[Hopeful mom]

Hello, I'm new to this site and am so glad I found it. I'm a single Chinese-American female hoping to adopt from China. Can any singles out there share their experience with me and recommend an agency. I have one in Texas I'm looking at and one in Colorado. I live in Northern California. Any local agencies? Thanks!

[SofiasMom]

There's a single moms group in San Francisco area. Two of the moms are going back for #2 in next month. Where in N. California are you?

[Hopeful mom]

I live in Pleasant Hill. I would love to connect with the single mom's group.

[SofiasMom]

I just sent you a private message.

L

[sak9645]

Do be aware that there is a singles quota for the regular China adoption program, and this may limit your choice of agencies. Even though you are Chinese-American, the singles slot will apply to you.

Only 8% of any agency's dossiers may come from singles in a given year, which means, of course, that if an agency submits 50 dossiers to China this year, only 4 of them can come from singles.

By this point in the year, most agencies have allocated all their singles slots. Once in a while, however, an agency will find that it has more married applicants than it expected, and can submit one more single person's dossier.

Some agencies keep a waiting list of singles who want to adopt. The waiting list may technically cover the present to 2008 or so. Others work on the basis of who calls first when a singles slot opens.

If you are looking to adopt through the regular program, your best bet is to get a list of all the agencies conducting China adoption (there's a pretty comprehensive one at www.jcics.org). Then begin calling and emailing.

On your first round of calls, find out first if an agency has a singles slot open. You may get lucky, though you probably won't.

If it doesn't, ask if it has a waiting list and, if so, how much it costs to get on to the waiting list. Some agencies don't charge, while others may have a fairly high fee to discourage folks who aren't really serious. If the agency has no fee or a nominal fee, get onto the waiting list. Then research the agency to make sure you would be willing to go with it if it should call you about an opening.

Keep detailed notes on your contacts with each agency. Then, in another month or two, call all the agencies again, except for those you have ruled out because they treated you badly or that your research showed to be less than desirable. Check where you are on the waiting lists, and ask if any vacancies have come up.

Many singles report finding a slot within 6 months, by doing this kind of hard work, even if agencies initially have told them that they are unlikely to get a spot until 2008.

First off, since many people get onto several waiting lists, if an agency gives a slot to one person, that means the person goes off the waiting list at other agencies. Second, some agencies respect the person who is persistent and shows that she really wants to work with them, and will make sure she gets called if a slot opens up. And, third, luck happens. A person may call just after the agency has had an opening and found no names on its waiting list.

One way to improve your chances is to become "paper ready" -- that is, to have your homestudy and get your I-600A out to the USCIS. Agencies don't want to give a valuable singles slot to a person, only to find out that she can't get homestudy or USCIS approval. So the fact that you have been approved will be very positive.

There is some risk, of course, to this strategy. Homestudies have an expiration date determined by your state. The fingerprinting required by the USCIS must be redone after 15 months, and 171-H approval (the response to your I-600A filing) expires in 18 months. So if you don't find a singles slot right away, you could wind up having to pay for a homestudy update, a new I-600A, and re-fingerprinting before your child comes home.

If you do find a singles slot, remember that there is a LITTLE advantage to being Chinese-American. If you should happen to want to adopt a boy, or a child from your ancestral province, China will be more willing to refer you one.

And China will also expedite referrals for some Chinese-Americans (usually people who either immigrated from China, have parents who immigrated from China, or have grandparents who immigrated from China -- a more distant connection may not be recognized). However, now that all referrals are coming 6-8 months after dossiers are sent, the value of having your dossier expedited is reduced, as it may modify your wait by only a month or so.

If the idea of working so hard to find a singles slot is daunting, you might want to consider going through China's Waiting Child program. The Waiting Child program does not have a singles quota, although China may give preference to married couples.

China has invited certain agencies to help it find homes for children with special needs and for older (usually school aged) healthy children. Each participating agency gets its own list of children about once a quarter, and is asked to find parents for them, to be approved by China.

Many of the special needs of the kids on the lists are very minor or quite manageable. As an example, there have been children with large birthmarks, missing digits, Hep. B, and cleft lip or palate. In some cases, a child may even have had treatment for the need, such as laser treatment of a birthmark or surgery on a cleft palate or heart defect. Of course, there are also kids with more serious conditions, such as blindness or deafness or spina bifida.

The agencies are not allowed to photolist the children on general sites like RainbowKids or Precious in His Sight, although some do photolist them on their websites or on private listservs. People who are seriously interested in this program can call agencies asking to see the lists, or can ask an agency if it has any children who have certain special needs.

If a person sees a child on a list and feels he/she can parent this child, he/she contacts the agency. If several people express interest in a child, the agency will choose the one who seems best able to parent the child and to get approval from China.

The agency will then ask China for preliminary approval of the person. Often China grants this preliminary approval, though sometimes it does not.

Once preliminary approval is granted, the person completes the standard dossier and the agency submits it to China. It gets expedited review and, if everything is pretty much what China expected when it gave preliminary approval, it will give final approval.

Travel authorization will occur soon afterwards, and the child can be brought home. In general, it is faster to go through the Waiting Child program than to use the regular program.

Sharon