DIA wait times

Flamingo86

We have been talking to an agency and they told us that their average DIA wait time from completed home study to placement is 3 years. I know that adoption is anything but a quick and easy process, but from reading stuff here and elsewhere 3 years seems like a long "average" wait.

What do you think?

maryoosa

That sounds long to me. Our agency says it's "average" wait is around 9-10 months- but I know some folks who have adopted with them it that averaged about 12-14 months. Our placement was within a 10 month timeframe, but we matched independently.

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Dr.Loretta

That sounds overlong. Did they give a reason? One agency we talked to was rumored to have a 3-year wait, but they only placed children born in the same county as the PAPs

Our agency wouldn't give wait times because they varied so much. The longest wait was around 2 years, and most matches were around a year

Flamingo86

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I agree that 3 years does seem very long to me. DH and I have had a lot of discussions about what we are/aren't open too and I don't feel like with our preferences that a 3-year "average" is reasonable. I will definitely be talking to them more about why it's so long as well as continuing to research other agencies.

ETA: Also the responses here have really encouraged me. Hearing that the "average" might be 3 years had really left us feeling discouraged. I'm prepared for this to be a process but wasn't expecting that. Thanks for helping me be more optimistic.

Cst2CstBride

Did you have a sex preference? Our agency said that sex is the hardest factor to match and will give the longest wait times. Our agency said that most families are matched in 9-12 months and families with a bio child (like us) will wait a little longer.

Flamingo86

Cst2CstBride said:

Did you have a sex preference? Our agency said that sex is the hardest factor to match and will give the longest wait times. Our agency said that most families are matched in 9-12 months and families with a bio child (like us) will wait a little longer.

No we don't. We are also open any race.

kva11isho

3 years does seem like a long average wait time.  Our agency has an average wait of 6 to 24 months from completion of home study to match.  We were matched 7 months after our home study was complete.  Our social worker did say that we were more open than many other couples with our agency, so perhaps this agency takes that into consideration as well.  Good luck to you!

justjinny

I agree with previous posters that the 3 year wait seems very long.  When I was originally meeting with agencies, one told us that they had a minimum 2 year wait.  They always kept 20 adoptive families in their pool and they only made placements within the state.  When you're interviewing agencies it is worth asking how many waiting families are in their pool and also where they will distribute your profiles.

The agency we ended up going with said to expect about 1 year wait and even shorter waits if we were open to other races.  They're average time was 9 months (ours was only 6).  They only take 15 families at a time and they sent our profiles out to about 8 states.

Rachel Sonnier

That sounds LONG to me. Our agency's wait time when we signed was 12-18 months and we placed at 12 months and 3 weeks. 

annalisel

The 3 domestic infant adoption agencies local to us all have 2-4X as many waiting families as how many placements a year they do, but I think in our state most (85%) DIA is done independently through attorneys. Could that be the case in your region?