[mleonard0128]

Well we adopted our daughter from Guatemala in 2005 and have started to research other countries can anyone provide agency recommendations for Colombia?

With Colombia are both parents required to travel? What is the current waiting time for a referral?

Thank you all in advance!

[NashvilleGirl]

Hi and welcome! Colombia requires that both parents travel for the first 10-14 days, and then one parent can leave but the other must stay because the child is in your care during the time you wait for the adoption to be finalized in court. The time you must stay in Colombia to complete your adoption is usually 4-8 weeks. There are 2 ways to adopt from Colombia. One is through ICBF (basically Colombia's child services office) and the wait right now for an infant is 2-3 years. You can also adopt through private orphanages, and the wait may be shorter, but only a few agencies are licensed to work with them. For a list of Hague approved agencies, scroll down through the recent threads posted and find the one entitled "Urgent, New ICBF Approved Agencies" by Summerce. Good luck!

[flowermom]

Can you pick your gender? We are looking to adopt a healthy baby girl under 16 months? What would be our best option with or without an agency? How long is that wait time? Please Dm agency names if you have them.

[DrLaura]

You can request gender. Typically for a first child they ask that you don't but are more open to requests for 2nd children. You will need to use an ICBF & Hague accredited agency to facilitate the adoption on the US side of things. Whether you go through ICBF directly or a casa privada (private orphanage is up to you) and will have a bearing on what agency you choose as many only go through ICBF.

I will PM you our agency. Our timeline was much shorter due to my DH being Colombian...so don't go by that as an example.