[Original Mike]

My older son was adopted from Ohio. During my search process, i dealt with four different Ohio counties on four different boys. In Ohio, each county establishes their own procedures. Like in Thw Wizard of Oz, you have to ask "Are you a good county or a bad county."

The County my son came from was very good and professional, but they had an incredible love of paperwork and bureaucracy. Once they had my homestudy, they sent me a copy of his COMPLETE file to review (over 400 pages of medical reports, counseling info, bio family history, etc). I have never seen another file this thourough and I appreciate it very much. matching took a while and visitation dragged on for two and a half months (with me driving eight hours round trip for visits). After matching, they dealt directly with my attorney and my local worker on ICPC issues, so I had very little to do with it.

Another county in Ohio that I was dealing with was quite the opposite. They nver returned calls except to ask for information from my worker. Even after they had my home study, the did not want to give me any info on the boy. After my worker raised a stink, they sent us a two-page "Child Summary" that was three years old! Eventually, we told them "We aren't going to do business this way" and pulled out. Sadly, the boy is still listed on the Adopt Ohio website.

Hope this helps.

Mike