Our adoption process

Note: This post was edited on August 27, 2005, to correct some inaccuracies.

We began our adoption journey in October of last year. We chose to adopt from Taiwan since Angela's mom is Taiwanese. We have decided to adopt an infant without specifying a gender. The coordinator for the Taiwan program at our agency has estimated that the entire process should take about one year. That means that we can expect to travel to Taiwan by the end of 2005 to adopt our baby.

Basically, there are three parts to our adoption process:

1. The first step is to obtain a home study from a licensed social worker, write a letter to prospective birth mothers, and create a collage of pictures about our life.
2. Then our agency submits this information to the orphanage in Taiwan, where we are put on a waiting list. Once they have located a baby for us to consider, they send us a referral with pictures and information about the child.
3. If we choose to accept the referral, we will file paperwork with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (now USCIS, formerly INS) and wait for our case to work its way through the Taiwanese court system. Once we have approval from USCIS and a court date, we travel to Taiwan to adopt.

Adoption in Taiwan is a little bit different than other countries. The rights of the birth parents are terminated after a referral is made and before an adoptive family receives a child. Babies are about 1 or 2 months old at the time of referral and about 9 to 11 months old when they are adopted. The birth mother is involved in choosing an adoptive family for her child. She will read letters from prospective adoptive parents and view their collage of pictures before deciding on the family she would like to adopt her child. This part is more like some domestic adoptions than other international adoptions. Most birth parents are not involved in adoptions from other countries.

Our agency has encouraged us to enter into a semi-open adoption. This means that the birth parents (most likely just the mother) and the adoptive parents will have some information about each other. We will have some identifying information about the birth family, but they will not know our identifying information. The birth mother may request to meet us before we bring our baby home. If both parties agree, then a meeting can be arranged and contact can be made after the adoption through our agency and the orphanage.