The Process

A few of you have asked me about the adoption process. I just thought I'd write a little about that. I'm getting most of my information from the online training I have to do for the Hague. The Hague is basically a set of standards different countries and agencies have to follow to insure that the adoption is on the up and up.

Before parents can be considered for adoption by a foreign government, they must first go through a formal application and approval process. This involves the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department and their state of domicile determining their eligibility as well as their suitability to adopt a child from a foreign country. This also includes a criminal history and state child abuse check, home study and CIS Clearance (review of everything by Immigration). This usually takes 3-6 months.

Once you are approved in the U.S., your paperwork is sent over to the country from which you are adopting. In our case, we are going to South Korea (yeah!!!). It is possible that our little boy or girl is not born yet. We are approved for a 0-18 month child. We're tossing around names right now. We are going to use the nickname, Helmer (if I remember) to refer to the child from now on. It's kind of a funny story, that I don't feel comfortable publishing on the web, but you may ask me about it. Our paperwork should be sent over to South Korea April 1. That is when they are accepting the paperwork from Bethany. There have only been about 1,000 (and some change) children adopted out of South Korea for all of the U.S. each year. We feel very fortunate.

Once the paperwork is sent to South Korea, we wait for a referral. This is when the country provides information on the available child. South Korea is really good with medical records and other history records, so we can then take that information to a physician if we feel there are any concerns. The pediatricians we go to right now have a fantastic office that deals a lot with internationally adopted children. In fact, they came recommended to us by a family we respect greatly in our church. They are foster parents, and have also adopted 5 of their own children through the foster care system. They have had their share of issues as they deal with children affected by fetal alcohol syndrome and in-utero drug addictions. They are amazing people with a wealth of knowledge! They recommended their doctor's office to us a while back, and since then we've learned that they come recommended by Bethany as well based on their evaluations of adopted children.

After the referral, it will most likely be anywhere from 1-4 weeks that we have to travel to Seoul. It is usually a short time that you have to prepare for travel, so they suggest getting ready (lists, packing what you can) early. We think the process will take anywhere from 9 months to a year, but we're actually prepared for 18 months or so. We'll see...

Thanks again!
PLEASE PRAY FOR PATIENCE AND CLARITY.
Erica