Decisions, decisions

Nick and I had our second agency meeting yesterday afternoon. This one was with Adoption Connections in Blue Ash. They are part of the Jewish Family Services. We met with the agency director, Sara. She was really nice and VERY knowledgable. While most of the steps are the same, their fees and timeframes are a little different. They require $250 in order to submit your application. After you are approved, you begin submitting a lot of the paperwork (most of it is the same as the other agency since it's Ohio requirements). Then you wait for the classes/training to start. Unfortunately, they just started a new class last week so we'd have to wait for another one. She said someone just asked the other day when the next one would start and she said "probably April or May"!! She said but they might have one in January. (Which is still too long for us to wait.) After the classes, they do the homestudy interviews. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the fees. At the first training class, you pay $625 and at the first homestudy visit you pay another $625. So in total, for the application and homestudy, they charge $1500. After the homestudy is complete, you are then a "waiting family." Due to our adjusted gross income from last year, our placement fee is $10,000. At the time you begin the waiting family, you pay 2/3 of that ($6,667). The rest is due after the baby is placed. The really nice thing about Adoption Connection is that you can pay the 2/3 of the placement fee over 12 months. Sara told us that the waiting time right now is about 14-18 months. Of course, the waiting time is different for everyone since the birthmom/birth family picks the adoptive family. So if you are picked the first time a birthmom sees your profile, it could be a really short waiting period. She said thefamily who has currently was been waiting the longest, just hit their 2 year mark. However, she said that if we are willing to accept any race (which we are), the wait could be much shorter. She said they have placed two African-American babies this year. One family was only a waiting family for 3 days and the other family was a waiting family for 1 year.

We learned a very interesting fact yesterday... The adoptive parents cannot take the baby home until the birthmom has terminated her rights. In Ohio, the birth mom cannot terminate her rights for 72 hours. Which means that if the hospital won't keep the baby (and she said that it's getting harder and harder to convince hospitals to let them stay), the baby will go into foster care until the rights have been terminated. Adoption Connections uses two families as foster families. Both are only authorized to foster, not adopt. She said the family they use most often has fostered over 40 babies for them. We would be able to see the baby if that was the case. There is a fee of $16/day that the baby is in foster. She said most only stay a day or so, but if the father is not available to terminate his rights, it could be much longer. (I'll have to wait until another post to write about all the possiblities about the father's rights... it's long!!)

I was hoping we would come away from the two agencies and either know that we needed to talk to more agencies or be able to pick one. But of course, is it ever that easy?!?! haha We both really like both agencies and they both have their pros/cons. We talked about it some over dinner last night but then Nick had to leave as he was volunteering at the Cincinnati Observatory last night. We are going to visit Nick's mom and dad today/tomorrow so we'll have lots of driving time to talk! :-) We do have lots of options because both agencies are very willing to be hired to do different parts. For example, we could do training/homestudy with one and then be a "waiting family" with another. Or we can be a "waiting family" with both. We have decided one thing, we are ready to get started! We plan to start making a list of everything we need and divide it up!

Well, it's time to get ready so we can go see Nick's family. We won't be back until tomorrow evening. Have a great weekend!!