Two Months

Well, we have been waiting for almost two months now. According to the timeline given to us by our agency, that means we have anywhere from 10-16 months to go! When we started this process, the wait time was approximately 9-12 months from submission to referral. Now that has increased slightly to 12-18 months. It's the first shift they've had in awhile, thankfully. We have been told that most families typically get their referral in 12 months on average.

There are many factors that go into the waiting period. Other agencies from all over the world have submitted their clients' dossiers and are being assigned to the same regions as our agency, so there is much more activity than we sometimes realize. Families that are ahead of us on the waiting list can accept or decline their referral, which can cause the wait to be longer for those further down the list. Red tape issues can create a backlog in the waiting process. In fact, in January of this year, the Russian Ministry of Education decided to take measures against agencies who were behind on their post-placement reports. A list was created of agencies not only in the United States, but around the world who were out of compliance and regions across Russia were told not to work with these agencies until they updated their status. Our agency ended up on that list in August, but fortunately, they have quickly remedied the situation and it did not cause much interruption to the process.

Ultimately, referrals from international adoptions are most often "sure things." Most are children who have been legally abandoned in their countries of origin: either their birthparents are unknown or, if they are known, their parental rights have long been terminated. Things can go wrong, of course, but most of the time once a referral has been accepted, the next part of the waiting period is filled with the happy anticipation of getting house and home and heart ready for parenting ... not to mention preparing to travel!

Meanwhile, until that exciting day comes for us, we will wait with HOPE ...