Off we go!

Well, here we are.

After long family discussions and a great 4th of July on our dock looking at the water, the loons, and thinking, "this is great, we have fun, we should share" we have decided to plunge into the international adoption waters to adopt a child. A daughter! From Ethiopia!

Why??

We love our little family, but we always meant to add to it. A is a great kid and will be a terrific big brother. Options for us at this point would have involved a purchased egg and IVF. While flipping through books of gorgeous college students selling eggs might have seemed like fun it also made us think--is it selfish to want that slim genetic, (i.e. only paternal), tie?

With the crisis in Ethiopia, there are so many orphans in need of loving families. It is simply heartbreaking. It did not take much to put these two things together. Plus, we were genuinely affected by our trip to South Africa. It is astonishing how utterly beautiful it is there and at the same time utterly astonishing how deep and pervasive the poverty is as well. It feels right to us to be adopting from Africa. We became energized by the feeling that we can solve our need as well as the need of a child. It won't be easy, we know, but more on that in later posts.

It turns out that the Ethiopia adoption program is all the things we need from an operational perspective too:

• open to ages of prospective parents, after all Big Linty is pushing 50!
• relatively fast, see above
• growing, so there will be other families to link up with as we raise our daughter
• has children of all ages

So what is the process?
Choose adoption agency > Get home study done > Prepare dossier; File immigration docs in US > Authenticate dossier > Send dossier to ET & Translate > Get child referral > Accept referral > Get immigration approval from US > Get court date in ET > Get US embassy date > Go to ET and bring your child home!

Choose an agency: First we researched agencies that work with Ethiopia. We decided on a terrific, ethical, small outfit. They seem to have few, if any, glitches in ET. Glitches add time, lots of time. No customer complaints that I could find. And they are FAST. I think this is because they have a meticulous QC process and the dossier is exactly what is needed by officials in ET. Also they have relationships with several orphanages there and, the sad truth, access to a great deal of orphans. The personnel, both stateside and in ET, appear to genuinely care about the kids. The kids adopted by other families through Illien seem to do well once here. Lastly, they do "soft-referrals", more on this below but this was important to us.

Get home study done: Where we chose an agency, we had to find a local agency in MA to do the home study. The home study is a process where we as parents and family get checked out by a social worker--criminal, financial, medical, parenting, immigration, housing, backgrounds, extended family. A lot of paperwork, several interviews. House tour, references (thanks guys!). No surprise that the social workers LOVED Little Linty. He did us proud and he didn't charge us too much so that was good. {2 mos}

Prepare dossier: The home study and a lot more documentation form the "dossier"--the official file that goes to Ethiopia and is the basis of our application to adopt. A lot of the same docs that were required by the home study go in here, but notarized and even apostilled (ask John what that means), as well as a letter from us to the Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs explaining why we chose ET and what we plan to do to keep our adopted child's culture a part of her life. {2 mos, in parallel with home study}

US Immigration: The home study goes to the US Dept of Homeland Security first and then, if ok'd, US Immigration for approval to bring a foreign national into the US as a citizen. Of course along the way we get fingerprinted too so Big Brother will have us the database. Funny how they work that in... {approval takes 2mos +2mos, in parallel with translating and sending the dossier to ET}

Translate and authenticate the dossier: The dossier goes to Wash D.C. to get ready for sending to ET. {2 wks}

Send dossier to ET: Once "in-country" with our agency we are eligible and available for a " soft referral".

So what is a referral?

Well, you don't "pick out your child". Actually maybe you could if you want to travel there and go orphanage to orphanage but that isn't how it usually works. Instead, a child is "referred" to you. The whole adoption process is not about finding the best child for you, or the one you think you want; it is about finding the best family for a given child. As part of our home study we have indicated what sort of child we are looking for: age, health, gender and it is within these parameters that the agency works.

Get a referral: Once the agency and in-country people believe they have found a child that will be best placed with your family they "refer" the child to you. This child could be at a state run orphanage having been relinquished or simply abandoned and found; it could be still living with a parent or extended family unable to continue caring for the child. Included in the referral are photos, perhaps a video, medical info including tests run for a panel of diseases and dental, behavioral and growth assessment, social info. You can choose to pass. You can travel to meet her before accepting, you can bring in another doctor for another opinion. Depending on where she is, other parents in the adoption process along with you may have met her.

Accept a referral: Once you accept a referral you can send supplies, clothes. You get more info every month. Then the court date in ET courts is requested.


Court in ET: Once you have an accepted referral it takes up to two months to get a court date in ET. You must have cleared immigration to go to court, but not to request the date. Court is where the child becomes legally yours in ET and the US. You don't need to be there. Once you pass court you request...

A US Embassy Date!!: This often takes another 4-6wks and you must travel to be there, pick up your child, and go get her US passport, then you fly home!

So where in the process are we? Well today I will send in the last bits of our dossier to Illien. Hopefully our home study will be complete and in their hands early next week too. Then our dossier is off to be translated and our application to US Homeland Security goes in!

L