[srusse24]

Hey ladies! My husband and I just recently brought home our baby boy. We are adopting domestically and finalization should occur around December.

Anyways, we are already starting the research for #2 and really leaning toward international this time. I have been looking at Korean adoption and become very interested for several reasons. First, DH and I are both under 30 years old, we would like spend $20,000 or less on the adoption, and if at all possible, we do not want to travel. (DH has terrible anxiety on airplanes and gets very sick, plus having a small child at home makes traveling difficult because we will not want to leave him.)

I am curious about a few things from all of you experienced adoptive parents.
1. How long was your wait from application to bringing your child home?
2. What was the total cost of your adoption?
3. If you had a good experience with your agency, please PM me the name.

Thanks!

[jkovick]

cost is generally between 22K and 26K

[lynnor]

1. Wait. This will vary depending on agency, health issues you are open to, and the phase of the moon. W/our son, the process was 16.5 months. W/our daughter, it was about 19 mo I think. Read previous threads to see that rules are in flux in Korea now so timelines will vary quite a bit this next year as the new rules are implemented and agencies adjust. We requested "healthy infant" both times and didn't check off any health issues. Some people, the whole process has taken only 6 mo (though even w/those agencies, it has dramatically slowed this past year).

2. Total cost (before tax credit) was about 18k for son (a couple years ago) and ....haven't figured out for DD yet, but I'm guessing closer to 23k (fees have gone up, even for finalizing). We also traveled both times, so that factors in (airfares much higher this last time around and also had another ticket to buy as we took our son along).

3. Honestly, I'm active on another very active board and I've never heard anything bad about any of the agencies that work w/Korean adoptions. I've heard the occasional complaints about various social workers or specialized homestudy agencies, but overall, any agency actually handling the adoption will be fine.

[tinkerbell11599]

1) Wait times will differ from one agency to another but ours worked with Eastern and with our son (who came home last year) our wait from referral to arrival was 7 months. With our daughter who came home this year our wait from referral to arrival was 5 months. You can see the timeline in my sig.

2) total cost of the adoption for our son with finalization and CIS stuff was $21,000 with our daughter (we haven't finalized yet but are in the process) so far it's running about $22,000.

3) We've had good experiences with our agency but since the slow down happened, the wait time is longer. They are a smaller agency which is what we had preferred (we didn't want to be a number but part of a larger family).

Good luck!!

Jen

[TropicA1A]

I will PM you

[sussgirl]

So far we have spent about $22,000. Our son SHOULD be home soon, so we haven't even started paying for finalization.

BUT, my SW is afraid costs for Korea will go up a lot next year with the changes occuring in Korean adoption. The extra 5 month wait before referral requires more money to pay for the child's expenses and more administrative work on the agency's part. So, talk to your local agency about costs.

Best of luck!

[Max'smom]

The above posters covered a lot of the questions you asked, but I just wanted to add that the wait from initial application to arrival home has recently been a lot longer than the wait from referral to arrival. In our case, we were told that the total process from initial application was going to average around 1 1/2 years, but now the wait is closer to 2 years total. Our agency is the largest in the country. Some other agencies have stopped accepting applications for Korea because there were so few referrals even before the slow down.