Road Blocks

Sleeping Constables (speed bumps for you yanks)

Ok so up until this point I have tried to keep emotion out of the blog and instead give you a sense of what hoops you will jump through to do an out of state and international adoption. This may seem disjointed as you do not have all the details of what has happened to date but my cup runneth over and this is vent time. I really like our Adoption Agency. We spent a lot of time back-grounding them, finding out where they live and even meeting a the chief big wig for a protracted breakfast meeting. Unfortunately our latest handler is just not as quick and on top of things as our other representatives.

Last month I got that yellow package from The Agency that had more forms and paperwork to gather for our trip. One of the key items is the Visa. As I stated before it is all done on-line. The only thing missing are passport photos. I sent a quick email to our handler to let them know that I was going to drop the application in the mail. Wow, I actually got a response. Don't mail it yet, it might expire before you go. Huh?? We are going in October right? – that is 3 months away and the visa is good for 6. Why are you saying we won't be going for more than 6 months from NOW? What is the hold up? According to the calculations we were on-track. Well did you see the e-mail about the timeline? Yep NOC/ Court Clearance/ICPC GO! According to what The Agency has told us, and you are a representative of said Agency, we should be getting the call to go sometime in October. Well, the NOC process hasn't started yet! WHAT?? You told us that as soon as we got the Dossier over to India that it would go tot eh NOC board. Yeah but… great here come the excuses… due to the needed updated material it was decided to not go to NOC blah, blah, blah, …we just gave it to CARA for NOC review Blah, blah, blah. All I get are excuses. You know Mr. Agency it would have been helpful if you had COMMINUCATED this to us earlier. Mr. Agency has not been forthcoming nor very helpful in keeping us in the loop. Did I mention that this is our 4^th handler? So I tried to pin them down on a new rough estimate based on their past experience of adoptions in India. Obviously when to start the clock got us hung up.

NOC clearance:

The non-objection clearance (NOC, I defined it before but who knows if you remember it) has been on the slow side. This clearance comes from CARA in Delhi for the child to be approved to be adopted by your family.

Start 01JUL08 complete 23SEP08 (assume 12 weeks could be more)

Court clearance:

After the NOC clearance the paperwork with attorneys head over to the Indian Courts. This takes anywhere from 6-9 weeks after NOC for court to clear.

Start 23SEP08 complete 25NOV08

The court papers are then translated from Hindi to English and sent to The Agency which is not in the state of California. Time: 2-3 weeks

start 25NOV08 complete 09DEC08

Crossing State Lines:

Oh no, you want to work with an agency that is not licensed in the state of California. You do know that inter-state bureaucracy just adds time? Now you have more papers that need to be filled, supposedly this is done without our involvement but do you think they will be on top of the game. Any chance of getting them prefilled? Based on past experience I doubt it. It is not that tough as all my docs for American Embassy in India are already prefilled and I passed them off to The Agency for review). I doubt The Agency will prefill the forms but will instead wait until they actually have the court papers in hand. Well that will add a day or two to the delay. Interstate trafficking involves an ICPC,

Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children:

An interstate compact, or agreement, that has been enacted into law by all 50 states in the United States, and the District of Columbia, which controls the lawful movement of children from one state to another for the purposes of adoption. Both the originating state, where the child is born, and the receiving state, where the adoptive parents live and where the adoption of the child will take place, must approve the child's movement in writing before the child can legally leave the originating state. This Compact regulates the interstate movement of both foster children and adoptive children.

Start 16DEC2008 complete 6JAN2009 (Estimated time frame)

Did you notice that they conveniently left out a week? Hey what are you guys going to be doing from the 9^th to the 16^th? Oh that's right Christmas shopping.

Once the IPC is completed and The Agency confirms that our daughter has a passport then we will be allowed to travel. It looks like I have to ask them to make sure that that gets started when the Indian court complete their business.

What Next?

I have been told that adopting is a test of patience. I think I am getting "D". You can read it in the tone of this posting. It could have been raised had our handler been a better communicator. It is not due to a lack on our part as when ever we have a question we send it up and usually get a response a 1 to 3 days later. But that is just the problem the only time we hear from our handler is when we initiate it. Based on no info we think everything was on schedule and on plan. Our previous handlers did not act this way and when they did not hear from us in a week, as we were getting our dossier together they would drop us a line to see what our progress was.

What next? – gotta pull out some of USCIS documentation. Some of it has expiration dates on it. Miss a date and you have to apply $700 or so more again. Depending on the form you may be able to get an extension. Fingerprints have a definitive drop dead date – no extension. Cha‑ching close to $200 for that. No way around that hit.

Is there a Silver Lining?

Nope. Maybe. Well she won't be here for Christmas so I don't have to buy her any Christmas gifts. She will miss all the crush of humanity and festivities that happen during that time. Then again India has some rather large festive holidays, not sure if our daughter gets to partake in any of them – I doubt it. In either case a whole bunch of strange relatives will not be trying to paw at her. And it gives us time to defend her against her relatives, one of which has taken to calling her "That girl from India". Yes this a very, very, close relative who knows that she already has a name and in fact was named before we even started the adoption process. SHIELDS UP! We remind them that that is our daughter they are talking about and she has a name to please use it. And finally, "Daddy's Little Tax Deduction", Google that one, will not be on this years taxes.

The wife says that airfares should be low because it will be after the holiday season. I hope the fares drop but I doubt they will.

Summary

• Visa – On hold until 4 months after we have received NOC
• USCIS Form I-600A once you submit this and all the paperwork the USCIS sends back form I-171H. Form I-171H is valid for 18 months from the date of completion of advanced processing (valid until Jun 2009). Form I-600 (sign it at the American Embassy with child in possession) must be accepted before June 2009.
• USCIS Finger Prints – expire November 9^th , CHA-CHING, would have been nice if The Agency told us up front to expect to pay for fingerprinting 2x.

je

Choosing Your Agency

When we first started along the adoption path we needed to find an agency.  In fact we actually started looking in our own backyard.  We thought adopt a child from the Los Angles area.  My work actually had recommendations of several agencies.  Our community fund had lists of agencies that the employees had supported. and there were employees at the company who have adopted, my senior manger among them.

First Shock

Open or closed.  In an open adoption or semi open the birth mother/father actually pick you based on a portfolio that you put together.  Wooh, back up a minute.  You mean the birth parent/s choose you.  Uh no thanks.  Even better yet on some adoptions the parents may even have post adoption contact. That did not suit our needs so we said no thanks.  Oh it got better,  on the open adoption the birth mothers had a tendency to either look for the high income family or families that were , humm shall we say close to their peerage.

Second Eye Opener

Stay away from agencies that won't disclose.  We quickly wrote off agencies that wanted $$ up front to either talk to us or give us information.  I got really frustrated when one company, local big charity organization started by a well known celebrity (now deceased) could not give basic statistics.  Such as:

What are the age range of your couples that you placed children?

How many children did you place in the last year, last 5 years? 

What is the average wait time after the dossier is completed? 

How many dossiers are open – this one is important if it is a first come first served.

County

County was an option.  However, we found that at the time we were looking, that prospective couples were being strongly encouraged to first foster and then adopt.  We didn't want to go the foster route as we felt that each child needs a stable environment and getting shuffled from one foster family to another is just plain cruel and we did not want to be a part of that.  Another reason is getting attached to a child and then having the county place that child with a family that would adopt.  Sorry our emotions have already been through the ringer.

Out of State

So we don't like the county system how about other California locales, hey Santa Barbara has a large college population.  Looking into other agencies and even going out of state we determine, that for us we might as well go out of country.  It is our strong desire that the birth parents not be in the child's life during their formative years.  I am all for giving as much information and helping them make contact later, such as after they have finished high school.  Our child/children will know they are adopted but they will not know the details of the bio matter.  Looking at cost, foreign adoption could be a viable route.

Go Foreign

India is chosen, actually the wife (Hellooooo Nurse, HN) wanted Sri Lanka.  I look into that slightly unstable country on the south end of India, do a bit of research and determine that there are very few US agencies that have capability to adopt from the island state.  How about the mainland India.  Time for some geography as the wife thinks we can travel the length of India in a day.  yah by jet but not by car.  Do you want North India, South, East, West?  Just like the US there are many geopolitical and graphical cultural differences in this large up and coming country.  Luckily she says girl, lower caste.  Ah, right answer.  She may experience some prejudices here in the states but she will not be subjected to the caste system.  Works for me.

When Adoption is Not Adoption

India does not recognize the concept of adoption.  So when the Indian courts grants you custody of a child you are granted that.  Permanent custody.  Once you are back in the states you then have to jump thorough the hoops here in our courts system to finalize the adoption.  Yep,  we belong to the school of hard knocks.  No reason to take the easy route here.

For You Impossible

Hey look at this, there is an agency that brokers India adoptions in Long Beach.  Cool.  So HN calls.  As she puts it, they lady on the other end sounds like she just got off the plane.  Yes, you want to adopt from India?  Are you from India? No?  Oh.. Please wait.  Another lady comes on the phone.  Yes miss, I hear you want to adopt from India.  Are you from India? No? Oh, is your husband from India? Mo, Oh, well that will be very hard indeed.  Oh? How hard?  For you ma'am IMPOSSIBLE.  The HN says "Oh you do not know the God I serve and he is in the impossible business.  thank you for your time and honesty"

We learn that India prefers to grant custody of their children to citizens who are of Indian descent.  As HN often tells me it is not what you say but how you say it that matters.  The lady on the other end of the line didn't know how to say it. I wonder what they would have said if HN had an English clip?

One Door Shut, a Window Opened

It was an emotional setback but hey this adoption thing is turning out to be an emotional roller coaster.  Not a real setback because there are many other agencies to look into, they would have been convenient.  At this point I am kinda hanging back waiting for HN to settle in on an agency.  Looking at  the cost of one over another (yeah this is another thing that some agencies are not willing to share until you have already plunked down some dough) they are all about the same.  Some agencies has milestones for parting you with your money.  The first is in the applicantion/contract and the second chink happens after you have accepted a child.  Part of the $$ goes to the agency and a lions share is destined for the orphanage.  HN settles down on three and of course none of them are in our state.  This poses a bit of a heartache for me.  Hey, I want to meet these folks that are going to be sucking away my stash that we have saved up for a rainy day/house expansion/world tour.  HN starts talking to one individual both on the phone and through email quite extensively.  She (the Adoption Agency rep) even starts to send us questions we should be asking our prospective agency, a list of financial resources (I will post this soon), and answering some questions that I thought the agency would be hesitant to discuss.  Wow, we are almost getting full disclosure all we have to do is keep asking questions.  I ask HN where this person is located, Missouri.  Cool, not as close as I would like.  Will she be the one we are working with?  No, the India rep is in Michigan.  Humm where is the home office, Texas.  Ah so they have more than one location, yep.  Anyone in California?  Not really but members of the agency are moving to central California but hey will be telecommuting to the home office.  Ah so there is no Brick and Mortar here.  Nope.  Here is the big question.  Do you trust them?  I'm thinking used car salesman here.  HN says yes, they have been more than helpful knowing full well we may be just pumping for information and not sign up with them.  We are talking contracts here, financial consequences for not completing the deal (forfeiture of funds sent) and most importantly possibly a life long relationship.  This last point was important for me.  Depending on the agency your communication can be the length of the adoption process or longer.  I am in it for the long haul and want someone that will follow our post adoption for at least 7 years.  I know we are going to have questions about emotional issues and behaviour patterns and we need to know that we can contact them after our contract has concluded.

je