The Process

A friend of mine is matched with her child and is waiting for her file to get logged in the Chinese system. It brought to mind all of the misconceptions out there about the process. TV shows like Sex in the City and King of Queens show this impossibly short timeline. You fill out an application, a picture arrives in the mail and the next week you are on an airplane. The Little Couple, whose journey is very real, had to necessarily shrink their timeline for purposes of tv. Here's how it really goes:

You research adoption agencies.
You fill out an application and write a check.
You get a packet from your agency and the real work begins.

Now you have to write to government agencies requesting copies of your birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees (if any), etc. You include checks, self-addressed stamped envelopes and you wait. Those arrive, you take them along with your tax returns, and other miscellaneous items to be notarized with the appropriate language. Then you get them certified involving checks and more mail and more waiting.

Then you get local fingerprints and mail those to the local police agency and the FBI for a background check. Then you go to your doctor for a physical and ask him to complete the paperwork required right there in his office. You might have to get the nurse to rewrite it all so that it's legible. Don't forget the passport photos.

You are also mailing more checks to your agency for various fees. By now you have gotten back the certified copies of everything. Now you have to overnight it to the Chinese Consulate with a check and ask them to authenticate everything. You include a self-addressed stamped envelope. And you wait.

Your background check goes straight to your agency. The next step is a home study from a social worker. Several actually. They tour your home that you have spent hours cleaning from stem to stern and you stammer and stutter that you are going to baby proof everything and baby gates are forthcoming and don't worry you will have a high chair and carseat. You are desperate to have them find you worthy of parenthood. Turns out that most likely your social worker is a wonderful person who finds you and your partner more than fit to parent. They interview you together. They come back and interview you separately. They come again and again. Then they write the home study. By now you have the authentication copies back from the Chinese Consulate.

Your agency sends  the appropriate documents to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS sends you an invitation to go get fingerprinted. You go get fingerprinted. Then you get your I-800A. It's what you have been doing all of this for. You have been approved to adopt a child internationally. The permission expires in 18 months.

You give everything to your agency with pictures showing you "candidly" and wholesomely to send off with your dossier. Your dossier is translated to Chinese and off it goes. You have been at this for months and months.

Now you await your "log-in date." Once you have that the real wait begins. If you are like my friend, you have had a picture of your child hanging in every room as you wait for the paper chase to be completed. Your child knows who you are and is eagerly awaiting you. You need your travel permission from China so that you can get your visas, pack, prepare your child's room, and prepare your first child for the trip.

Or you are like us and waiting for your match. Our first wait was 4 years long. We got our match picture at 10:22 in the morning and for the next 5 weeks I couldn't stop staring at it. We had waited so long and there she was, a real live human being waiting for her mommy. I shopped for pharmaceuticals, got vaccines, arranged for antibiotics for the trip, and began to set aside things to bring on the trip and prepared her room. We sent a care package of a stuffed animal, a blanket and a disposable camera. And waited some more.

We are onto our second wait. We have been logged into China since September 2010. We switched to special needs 18 months ago. We are expecting a match pretty much any day. We have  gone through two I-800A's. The first one we let expire, because the wait for non-special needs is years and years. When we switched to Waiting Child, we still had to pay attention to the calendar so that we only had to renew that one time. The fees are astronomical and it expires in 18 months. We are up to date. Turtle has her passport and we are waiting.

Adoption is not for the faint of heart, but it is for those who love. It is for those who have a child on the other side of the world. It is for those who have a child waiting for you in your very own city. It is for those whose arms are empty but whose heart is full.