Adoption Journey, cont.

Once we realized that we had been called to adopt we researched several agencies and countries and settled on adopting from China and using the agency, America World Adoption Association (AWAA).  Thus began the long process of collecting paperwork, meetings and funding.  When you are pursuing an adoption there is so much to be done.  You have to collect paperwork such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, fingerprinting, background check (local & federal), financial records, etc...  Then each of these things must be notarized by a local notary, then authenticated by the county clerk, certified by the Secretary of State, then sent to the federal government for signatures by the U.S. Secretary of State.  Just getting everything signed takes weeks!!  I'm not even going to start talking about the money that is required for each step...except to say that most of the money at the beginning goes to pay someone for a service they are providing (social workers for meetings & home studies, clerks, couriers, doctor visits, FedEx, etc...).  Before we even had our name on the list in China to adopt we had spend $9,274.49...but who's counting! The longest part of the paperwork (also called a dossier, pronounced da-see-ay) is waiting for your approval from our government to be allowed to bring a child into our country.  Waiting for your approval can take up to 3 months.  All of this work is affectionately called your "paper pregnancy" and it's full of labor pains :)  When we sent our dossier off to China the wait time was 13-14 months.  I was keeping a journal of everything we were doing about the adoption and it's funny now to go back and read from Jan. 2007 when I was bummed the wait time had been increased to 15 months.  I was thinking we would get our referral (the paperwork from China that has the picture, medical, etc... about your child for you to accept) by Christmas of 2007.  Just to get you up to speed...in Sept. 2010 we will have been waiting for 4 years and the wait time now is 50-51 months with the wait time increasing by a month each month.  I realize this post seems like I'm complaining about having to wait so long, pay so much, etc...but I really don't mean for it to.  We know God has a plan for us, a child for us, and the money to provide for us to complete this adoption in His time.  Many people have asked about our "adoption story" so I want to be as realistic as possible when I write this.  China is the only country at this time with a wait lasting years and years.  If you are interested in adoption, please don't let this discourage you.  I probably wouldn't recommend adopting from China if you are interested in a short wait time, but there are many other places to research.  I'll write again letting you know what's happened since mailing our paperwork off!