[tobeafamily]

It's quite alright. This is complicated stuff.

OK here's how it works:

IF the child is born in a state other than the one you're legal residents of - i.e. live in - then the law follows the birth state up until time of voluntary termination of birth parents rights. From there, in MOST states, you apply to ICPC to transfer the adoption to your state of residence, where you then follow the law as written there, doing whatever post placement supervision is required. You finalize in the state you are a resident of. In most cases, there is no option otherwise: States only allow their residents to finalize an adoption following their rules.

So if you are stationed in Kansas, and say the child is born in North Dakota, you follow North Dakota through termination of parental rights, then transfer to Kansas, where you follow through finalization.

Now the twist:

There are a few states, Texas is one, that allow both residents and non-residents to complete an adoption there. We live in Virginia, Ryan was born in Texas. We did the math, basically, since requirements are nearly identical. It was less expensive even with travel for us to finalize in Texas. So we transferred supervision through ICPC from Texas to Virginia. Once supervision was complete, we filed in Texas according to their laws.

I talked with our adoption coordinator - Southeastern VA is a large miltiary area - about HOR and she said that has no bearing on residence for adoption proceedings. It's where you're living now that counts.

Sorry if this is confusing. It's perfectly OK to ask more questions, as this is complicated!

Teething, ugh.

Regina