How it began

We have known that we would adopt our children since before we were married in 2004. We waited a couple of years -just to enjoy life as a married couple without children. Then we began the adoption journey in 2006.

There were country programs to research, adoption agencies to investigate, references to contact and all of this took considerable time. In early 2007 while John was serving his 6 month deployment in Kuwait, we finally decided to move forward with Holt International. Holt has been helping to build families for over 50 years and continues humanitarian work in numerous countries. Every comment on the agency was that it is highly ethical, very reliable, and considered one of the best choices (if not the best choice in agencies). Holt works in various countries, and has adoption programs in about 10 countries. We felt very confident that we made the right decision with Holt. (We still believe this today).

We chose the Vietnam program. Various factors were taken into consideration for choosing a program. There are many requirements that we as prospective adoptive parents (PAP) must meet to be accepted into a program. Of the few programs we were "accepted," Vietnam was the program of choice for us. Although the children are generally in orphanages, they tend to be healthy. In addition, the program has been reopened since 2006 and appears to be relatively stable. Our agency, Holt, first tries to place the children with relatives. If that is unsuccessful, they attempt to place the children with families domestically. If that is unsuccessful, then they work to place the children internationally. From what I have read, this is not done by all agencies. As a result, the wait for a referral from Holt is longer, and the children may be slightly older when referred than with other adoption service providers. However, I would prefer a longer wait for a referral since I am confident that by the time PAPs receive that referral, many attempts have been made to place the child with biological family members or domestically. Unfortunately there are instances of unethical behavior with international adoptions when children are placed despite not truly being legally available for placement. I have not read or heard about an intance where Holt has been associated with such a situation.

After identifying our Agency and program, we submitted our application in March 2007. I completed the 8 page agreement, sent it to John in Kuwait, along with a DVD on Holt International. He signed it, had it notarized and returned it back to me in the states. We had hoped to be officially accepted and moving along with our family assessment (homestudy) by the time he returned in May 2007. We did submit our application to Holt and we were officially accepted into the program on April 5, 2007. We also had to apply to a cooperating homestudy agency, since Holt does not have a branch office in our state. John finally came home on May 11, 2007! He was gone 8 months exactly. He had left on September 11, 2006. I didn't waste any time scheduling our first home study visit. We met with our social worker at the cooperating agency on Monday May 14 for our first 3 hour interview. In preparation for the meeting, we had to complete a 15 page questionnaire on ourselves. From this Angela asked us questions to try to have a good understanding of us, how we would be as parents, what our motives were for adopting, whether we had a good support system, and did we understand the issues with adoption, and trans-racial adoption and were we prepared to address these issues. We had a second interview on May 21st, and a third on May 29th. During these visits, we supplied her with the names and addresses of 3 people (not relatives) to contact for references. Questionnaires were sent out and each person was asked to answer honestly. We also had to collect information on our finances, birth certificates, marriage license, employment verification, police clearance for our local police station, medical exams, letters from physicians, and verification that our water was safe for drinking. Then we waited for our home visit on July 11, 2007. We spent the weekend prior to her visit organizing the basement and upstairs. The night before we divided up the chores and cleaned the house. In the morning I made coffee, baked a coffee cake and prepared a fresh fruit salad. Angela came over at 9am and left after 12pm. The coffee cake went over really well with Angela. I'm sure the scent of freshly baked goods helped. She toured our house, interviewed each of us separately, and then interviewed us together. When she left, we were done with our part of the homestudy. Now we had to wait for Angela to finish composing the assessment. This took much longer than we anticipated. It was sent to Holt on September 5, 2007. Holt called us on September 13, 2007 and told John that we were officially on the waiting list for the referral of a child from Vietnam and we were number 46 . He called me at work to let me know. We received the official letter in the mail the next day.

Initially we were instructed to wait 3 months before completing the I600A, which is the Application for Advance Processing for Orphan Petition. Then we were told we could do it immediately after acceptance of homestudy. I waited until November 10, 2007 - 2 months after acceptance. After submitting the application, we were then notified of a fingerprint appointment on December 15, 2007. We are waiting to receive our approval. According to our Holt guidebook, it can take 60-90 days to clear our fingerprint by the FBI. If we do not hear something by March 15, 2008, I will contact the USCIS. Other than receiving the approval, we really just sit back and wait for a referral. We were told 12-16 months for a referral.

On December 12, 2007, we received our quarterly update from Holt and were informed that we had moved to #33 on the "list." Since then I know of one person on the "list" that has accepted a referral. Most likely there have been other referrals, but if the PAPs are not posting on the Holt forum, I am unaware of it. From the timelines of other PAP, approximately 4 referrals are given a month. This could mean by now we are around 25 on the "list." If referrals continue as they have, we could be matched as early as August 2008. Wow!