[lastpaige]

My husband (Piotr) and I are working through decisions about renewing documents vs accepting that this may not be God's plan for us.

If you would all simply share how long you waited for your referrals, and in which 'batch' you were in (i.e. B, Polish native/speaking or C, no Polish connection), we'd appreciate it.

Thank you,

[Kama]

Jacqueline,

We were in group B, and waited 3 months from approval (qualification) as adoptive parents (mid-May 06 and got referral in early August 06).

p.s. Did you ask your agency why they think this is taking longer than expected?

[hybell]

We were in Group C (I think - some Polish connection, but not citizens). We waited 8 months from approval (June 05) to referral (end of February 06). We did go visit our attorney in May 2005 in Poland, and we suspect that helped.

[Mom2_4]

We were in Group C (some Polish connections), we were approved in November 2002 and got one referral in January that we passed on. Waited until January 2004 to recieve second accepted referral. Travel in late April of 2004 and brought the three kids home in June of 2004.

I wrote our facilator some pretty dark emails indicating that we were starting to loose hope late in 2003. Waiting is the hardest.

[yusen]

We were in Group B ( some Polish roots ).
We started our process,( Paper/Documentations etc) September 2005,,We recieved our 1st and only ( Thank you Heaven ) in April 2006,,,children home since September 1st 2006.

Mind you,,,,In September 2005,,was the very beginning of our process,,we were told by our facilitator,,we were approved by Early October 2005.
Honestly,,looking back at our wait,,we really didnt wait that long for a Life-time of 3 Beautiful Loving Children.....
I am also curious as to why your wait is long.

[lastpaige]

I logged in, typed the response, submitted it, and then was told I wasn't logged in.

Let's try again!

Piotr is native (Posnan) and fluent, as are his parents who live here in the states. He has many family members still in Poland. I am a keeper of our home and we are home educators. We were told by our facilitator that these were highly favorable, and would land us firmly in group B. Yet, as of June 2 we will have been waiting for a year.

We are renewing our INS fingerprints (due this month) but when the homestudy/I-600A expire (October/November), we're officially done.

We have a facilitator, who while was very communicative during the dossier phase, has all but shut down ever since. It's at least 24 hours for a call back - and email - well, I found an email Piotr sent a month ago that has yet to receive response!

Thank you for the idea about calling the attorney. Piotr is calling the facilitator today, maybe we'll get a call back tomorrow at which time he'll require attorney contact information.

While I really am content with the children I have, and am at peace with the Lord's sovereignty over all this, it does irk me to know that we have to call attorneys, send dark and desperate emails, and make extra trips to Poland to get these people to do what we are paying them to do in the first place.

Hmm . . . better go adjust my attitude, the day is too young for this!

[LisArno]

Don't give up hope!!!

We were in Group C - absolutely no Polish roots. We waited almost two years from the time I sent everything to our facilitator (don't know when we were officially approved) to the time we received/accepted our referral, though we had a few "complications" along the way. We had one other official referral about one year and three months after submitting everything, but declined.

We were real close to having to redo (i.e., repay for) the I-600A, and that's when I "pushed" our facilitator to get us to Poland before then since we had already accepted our referral. Due to a move, we had updated our homestudy before then.

We have three wonderful, beautiful children now. Good things come to those who wait!!!

[Kama]

Jacqueline-as difficult as it is, please have a bit more patience. I understand it is not only about patience but about facilitators' attitudes/money, etc., but to some extent (let's leave facilitator's abilities to get a referral for you through established contacts) it is dependent on the children available that match your request, who will be deemed appropriate for your family.

I am still not clear on the logged in issue... The public center in Warsaw indeed has a case number, etc. for you, but I am not sure whether the TPD does that, they seem to have a different system (where agency lawyers bring the files with your documents to referral meetings but there is nothing at the center to find). If someone knows something otherwise, please correct me! Can you remind me whether you determined where your file/application is at the moment?

[lastpaige]

Logged in - sorry - I meant into the forum. It's been asking me to login lately - a new trick I'm getting the hang of!

Our paperwork is in the hands of the attorney. We've been told he hand carries it to each placement meeting held by the TPD or POAO.

[Mom2_4]

Hi Jacqueline,

I do agree with Kama that sometimes the wait is longer than it should be because no children who "the powers that be" think would be right for your family have been queued up to be adopted internationally.

I was told by all of the referral families that our wait would be very short because we were open to older children (they had to be younger than our son born in 1994 but that was our only age requirement) and we also open to a group of three siblings.

From the day we signed up to the day we brought them home was about two years. We had to renew all of our U.S BCIS related paperwork plus the Homestudy. It didn't feel like a short wait at all.

I firmly believe that the reason we got our second referral is that two of our three were very skinny to the point of, well, unhealthy. DD was a negative on height and and double digit on weight. And from the reference letters, the home study, and the way I looked the pictures, it was clear that I could cook well.

There are no magic words that will make the wait seem shorter. I thought our day would never come.

[Kama]

That is right, this must be the difference between working independently versus being represented by an agency then, perhaps.

Originally Posted by lastpaige

Our paperwork is in the hands of the attorney. We've been told he hand carries it to each placement meeting held by the TPD or POAO.

[MN_Mom]

Jacqueline,

I understand exactly how you are feeling. Waiting is soooo hard. My husband and I have been waiting since April 2006. We received a referral so fast it made our heads spin, but it all fell through. Since then we have been waiting. Patiently at times, and impatiently for the majority of the times.

We spent the last few months pondering this very question. How long is too long to wait? We were told initially that it could take up to 2 years and that there were no guarantees by our facilitator. We are ready to wait that long. But maybe not any longer. I don't know. It is such a hard decision. We already have so much emotionally invested. As does our bio son (age 9). Sometimes I worry about how hard the wait is on him.

Thanks for posting your concerns. I really appreciate reading the responses and hearing optimism in most of them as well!

Sarah

[Anita]

How many children are you looking to adopt? My guess is you are hoping for less than three children - and/or - want young toddlers. If this is the case, your will be wait longer. I knew some who waited over two years.

Most likely we used the same facilitator as you are now. Communication during the waiting time was very poor for us too.

You either trust the people who you are working with or you don't. If you don't, I'm not sure you want them involved in expanding your family. If you do trust them, then you have to be patient and play the waiting game.

[Kama]

Anita, nice you visited again! See the other thread with "Soo...". lastpage received her referral a day or two after this thread .

Originally Posted by Anita

How many children are you looking to adopt? My guess is you are hoping for less than three children - and/or - want young toddlers. If this is the case, your will be wait longer. I knew some who waited over two years.

Most likely we used the same facilitator as you are now. Communication during the waiting time was very poor for us too.

You either trust the people who you are working with or you don't. If you don't, I'm not sure you want them involved in expanding your family. If you do trust them, then you have to be patient and play the waiting game.

[lastpaige]

Hi Anita!

Originally we asked for two boys or two girls between 4 and 10. We recently widened those parameters to two siblings between birth and 10 years old.

You are right. Yes, my patience was gone. The facilitator never mentioned that lack of communication during the wait was standard operating procedure. Believe it or not, I was coming full circle, accepting that I was NOT in control, being at peace with trusting what the powers that be were doing. (Sure is hard to do that when they won’t even return an email!)

It’s still annoying, but like childbirth – you tend to forget the pain once you see that baby.