[aMarylandfamily]

We have had four adoption placements over the years and participated in each search along with our caseworker ... most welcome the help ... and generally had anywhere from 15-20 inquiries out on children (siblings being counted as 1 of the 15-20 ... not by child count themselves) at one time along with letters to the different DSS offices in and out-of-state wide introducing ourselves ... some we never heard from at all and others requested our homestudy and then were never heard from ... waiting for responses is not realistic before submitting more inquiries ... as some workers rule you out ... i.e., if there child is allergic to dogs and you have three you are immediately removed from consideration or sometimes they place a time limit on their homestudy acceptance time before staffing it for presentation to a committee for family choice ... and that in itself can take months ... so your being limited to three inquiries at one time is both unrealistic and unfair ... no matter what the agencies workload may be - not only are you losing out but the child meant for your family is also in limbo aging by the day and possibly even gaining negative baggage to bring to your family vs. the positiveness that comes with each day of love and caring for ... and that in itself is a shame!

Keep us posted.