[Heather Jeane]

My mom messaged me a few weeks ago asking if we would be interesting in adopting my cousin's baby boy due in December. My husband is a resident of Michigan and due to our last base, I am a resident of Delaware. My cousin lives in Florida.

I talked to her mom who would very much like to see him with us and she is very willing to help us out. (my mom even said my aunt later told her she had gone out and bought us some baby stuff since both our birth children have long outgrown that stage) My aunt said if it would help in any way, my cousin could be brought back to Arizona for the birth. We also have a lot of family in California.

We basically want to figure out the best way to get the correct paperwork filled out as fast as possible so that we can legally bring our (hopefully! ) son home to Germany without disrupting the lives of our two older children more than is nessisary. Of course we want to be bonding with him in our own home as a whole family.

Anyone who has done this, your advise would be much appreciated. Does anyone know if we can change our states of residency from here, and would it be advantagious to do so? Neither one of us is particularly attached to our current "home" states, they are nothing more than addresses for paperwork.

[sneezyone]

I'd find an attorney near you pronto who'se plenty experienced with adoption. The scnario you described sounds really complicated (jurisdictionally) and you need someone who's well-versed in this area of the law.

[Heather Jeane]

lol yes! No... I am in no way attempting to rip my cousin's baby out of her arms. She has two children already who she has living with their respective fathers' families and when I was talking to her, she said it was her idea from the first and that the birthfather was in total agreement so they asked my aunt (her mother) to help them find someone with our family's values. She said she realized she just wasn't able to raise him herself and needs to focus on getting her own life straightened out.

An update would be to say that there are a lot of resources overseas. It seems many bases have an adoption support group and your first step should be to find out if there is one in your area. I now have a person to do our homestudy and a couple other people here who we can ask just about any question that comes up.

[AirmansWife]

I was just about to reply with that same info Heather. My neighbor works for security forces in the office. He said on our base (RAF Mildenhall, England) he handles all the paperwork for adoptions and we have to go to him first to set everything up. Thankfully the military will do the home study which can save us a ton.

[Heather Jeane]

Oh you are lucky to be able to get your homestudy done by the military! Ours is under $1000 but that's still a good amount when you consider that this is only being done for a specific child and if this adoption falls through, we are out all of that permanently.

By the by, my last post looks odd, but that's because it was partially in reply to someone who made a strange post then was removed. The edit option for my own post was timed out so it's left hanging that way.