So from my perspective, I think it's strange that you seem to consider having a child placed with you or even the finalization of the adoption to be the end of the adoption journey. Adoption is not an event; it's a life-long experience. My adoption is very much a part of my identity and always has been. I am 36 years old and I have been on my adoption journey for 36 years so far.

But aren't we supposed to say that our child was adopted not is adopted, so that would mean that the adoption is an event, however much a part of our life it still may be.

I don't think anyone is saying that any issues related to adoption go away at placement, but that is when we get to start parenting instead of filling out paperwork and waiting by the phone.

[puddingpop]

Originally Posted by Lollybrat

So from my perspective, I think it's strange that you seem to consider having a child placed with you or even the finalization of the adoption to be the end of the adoption journey.

Good point. I read "journey" as "from time we started thinking about adoption to the time we received our child" but the process is continual, at least it seems so in our house.
It's been well over a year since DS first started questioning how he came to join our family and what that means.

[griffin2004]

2 years for international

[azedazobollis]

Adoption through the state as foster- adopt. Sept 04 started PRIDE training classes. Licensed as foster parents Jan 25,2005, baby born Jan26,2005 came home at 6 days old. TPR at 15 months old, adopted July 2006.

Baby #2 Relicensed fro adoption this time- completely started over with licensing minus the PRIDE classes in May 2008. Licensed by Oct 08. Baby born Dec 10, came home day 8, TPR is mid Aug 2009.

[Spock]

It took about 3 years from first contacting an agency to bringing our son home. That includes a change of agencies since we switched from the non-special needs program to special needs and our original agency isn't one of the agencies approved by China to do sn adoptions. If we were still in the nsn queue we would still be years away from a referral.

[tiffani]

I remember when we were first thinking/researching/deciding to adopt, and I would hear stories of families who had been trying to adopt for 4,5,6 years, and I thought they were doing it wrong, or some sort of major catastrophe had taken place, or maybe they just weren't as committed as we were, because surely it wouldn't take US that long!!!!!

well, here we are, 3 years on the adoption train, and still no kids!! well, we have our two bio kids from before we decided to adopt, and we're *hopefully* getting very close to bringing home the two little ones we've been waiting for all this time (though we don't know them yet) but STILL!!! 3 YEARS!!! So many things can happen... we have planned, at various times, to adopt from Haiti, Ethiopia, Zambia, back to Ethiopia, back to Zambia, maybe domestic US or maybe we just can't take this anymore, then Uganda came on our radar, and we feel like we're finally on the right track. We've had financial issues -- we really never had the money to adopt from Ethiopia, but thought it might show up somehow, which it might have, but we switched to Zambia, because you can adopt independently from there. Then the Zambia program shut down, so we thought we'd make it work with Ethiopia, but then while we were waiting to come up with the money for Ethiopia's fees, Zambia started up again, so we sent off a dossier, then it became clear it wasn't going to happen for us (3 month residency requirement proved too difficult to arrange) so we licked our wounds and moved to New Zealand, where we didn't think we could do any adoption stuff, so the idea was to save our pennies and my dh got a job he could do from zambia when the time came. then we found out we could adopt while here in NZ, and we found an orphanage and a lawyer and a child in Uganda, and were humming right along, so excited about her, getting our new homestudy finished, wrapping everything up on the Ugandan end... and then she died of malaria a few weeks ago, sadly. We've chosen to continue on with our paperwork/homestudy finalizing, etc, because we've switched orphanages, and won't have a new match (two this time, actually) until we're ready to actually go to Uganda, so we don't have to "replace" Esther anytime soon, if that makes sense. not quite ready for that, but fingerprints I can do!
we're hoping to travel to Uganda as a family in sept or oct, and be there (just me and the newbies, or maybe me and all 4 kids) anywhere from 2-8 weeks. we'll have to finalize the adoption when we move back to the US next year, but from the time we decided to adopt (summer '06) until we'll *hopefully* have kids home with us, will be almost 3.5 years. I know, though, that all the time and effort and money will be worth it in the end, when we are finally successful... because it has to happen eventually, right???

[SpringRain]

We applied with our agency in August of 2006 and arrived home with our son on September 2, 2007... so 13 months. The wait time in Ethiopia is getting a lot longer these days though so if I can ever talk dh into going for adoption #2, I anticipate it taking 2 years at least.

[Lollybrat]

Originally Posted by Sierra

That's a good point, and one I think that becomes more clear to most prospective adoptive parents as they begin the journey.

Still, I don't begrudge the initial question in and of itself, which is a legitimate question.

I don't begrudge the inital question either. I agree that it is a perfectly legitimate question. It just wan't the question I expected from reading the title of the thread.

Originally Posted by rebyell

But aren't we supposed to say that our child was adopted not is adopted, so that would mean that the adoption is an event, however much a part of our life it still may be.

I completely disagree with this and with some of the other so-called "positive adoption language" that adoptive parents are sometimes taught to say. In my experience many of these phrases reflect social workers' understanding of adoption and not the feelings and experiences of the adoption triad.

[RedOakMomma]

From our first inquiries for paperwork to bringing our daughter home from Seoul: about a year and a half. 13 months of that was waiting for her referral, the rest was the homestudy and paperwork. Finalization took another 6 months.

[Funny Face]

Originally Posted by Lollybrat

I am an adult adoptee, not an adoptive parent. So from my perspective, I think it's strange that you seem to consider having a child placed with you or even the finalization of the adoption to be the end of the adoption journey. Adoption is not an event; it's a life-long experience. My adoption is very much a part of my identity and always has been. I am 36 years old and I have been on my adoption journey for 36 years so far.

In no way did I mean that it would be the end of the journey. I'm in the beginning of researching how the adoption process begins and wasn't sure what to call that period of time. I didn't mean to offend anyone.