Adoption Process

We started in December 2004. Michelle was adopted when she was 1 day old. Adoption has always been something that was on her heart, Lord had to work on mine. After a Steven Curtis Chapman concert, we looked into America World Adoption Association. Good group of folks. The info packet came in January 2005.

I should say here, if anyone wants to adopt, you need to be 100% gung-ho from day one in my opinion. The process will drag you down and consume you if you don't keep the prize in sight, a little child to call your own. The process can be frustrating, long, expensive, irritating, joyous, exciting - you can see the roller coaster that is adoption.

So, we started our home study - the information about your family and life that all agencies use to find out about you. We were fortunate to have a couple in town who could do this home study, Ed and Sharon Appler of Grace Adoptions. (Should have looked in town for an agency, didn't think to do it). They ask everything about you, EVERYTHING.

Police Checks, financial reports, letters of references, and then the government paperwork. Ah, the government, my new favorite entity on earth. This little form called the I-600A created more problems for us than anything else. This $600.00 piece of paper (complete with FBI fingerprints) must be sent in with a copy of home study. They process and send you an immigration form, the all powerful I-171H. This one piece of paper is the yea or nay of adoption. You must have to adopt. Takes six weeks to get it. After six weeks, we called to find out where it was at. Calling is also an adventure. They informed us that they did not have our home study to process the paperwork. They never told us they didn't have it (we had hand delivered and FedExed a copy to them). They lost both. We get the form, pay our fees, looking at getting our referral around Thanksgiving 2005. Then, the train came to a screeching crawl. Like a fully loaded coal train going up a mountain pass. Like a broken wagon on a muddy road.

You realize at this point that a government, all governments, are the same, just a different name. Bureaucracy in China, slowed down the process. Went from a 6-8 month referral wait to a 14 month referral wait. Now, we here that the referral wait has increased up to 24 months for those behind us. The referral wait is after you turn in all of your paperwork. This is why you had better be serious about the process. For those of you considering adoption, international in particular, and speed is your concern, then I don't recommend China right now. Total time could be upwards around 3 years.

While mad that the government slowed us Greers up, we see that the Lord has blessed us with a small group of families in Group 226 of America World Adoption. These six other families are already becoming our friends, our partners, our family. This is where the adoption is special. People we would probably never meet, but now we can spend a season in their path. Now, we wait anxiously with each other for that phone call saying, "We have a picture of your little girl." At this moment, we wonder if the call will come today.