[patrick.lowman]

Hi, I was wondering how interstate adoptions work? How would visitations go? How does the child get from one state to the next? How much does an adoption like this cost?

My wife and I are interested in adopting a child in North Carolina, but we live in Virginia. Has anyone done an interstate adoption like this who can provide more information please? Thank you.


-Patrick

[Angelnetty]

I am really interested in this one as well.. Does anyone have any thoughts/answers?

[hkolln]

When we brought our niece here to FL from ID we had to do an ICPC (AAICPC | an :: APHSA :: Affiliate)

This took for us many months. We did eventually adopt her but were required to have her live with us for 6 months prior to finalization. The adoption was finalized here in FL (They moved jurisdication here locally just to finalize) but the adoption subsidy comes from ID every month. If you are wanting to move the child to your home then you'd have to have an ICPC completed first.

I'm not sure what type of particular questions you may have? It may be alittle different if you are looking at photolistings for a particular child for straight adoption.

Our transition was where we traveled to ID and rented a townhouse and we transitioned her there for 2 weeks and then flew home with her. I'm not sure if that is the norm (since we are relatives also) but they would need some type of transition visit I would think. We purchased a plane ticket for our daughter and she flew home with all of us when the transition was complete from ID to FL. We were given placement papers to bring with us.

In the adoption subsidy agreement we received 2k of our travel expenses back from Idaho. I was lucky in that my employer has an adoption reimbursement program also so I was able to get my attorney fees 100% reimbursed by them. Look into the particular states travel reimbursements. You may be able to get some of that back after the adoption is finalized. If you have been licensed by the state then it shouldn't cost much of anything (but you may have to pay for the travel expenses upfront before reimbursement after the adoption). We racked up alot of travel expenses because we traveled twice to Idaho from Florida to visit. If you can drive that would save some money though!