The 2007 - 2011 part of our adoption timeline.
Okay, so back in the winter/spring of 2007 we started talking about the idea of adoption. We both liked it. It just made good sense to both of us. We decided that if we chose to have kids, adoption was going to be our path. We were not really talking about marriage yet, but just forward thinking... Seemed good to discuss family ideas/plans along with location for home, goals, etc before we dug into serious marriage talks. Then summer of 2007 began our marriage talks in earnest.
Then a very romantic engagement in October of 2007 and we got married in July of 2008. :)
Winter of 2009 we started talking about having a family. We decided, yes, we wanted to have a child. We started exploring adoption options. Lots and lots of research, reading, meetings, seminars, phone calls later we decided on Wide Horizons for Children in MA and Jewish Family Services as our agencies. And we chose the pilot program in Taiwan through WHFC.
For several reason the Taiwan pilot program appealed to us. I used to live in Taiwan (1997-1998) and I love the country, culture, people... The pilot program would let us begin our paper work and process at just 2 years married instead of the usual 4 or 5 years married. We were ready to start. :) They said we would need to do independent travel in Taiwan - perfect! :) That's just the way we like it. And there was a high need for toddler adoptions. Great! That's just what we want -to create a forever family for a child who really needs one. And a toddler - super! :)
So we started taking classes (online) and reading books but couldn't officially begin submitting our paperwork until July 2010 when we reached our 2 year wedding anniversary. We officially started right after our second wedding anniversary with our first applications and paper work. All was going well. We were in a 3-5 year old child age category and doing lots of work. Then December 17, 2010 we finally got the last of our paper work in and were final ready and excited to wait for the referral of a child. We were told this could take quite a while. (1-2 years) Okay. That's okay. We can wait and try to be patient. We knew this was how it would go. We were happy to sit and wait after so much work.
A few weeks later though, January 6, 2011, we got a dreaded phone call. There had been many families interested in the new Taiwan pilot program and now there was a very very loooong wait. (3-5 years just for a referral! but no guarantees.) We would have to "wait to wait" is what we were told. We weren't even actively waiting anymore because Taiwan had put in place a cap of 3 families waiting and we were further down the waiting list than that. Uuugh. We were shocked and devastated.
We just sat with this for about a month. It was really tough. We didn't even want to tell folks. We didn't know if we needed to start all over again and choose a new program. We really weren't sure what to do. We began to research and look into other options. This was so hard. Taiwan had seemed so right for us and now it was not a viable option. We slowly started sharing our sad news and doing new research in February and March of 2011. We looked into other agencies and other country programs.
Then our WHFC social workers called us in March with a new option. They suggested we move from the 3-5 year old category into the birth - 2 years old category. They said we still wouldn't be on the actively waiting list, but we would be very close to being on the waiting list. From the start we had been open to adopting a child from birth - 5 years old, so this seemed great, a good fit. We agreed quickly and were thrilled that we wouldn't have to close our hearts to the Taiwan program that we so much had hoped for. So more paperwork and forms to change our age range category, but we were soon "waiting to wait" in the birth - 2 years group and happy about it. We had been assured that sometime soon we would be actively waiting for a referral. Good news!
Summer of 2011, I think, we were given an actual seat in the waiting position. Well, no, not an actual seat, but we were in the top three (#3 of course) families list awaiting a referral. I don't have this date recorded. Not sure how I forgot to write this down, I seem to have everything else documented. If I find it, I'll add it later. We were told that perhaps we would have a referral by spring or summer of 2012. Okay. Sounds good.
We got a new SW with WHFC in August. We were sad to say goodbye to our first one, but our second and third SWs have also been great. :)
I started a new job at the end of August and had a very busy fall with so much to learn and do. All was going well. :) I was thinking we might have a referral in the spring or summer, so I would have time to share our adoption plan news with my new principals and co-workers. I was, after all, still getting to know people and I can be very slow at that.
I think I'll end this post now and the next one will be Fall of 2011 - Summer of 2012.
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