General Timelines?

jenny0284 · January 2014

My husband and I are looking to adopt in the relative near future. We're not sure if we want to do a US or international adoption. Does anyone know how long either could take? This would help us decide when to start the process. If it takes six months we'll wait a little while. If it takes a couple of years we'll start the process much sooner. Also, are there any tips or need to do's that would be helpful for adoptive parents. This will be our second child, if that helps. Thanks!

plus12012 · January 2014

My number one tip besides gather as much information about the agencies in your area as possible, start gathering family pictures. When we went to put our Bio together we were shocked that we didn't have as many candid photos as they wanted.

Time periods are going to depend on the agency you select and what your decision will be regarding domestic or international adoption. International adoptions, the wait changes according to what country you select, domestic adoptions of ten depend on where you are in the country.

If this is something that you know you want to do. Start meeting with agencies and get a feel for the adoption community in your area.

AlbertaGrayGirl · January 2014

I can't say about the US, but we are doing domestic adoption in Canada. We have been in the process for about a year and a half, and will hopefully have our home study/paperwork complete in a few months. Then, we will be waiting for a placement. Our situation took longer than typical, but I would suggest getting started sooner rather than later. It is probably more likely that you will have delays, rather than things just happening very quickly.

bumpuser794640 · January 2014

Time will depend a lot on which route you choose. Even with domestic infant adoption wait times can gay wildly, depending on what sort of situations you are willing to consider.

We were 1 year and 27 days from initial application to placement, with about 4.5 months of waiting after being home study approved.

julandjo · January 2014

Keep in mind you may also wait longer since you're already parenting. (Speaking in terms of DIA) You never know what a potential birthfamily is looking for; maybe they want their child to be your first/only, maybe they want sibling(s) for their child, etc. But in a very general sense I'm seeing that families who are already parenting tend to wait longer. We started the process 3 years ago in March. Home study took 6 months, and we've been waiting ever since. No baby on the horizon still.

We're parenting two bio kids already.

CaptainSerious · January 2014

Unfortunately, there is no real way to give you an estimate, only average wait time for specific agencies or programs. It doesn't really help to know that it took us 2.5 years to adopt our first and 1.5 years for our second, both from Peru. Others in the program have been waiting four years. Some domestic adoptions happen quite fast, while some families wait years. What will affect your wait time is what agency/program you chose, what type of situations you are open to, and if that matches up with the type of situations your agency typically handles. There's so much that plays into any family's wait, mostly hinging on a birth mother connecting with you through your profile (in domestic) or a child matching your openness and the reglationand length of process involved (in international).

hansa11 · February 2014

As others have mentioned, timelines for adoptions can be hard to predict because there are so many variables, but generally I wouldn't count on "quick" (that being a subjective word). An adoption will require a home study and it took us two months to settle on an agency and start the home study and another three months to finish it, so that was five months right there. We're doing international adoption, so then we had to complete our dossier and that took another four months. We briefly looked into domestic infant adoption, but were told it would be four to five months before we could even apply to the program and then start our home study; although, maybe with another agency, we could have started right away. It just all depends. That's why if you know adoption is something you want to pursue, I'd start researching now. Attend information sessions, talk to agencies, ask questions here, etc. You'll have to do all the sole-searching and learning at some point, so doing it now, even if you're not completely ready to commit, will not be wasted time.

I'd also recommend taking the time to analyze your finances and see where you can start budgeting and saving. Although people use the adoption tax credit, grants, fundraising, etc. to afford adoption, there are a lot of up-front costs that come in big chunks and the process can be delayed as you wait to save up money to move on to the next step in the process. You'll be thankful for any money you can save now.

Good luck with your decision!

Dr.Loretta · February 2014

I would recommend the FAQs, if you haven't already.

As the others have mentioned, timelines will vary widely. IMO your best bet is to research agencies (if that's the route you want to take) and ask them directly how long their average waits are. They can give you a general idea of what a typical wait is like for PAPs.

Our entire process took 10 months from application to placement.

CeCe8579 · February 2014

Dr.Loretta said:
I would recommend the FAQs, if you haven't already.
As the others have mentioned, timelines will vary widely. IMO your best bet is to research agencies (if that's the route you want to take) and ask them directly how long their average waits are. They can give you a general idea of what a typical wait is like for PAPs.
Our entire process took 10 months from application to placement.

What kind of adoption did you do?

Dr.Loretta · February 2014

Iloveshanej said:

I would recommend the FAQs, if you haven't already.
As the others have mentioned, timelines will vary widely. IMO your best bet is to research agencies (if that's the route you want to take) and ask them directly how long their average waits are. They can give you a general idea of what a typical wait is like for PAPs.
Our entire process took 10 months from application to placement.
What kind of adoption did you do?

Domestic infant

CeCe8579 · February 2014

Dr.Loretta said:

Iloveshanej said:

Dr.Loretta said:
I would recommend the FAQs, if you haven't already.
As the others have mentioned, timelines will vary widely. IMO your best bet is to research agencies (if that's the route you want to take) and ask them directly how long their average waits are. They can give you a general idea of what a typical wait is like for PAPs.
Our entire process took 10 months from application to placement.
What kind of adoption did you do?

Domestic infant

Very awesome! That's what we are doing. I hope our journey is as quick. Not getting my hopes up but that wod be nice.

spotco2 · February 2014

We did domestic infant and hired a consultant to assist with the paperwork and the entire process.

The home study took about 6 months. We submitted our profiles to multiple agencies around the country and waited. We were presented with multiple situations each month after that and chose several each month to preset our profile to.

We were finally matched after 7 months and another month later we brought our newborn son home with us on Dec 28, 2013. We are still waiting on the finalization to go through the court system. It will be a few more months before that is completed.

The consultant was not cheap, but well worth it to guide us through the process. Research as much as you can about the agencies that you submit to as they all have different rules and requirements when it comes to submitting your profile. Some have very expensive fee's attached and some require additional classes and hoops to jump through before they will actually present your profile.

orangecupcake · February 2014

We did DIA and had a wait of 9.5 months from initial application to placement for DD. Our agency at that time (very small) was averaging 10 placements a year with about a year wait time. This time around (prior to our super surprise bfp in January), we did our homestudy update in February 2013, but for personal reasons, we chose not to go active with our agency until July. We'd been waiting ever since, with our profile being shown only once. Our agency says current average wait is 12-18 months and only did 5 placements last year.

astroMom · February 2014

I don't think it hurts to start the process early. You could probably delay as you get towards the end, but it is hard to make things go much faster if you KWIM.

We are doing international adoption. Average is over 2 years total. Ours *should* be less than a year total, bc we want a child with a medical need. Some countries classify even correctable issues (considered minor in US) as 'special needs' and fast track them. Be careful, though. I don't think you should do that just bc it is fast. This is something that we *wanted* to do, even before learning the benefits of being faster

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