I'll start off with where my wife and I are right now.We've decided to adopt a child from Taiwan. We're adopting through Heartsent Adoption in California. Being in NJ, this will probably make some things more difficult and that's becoming obvious. We won't be able to attend the seminars that they have although they will be sending us all of the information from the seminars in binders. We also aren't able to use them for the homestudy obviously. But our research indicated that they're a good agency and they are one of the few doing adoptions through Taiwan.We're doing our homestudy through Better Living Adoption in NJ. We had our first meeting last Sunday. It was pretty short and basic. A tour of the house, some generic questions, etc. We had to send them a bunch of stuff beforehand though about ourselves, income, etc. We also had to get digitally fingerprinted and a background check. Our second visit is tomorrow night and it will be quite a bit lengthier and in-depth. We'll also be questioned one on one. We sent in our adoption application to Heartsent a few weeks ago. It included a lot of the same stuff that we had to give to the homestudy agency but added in letters from our doctors and personal references. This weekend we got a huge package from them breaking down their fees and asking for a whole lot more information. We have to have MUCH more in-depth letters written by our doctors including them checking boxes off of a 3 page checklist. And they have to be notarized. We also have to get letters from our employers confirming employment, compensation, etc. and THEY have to be notarized as well. We also need to build a financial statement for them and THAT has to be notarized as well. We also need to get HIV tests, general blood tests, and a urinalysis.We're a little overwhelmed at the scope of what we have to provide. I guess I can understand it, but after we already sent them a ton of information it's just a little much to swallow all at once.And of course, there's nothing like seeing the breakdown of all the fees and seeing a nice big fat $24K as the total.
We knew that that was the ballpark, but seeing the breakdown of fees and the request for $6200 when we submit all of that info makes it a bit more real. The fact that the ball is rolling pretty fast so far is a little scary as well. It seemed like 12-18 months was pretty standard for the process and now I just read that somebody else using this agency got their kid from Taiwan in 6 months! That's great and all, but we don't have enough saved up right now and planned on the 12 month timetable to have enough saved up. We'll be able to get loans if need be, but that was a little bit of a shock.