AP's Roll Call: How long was the Process and what were your struggles?

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Lets start this from being on the receiving end.
I once was an orphan, with no parents. to speak of.
I was sent out on a farm at age six.
At five in the morning. I started by milking the cow's by hand.
Fed them grain and hay.
Fed the chicken's, and gathered the egg's.
slopped the hogs, and fed the dog.
They had three cornfields, which had to be weeded, so the
weeds would not outgrow the corn. By the time you got the
three all done. It was time to start it, all over again.
The only two jobs, i didn't have to do, was to set the traps,
and drive the tractor.
I had to also wash and dry the evening dishes.
With a family who already had three teenagers. It didn't take
me long, to see who worked harder than the tractor.
Never any hugs or kisses, or a bedtime story.
When the agency came and asked me if I want to be
adopted to this family. I said no. I don't even know their
names. So back to the orphanage I went.
So I "appreciate" what what you are doing.
And what I am trying to say is:

Gaia Raain

We haven't been to committee yet, so this answer won't be complete...but I'll answer anyway.

We started talking about adopting through foster care in May 2004. We spent almost 2 years researching, reading, talking to people, etc. We knew we wanted to go ahead with it, but just weren't ready yet.

March of 2006, we started making phone calls, and had our application book (I didn't count pages, but it filled a 1-inch binder) finished by summer. Our homestudy was finished in October 2006.

We have put in our homestudy for sibling sets and children with all sorts of special needs. We worried that my religion was the reason we hadn't been chosen yet, but our social worker says that most of the caseworkers are open-minded enough to give us a chance. Finally, a few months ago, we asked what was going on, since we should be nearing the top of the stack by now. What we learned was that, since we have about 60 years of experience with special needs between us (we both have family members with special needs, and have been caregivers for said family members since childhood - not to mention work and volunteer experience as adults), we are considered to be a "highly skilled" family. Apparently, the caseworkers keep setting aside our homestudy in hopes that we will adopt a child with RAD or something more severe.

Kinda funny, if you ask me. We're the last choice because we're the most experienced. Hmmmmmmm... Anyway, we're sticking it out. If we don't go to committee before October, we'll be just fine childless.

cagney

hi there. where to begin.

dec. 1st, 05 we contacted adoption agency i had done some research on to get more information about them. spoke with the person there for 3 hours straight about their policies and support for the relinquishing mother and the options she was offered, their screening process and how to get started with them.

during this phone call i was informed there was a woman in my area that had a previous match back out on her and she was looking for a different couple. so i told the person that we weren't ready completely, no home study, no paperwork, no attorney set up, etc...

dec. 2nd, 05. phone conference with a case worker and the mother. we decided we meshed very well and wanted to meet each other.

dec. 7th, 05. we met each other and although nervous at first, we easily became more comfortable and started talking about all sorts of things. later that evening the caseworked called to say the mother wanted us to parent her child if we were interested. of course we were!

dec. 8th, 05 completed background check paperwork and agency filing paperwork, spoke with a local attorney and set up a time for a homestudy to be completed by a social worker.

dec. 15th, 05 did homestudy, not near as bad as we thought. don't think our home has been that clean since then. :) gave other needed paperwork to the social worker.

during this time the mother kept in contact with us. She called us usually every other day to keep us informed of dr's visits and just to chat.

dec. 23rd, 05 background checks came back and all other paperwork was in order.

jan. 13th, mom calls me to ask for a ride to the hospital, and husband and i were invited to watch the birth of who would become our daughter. the hospital gave us our own room and mom and dad came in, by their choice to spend the night in our room with this beautiful little girl. we all sat around talking, playing cards and crying over this little girl. the next day we left for a period of time to allow them to make their decision and have time alone, without us anywhere near the hospital.

we brought our little girl home from the hospital on jan. 15th. all 5lbs of her. for the first 3 months i spoke with her other mother on the phone at least once a day. we have visited with each other several times and keep updated now by chatting online and i send all the pics i can take. which is a lot!

this was 2 years ago. and for our families this has worked very well. we have more of an extended family than we did to begin with. and still believe there is always room for one more. our daughter is a smart, happy beautiful little girl, who knows both of her mom's and dad's. and will hopefully have that constant ability for contact with her biological family for the rest of her life.

it was a fast process (44 days) and i've had many not believe our story on how fast everything went. but it did happen that way. something or someone led me to that adoption agency and my attorney and social worker that day and i am so happy i picked up that phone to ask all of those questions i'd been writing down for months.

it does not have to be a lengthy, drawn out process. do your research, consider what's ethical or not, and follow your instincts. and always respect that this is not only your child. be honest and truthful and you will be guided to the situation that is the right one.

EDIT: Jennifer that is too funny! i'm a RVT (veterinary tech) and i also prayed every day. and it's funny because that was our busiest month that year at work. and it's usually our slowest time. God must not understand the difference between patience and patients, lol. Or neither of us speaks clearly when praying, lol.

aloha.girl59

I believe we first enquired about adoption through Los Angeles County in October 2001. Took our MAPP class during the summer of 2002 and began getting our home ready for a child around the same time. Did our homestudy and foster care inspection in the winter/spring of 2003 and were contacted about a little girl to adopt in March of that same year. Before we ever met her, her grandfather decided to take custody of her and we "lost" her. We were put back on the list and were contacted about our son on June 11, 2003. We saw his picture for the first time on June 25 and met him on July 1. We had ten visits with him over the next 30 days and brought him home with us for good on July 31, 2003. :)

Struggles? Oh my gosh! Our son's social worker was a total control freak nightmare. She held things up and made life difficult for everyone (not just us APs) until our son's first mother's parental rights were terminated at the end of October 2003. Even though our son switched to an adoption social worker after TPR, the foster care social worker kept her finger in the pie and continued to cause delays and generally wreak havoc with our case. We finalized our son's adoption on June 22, 2005.

Chaquita

We met the orphan who became our daughter in August. It took about 7 months total.

Each day, I asked "What can I do to move this along today?" and if there was anything I could do, I did it.

Since we went international, we had to get the approval of two governments. In our case, it was the USA and Colombia. The USA people, Citizenship and Immigration Service, were difficult - mostly passive-aggressive stuff. The Colombians were uniformly wonderful.

Our child is considered "special needs" because she is older than a toddler.

Jennifer L

I started the "clock" for our adoption when we completed our dossier and submitted it to our agency. From then, it took about ten months until we brought our children home from Africa. We received our referral about 4 months after everything was completed and travelled about six months later. We were fortunate in that we did not have any significant delays in the process that are very common in international adoptions. Just a few months after our children were home, their country of origin had a delay in issuing passports due to having run out of the paper used to print them! It was something completely out of the hands of our agency, but it was no less aggrivating for the families left waiting!

Of course the hardest part of the process was the waiting. The waiting was fifty thousand times worse after we knew who our children are, had their pictures, send them our pictures, etc. I would call the agency once a month, just because I felt I had to and it made me feel better. I didn't pester or push, because that doesn't make the process go any faster. The agency was very kind about it and didn't make me feel bad for calling.

I used to pray for patience every day. Now, bear in mind that I am a registered nurse. I noticed that as soon as I started praying for patience, I'd start getting busier at work. The more I prayed, the busier I got. Then it hit me that God must have thought I was praying for "patients" not "patience". So, I got patients!

5littlemonkeys

We researched our choices for a long time and decided on adopting a child in foster care. We started classes and the home study process in 2004.
In Sept 2005 we were matched with an awesome 3 year old boy.They were in the prosses of TPR the bmom was in prison and it was to be minimal risk.Thing were going great. We were introduced as mom and dad he was ready to move in with us quicker than any one imagined, he had his 4 birthday with us. Unfortunately at the same time his grandfather decided after three years that he wanted his grandson to live with him. After quite a bit of court cases and different judges, because the social workers felt the grandfather was unfit and guardianship was not in his best interest, he unfortunatlly ended up with his grandfather. Hopefully doing well. It was todally heart breaking. My husband and I were new to this and thought the social workers new what they were doing. Ha.

Jan got the call of a 7 week old boy.That was removed because of neglect and abuse in Dec. He was with bmom 3 1/2 weeks. Unfortunatly no family members would care for him and 3 diffrent foster homes in the other 3 1/2 weeks. He came home the day after the call.
His sisters were placed with their grandparents right away. One went to live with her father. In Feb the other sister (1 1/2 year old) moved in with us because the grandfater could not pass the background check. The bmom said she would like her children together.
They worked with the bmom in an intesive reunifcation program that usualy last six months. We met at my house biweekly with a bunch of people that were trying to help her get on track. She didn't follow recomondations, stay clean, or show up most of the time so it ended early. It gave us a chance to get to know each other witch was great. She dicided early on she wanted to surrender her rights with her son she felt she didn't have an attachment to him and wanted us to adopt him. She was continuing to try for the girls. I would bring her and the girls for visits together. She decided that she wanted to surrender her rights to the girl too.
Durring on of our visits she said she was pregnant and wanted us to adopt this baby also. I told her to talk to her boy friend she said they were on the same page and he had recently done it with another child and has one in foster care. I brought her to her first prenatal check up at 8months. I brought them to the ultrasound and we found out it was going to be a girl. Nov. She called me when she went into labor and I brought here to the hospital. It was the most amasing day in my life. My husband and her boyfriend were together in the waiting room. I held her hand threw the whole thing. I cryied like a baby when she was born. I got to cut the cord. The boys came in after she was born and my husband was the first to hold her. It was defintly the best day ever.
Our children were all born with drugs and acohol in there systems. I am very greatfull to their bmom for making the best choice she could for them after they were born.
So in ten months we went from 1 child to 4 children. Three under the age of two!
The struggles came with working with the social workers we have worked with.
They were not the brightest crayons in the box.
They were not experinced and were unorganized. All the waiting has been because they have us do the same paperwork over and over because they missplace it, they take forever to file paper work, they don't return calls, they don't follow through, they have an exuse for everything they do what is easiest for them not what is in the childs best intrest.
Our girls adoptions were finalized in Sept. 2007 9 months after bparents surrenered.
Our sons adoption still is not finilized. Waiting on the social worker to finish up paper work.

Sophie

Homestudy:
Summer 2004

Sign with agency for international adoption:
December 2004

Started process for son:
December 2004

Met son for first time:
August 1, 2005

Got home with son:
August 4, 2005

State readoption completed:
February 2007

Santa's Lil' Helper

Found out about dd through her great-grandmother in December 2000.

Meet with dd's mom, my cousin, in January about adopting.

DD born in Feb 01".......paper work filed.

Private investigator hired in March 01" to find her father.

Father and his wife contested adoption in May 01"

Case adjudicated to another state in July 01" after all parties agreed. Father filed in the wrong state.

We were named as third parties in the custody hearing in October 01"

November 01" Father's attorney recuses herself from case after he threatened her.

December 01" mother signed over her parental rights to us

Hearing in February 02" because of warrants for father's arrest.

Hearing in June 02" assigned a guardian at at-litem to dd.

Hearing in July 02" ordering psychological evaluations

Hearing in August 02" father found to be a physical danger to
dd

Hearing in Spetember 02" for TPA ---continued

Hearing in October 02" where wife affirmed the father was abusive.

November 2002 father disappeared

2003 searched for father, updated homestudy...waited

2004 searched for father, updated homestudy...waited

2005 searched for father, updated homestudy...waited

2006 searched for father, updated homestudy...waited

March 07" initiated a reopening of case.... our criminal background checks and child abuse clearences updated

May 07" father contacted by the court and said he knew dd was loved and being well cared for and he was unable to take care of her. He then wished us the best.

Late May 07" termination of parental rights

DD ward of the state

October 07" New Homestudy ordered by court appointed social worker.

January 08" homestudy comppleted and update of ciminal background checks and child abuse clearences.

Adoption April 08!!!!!!!

In this seven years she grew from a happy baby....to an inquizative toddler....to a headstrong preschooler.....now she is an independent, empathetic, funny, and highly intelligent gradeschooler.......it has been a long hard road but we would do it again for her.

in COGNITO *

*Never actually looked into adoption but was open to adopt or foster if/when the time was right. Never expected it to happen that soon or quick.

* Met his mom in Sept. '05
* He was born Nov. '05
* Released from hospital to us Dec. '05
* They relinquished in May '07
* Final June '07

From begining to end 20 months.

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