"Our Journey"- Part 3: Where are we now?

By: Khylee Forgety

The adoption process has a lot of different steps that Adam and I had no idea existed before we started.  There is a ton of paperwork to complete, copies to make, doctors visits to go to, parenting education to attend, and a lot of new vocabulary to learn. Some of you may be familiar with the process, but for those of who you aren't this post is for you.  Here is a time line of how it all works: 

1. Application: involves a lot of the paperwork.  You fill out an application all about you and your spouse, you get copies of birth certificates, marriage license, social security cards, you ask people to complete a reference for you, etc. This also ensures that you meet the criteria for the country program you are applying to (i.e. you have been married the required number of years, so many divorces, if you are single)
2. Home-study: If your application is approved by the agency then the agency completes the home study which consists of two visits with a social worker.  The two visits are to assess the home and to get to know the couple or family. In the "home assessment" the social worker looks for things like smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher, not if you have any dust on your dining room table.  He or she also talks to you about things you put in your autobiography (something that is a part of the application).  The social worker who completes the home study has a vital role in the process as they approve the home for a certain number of children, age range, etc. (usually the decision is based upon what the couple has  expressed to the worker). 
3. Dossier: is a collection of certified or notarized copies of documents such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, etc., the home study, pictures of your house- that are submitted to the country where you are desiring to adopt. Every country has a different process of what documentation they require.
4. Wait list: once the dossier is submitted to the country, the family gets put onto their agencies wait list. The agency gives you a time-line for how long they anticipate you to wait for a referral: 8 months, 24 months, 4 years... This is probably one of the hardest parts of the journey because there is a lot of unknown: when will you get the phone call, how long will you have to wait? what if it is longer than what they said?, what if is shorter?, will I be able to take off work at a moments notice?, how much will flights cost? and the list could go on...
5. Referral: This is the blissful moment when someone from the agency calls you to tell you there is a child or children that matches what you specified you were willing to accept.  Often times families get to see a picture of the child, medical information, the child's history (if known).  The family can choose to accept or decline the referral based upon this information.  
6. Trip 1: If the family accepts the referral than plans are made to the take the first trip to the country (not all countries require two trips, but both Ghana and Honduras do).  On this trip the family gets to meet the child, visit where the child lives, and begin the legal process of adopting him or her. Often this trip takes between 7-10 days.
7. Trip 2:  Then the family comes home.  Again, this is probably one of the hardest things to do is to leave your child for 3-5 months while the paperwork gets done.  The family then returns for the second trip.  For the Folsoms' their second trip will be another 7-10 days, for the Forgetys' the trip will last anywhere from 3-6 weeks.  On the first trip the parents only make trips to the orphanage to visit the kiddo, on this trip that precious little girl or boy gets to stay with you at your hotel and the actual parenting process begins.  During this time the child legally becomes a part of your family so that when they step onto U.S. soil they are U.S. citizens.
8. U.S. Court: Even though the adoption is legal, our agency recommends that you finalize the adoption here in the United States.  

I caution you though to remember that while I laid the process out pretty black and white, how it can play out in reality can look different for every family.  Bureaucracy can slow paperwork down, a judge can discover one error in the paperwork and require it to be resubmitted, or the court can close for a season or decide to stop all adoptions from a particular region in a country.   

So there you have it friends!  I hope that you all found this educational. Adam and I are currently are waiting for our adoption agency to approve our home study and we hope to have our dossier completed by January. 

For the rest of the Forgetys' story, click on the links below:
Part one: Why are we adopting?
Part two: Getting started