Back in September I wrote about the steps we go through for adoption. Here’s an update to our checklist:

• Foster placement (we are foster parents, after all). March, 2004
• Time spent with child in care, while mom and/or dad try and get permission to have child returned. This is usually how a case turns out. In our state they are supposed to resolve a case within a year, but this and usually is extended another six months. If they do NOT go back home or to another relative we go to…
• Termination of Parental Rights (or termination, for short). This happened last month for our little girl. This happens in court and the parents have the option of a jury trial and are given legal representation if they can’t afford their own. This can drag on and on or it can go quickly, depending on many factors. Late August, 2004
• Adoption staffing: where agency workers sit down and look at the adoption file, asign the case to an adoption worker (instead of a foster care worker where it had been), choose a family for the child, and other things. In most cases the family is already chosen (it was in the case of our little girl, but that was an exception). Often if the foster family that has cared for the child wants to adopt they get the green light but not always. In our case this happened this week, so this is where we are at as of today. September 2004
• Adoption worker updates files. The case files are de-identified (all references to names or specific addresses/phone numbers are removed from the case files. This can take a while. When we adopted our second son, the stack of paper was eight inches thick!) Our home study is updated (workers visit the home to make sure it is OK, check that all animals are vacinated, health dept and fire dept says OK, they interview family members, etc.) An Adoption Readiness Study is done for the child (where they identify any behavioral or medical problems, habits, favorites, etc.) In our case the ARS is redundant since we know much more about the child than the agency, but if she were going somewhere else this would be important and we would be a biig part of getting this done.

  I had this bit of wishful thinking:

  This is the process ahead of us and is why I say if we’re lucky it’ll be done by Thanksgiving (that’s only two months) or Christmas (three months). It has taken as little as two months and as much as five to get all of these steps done with our other children.

• Child needs a physical and dental visit, probably a psychological evaluation (depending on their age and needs). My first didn’t need a pysch since he was under 18 months, my second did (and also had ECI program for about a year to work on speech development), we’ll see if we get our little girl past the Paperwork Monster before she turns 18 months (December) Placed in November.
• Parents get a physical to make sure we can handle it. we were allowed to skip this. Don’t know why.
• Parents hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork and represent them on the Big Day in Court. Everything is pretty standard (thanks to word processing) and the lawyer can do everything in just a few hours. This includes filing for a new birth certificate, etc. Yay, I got to hire two lawyers, since the first one didn’t do anything for a month and wouldn’t return my calls, so I went to another one.
• When all is in order, the state adoption case is sent to our attorney, he sets up a court date with the county family court. Our lawyer must be there in court, so coordination is the key. At this point everything should be finished.
• The big day! We get to go to court, the judge reads the petition, we promise to love, honor, and cherish forever, and just like that, it’s all over. Then we eat.

This is today.

Not much to it, is there?