Concurrent adoptions
There has been a lot of questions lately about doing a concurrent adoption while waiting for your referral from China. Some agencies say it’s fine, others say you cannot. Some agencies are saying that it was agreed at the JCICS conference that it is not allowed, while other agencies did not walk away from the conference with that impression.
I got a very interesting email from someone who called agencies asking what their policy is on it. Some of them did not give her an answer at all, but of the 20 who gave her an answer 10 allowed it and 10 did not. Of the 10 who did not, 7 said it was an agency policy (one of which was considering changing the policy), one said the CCAA will not allow it, one said USCIS won’t allow it, and one did not give a reason.
There appears to be some fear out there that since China is trying to whittle down the wait that they might start returning dossiers for any excuse they can find, and that doing a concurrent adoption might be enough of an excuse for them to do so. The agencies allowing it also seem to be afraid that the agencies not allowing it are trying make a stink about that with the CCAA.
With current waits possibly going out three or more years it seems criminal to tell people they must put their families on hold during that time.
This is a very big deal for families. Back when the wait was 6 or 8 months there was probably not much need for the question to come up except in the case of an accidental pregnancy. However, with the current wait times I can’t see that this policy does anything except give agencies a level of control over family building that they should not have. I can understand them possibly wanting there to be 9 months between adoptions since Mother Nature builds that in (except with twins, of course). But to say no, not at all, just seems cruel.
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Thanks RQ for addressing this important issue.
With so many families on edge as it is, this news is really hitting home.
I think the agencies need to really take it upon themselves and get a DEFINITIVE answer.
And how could they tell a family NOT to do an interim adoption if they don’t have that rule carved in stone by CCAA.
Another insult added to injury
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I could see if they said “FROM NOW ON, no families can do this,” but how can they do this to us retroactively? At least the other new rules gave families six months to get their applications in before the change.
I haven’t heard anything from our China-only agency yet, but you can bet I’ll be on the phone first thing tomorrow morning.
We are very close to our Vietnam referral, and while we always knew this was a risky thing to do, I can’t believe we may now lose $10,000 and probably our only opportunity for a second child.
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:22 pm
P.S. I’m wondering if it makes any difference whether you’ve passed the review room or not.
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I met a person who just got her LID for China and is on the waiting child list for her China only agency and they told her that the wait on that list is 2-3 months!!!!! I can’t imagine that is true. Has anyone else been told that info about the WC list?
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I am on the waiting child list for my agency…I have a LID of 7/3 and have been on the list since August. Our agency just got another list of children recently, but I was not matched. They said possibly with the next batch which would probably be August….that would make a year for me. Our agency said that the past list wasn’t very large. I don’t know if the wait times are agency specific. Maybe her agency doesn’t have as many people interested in the waiting child program, they get larger lists, or they are just saying that. It also depends on what type of SN you are willing to take. If you want an infant with a minor, correctable condition of course your wait would be longer. I kind of think it would be difficult to predict the wait times on this. That would be great if it is true!
Marcia
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:29 pm
As to the CCAA’s possible policy regarding concurrent adoptions: Remember, we are dealing with a country that has imposed, or at least, tried to impose a “one child” policy on it own people for many years. Why should anyone be surprised that they may want to impose a kind of one child only policy on us.
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I am surprised that none of the agencies contacted mentioned the CCAA rule regarding youngest child in the home has to be one at the time of adoption (I think) or the rule that there has to be one year between adoptions.
I would think that someone doing an interim adoption MIGHT be in jeopardy of violating one of those rules, though not necessarily.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:01 pm
To my knowledge there is not a rule about there being one year between adoptions, though there is a rule that the youngest child in the home must be one year old.
Can someone point me to a rule about there being one year between adoptions? I have not seen it if it is out there.
You can see the rule about the child being one year old on the State Dept’s page:
http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/intercountry/intercountry_3110.html
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:05 pm
My agency says they are still working out the details of the May 1st new rules as it relates to this, and as these issues come up they are going to CCAA one at a time to discuss what the next steps should be. They are saying it is looking like there may be a 1 year time period between bringing a child into your home after another one comes into your home by May 1. They said not to worry about it though, that they have had no problems with not being able to get a referral yet. Yet is what worries me.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:07 pm
We switched to Vietnam a few months ago and when I first spoke to our large China-only agency, they asked if we would like to keep our file open and our dossier intact to adopt after our Vietnam adoption. I was surprised because I had read on the internet somewhere that China didn’t allow this. We were LID 11/06.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I’ve heard various things about the “one year between adoptions” rule for China. But I never researched it to find out if it is true, because it didn’t really matter to us. Our Vietnam agency and our home study agency both require one year between our adoptions, so it didn’t really matter whether China did, too, or not.
When we started our VN adoption–back last June–we were told we would easily have our child home by Christmas. Here we are almost May and we don’t have a referral yet. So we have pretty much accepted that we would have to put our China dossier on hold for six months for the children to be placed a year apart. I have no problem with that. In fact, I agree it’s good for everyone involved. Though I realized that any “hold” also carried some risk.
Since we don’t qualify under the new China rules, we’re pretty nervous right now. Vietnam has also been very scary. Way too many people trying to adopt from there now, not enough children, and lots of scary stories of unethical things going on.
If this is about trying to space children out, I”m OK with that. But if it means all people adopting from elsewhere in the meantime are somehow considered not worthy to adopt from China now, that will make things very difficult for us, and apparently for lots of people.
I agree that CHina has the right to make up whatever rules they want, but at least in the past they have given families a chance to be grandfathered in under new rules. I can only hope there’s some way to make all this work now too. If not, we’re back to square one and out lots of money.
Seriously, from today’s vantage point, domestic would have been much risky that all this.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Okay- now let’s just hypothetically say that this is rule is going to be in effect… then having a biological child during your wait should also knock you out of the queue. What do you all think? I have only heard rumblings about interim adoptions. But that would not be fair to people that have struggled for years with infertility to only apply it to those that could not have a biological child. For the record- I am one of the mom’s that can in fact have more bio children, but choose to adopt to expand our family. I would just think that if this rule were to be placed ( which I hope it never comes to that)- then they would apply it to all families expanding from adoption or through pregnancy. Once again- what do you all think? And no- this is not a rumor!!!! Just something that popped into my head! :)
LID 5/29/06
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
My large China-only agency told me that the “youngest child needs to be one” was only supposed to apply to those LID after May 1st, 2007. But they also said that they had seen an instance or two where it was applied to a 2005 LID referral.
My agency has a “six months between adoptions” rule, which we would easily meet. They double checked the CCAA “one year between Chinese adoptions” rule and said that they didn’t see that would apply to an adoption from another country. If China did apply the “one year between adoptions” rule to adoptions from other countries, we would meet this AND the “youngest at least one year old” rule.
My agency is not one that would attempt to circumvent or break a CCAA rule. IF this is indeed a rule, it is a new one.
I find it interesting that of the 20 agencies that gave an answer, only one was saying that it was a CCAA rule.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
admom12,
It is possible that a family could be DTC and then get a WC referral within 2-3 months. Our old agency had a very very short waiting list for the WC lists. They got new lists every 2-3 months and everyone waiting was matched, except for the families that only wanted something like birthmarks or very very minor SN’s.
RQ, there is a part in the CCAA rules that says you have to wait for 1 year after the adoption to be DTC for another. But it says nothing about other countries.
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
A person in my agency just completed her domestic adoption (newborn) and should be receiving her China referral any time now … I always wondered about that …
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Right, I’m aware there has to be one year between adoption and sending in another dossier, which at the current wait puts many years between actual China adoptions. But there is no reason to believe that this rule applies to adoptions from other countries or that it would apply to pregnancies.. is there?
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:42 pm
My agency said it would apply to pregnancies too - that there may likely be the rule that there needs to be a year in between bringing each child into your home, by adoption or pregnancy. (I asked this becasue I’m pg right now) So they send all these cases to CCAA for guidance prior to referral.
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I think what is interesting here is what the various agencies are telling their clients. I know if I was told I could do an interim adoption and then the agency later changed their position on that topic I would have a huge problem with that. I am starting to get the feeling that in the end this may be the case.
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Our agency always said that if you get pregnant (yeah, right) then you have to pull your dossier and wait until the child is a year old. They do not allow interm adoptions and our state does not allow us to work with two different agencies at the same time for two different adoptions. Red tape, not read thread!
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I was referring to the CCAA rule of one year between Chinese adoptions. It seems some agencies are interpreting that rule to mean one year between any adoption. And some, as in katydid’s situation, do not. As many have pointed out, different agencies are interpreting this differently. However, it is interesting that of the 20 agencies mentioned in the RQ blog, none of them said anything about that rule or the youngest child must be one year rule.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Red tape is right! I concur with RQ that agencies should not be able to pull the strings in their families’ lives for years on end. It seems unnecessarily controlfreaky, too. Obviously we all have to live with the CCAA rules, but for agencies to shake their heads at the notion of pursuing adoption elsewhere in addition to China… mind-boggling! It is also troubling that agencies are so confused about what China’s rules are…
Our China agency not only blessed our domestic adoption, they did a lot of the paperwork (for a fee of course… but a reasonable one.)
Patti
LID 3/21/06
I Heart RQ
http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22095/28692
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:25 pm
We completed an unexpected interim adoption domestically while waiting for a China referral last year. Our daughter was placed with us in July, and we placed our China adoption on hold in late September (we would have gotten a referral in November otherwise). Our DD’s adoption was finalized in January, and we went off hold at the end of January at the advice of our agency — we all were nervous about how the new rules might affect us. We sent an updated homestudy reflecting the adoption to the CCAA, which notified our agency that our file was moved to the matching room in March. We’re hoping to get a referral in this next batch. So at least before May 1, it doesn’t seem that the “year between any adoptions” applies from CCAA’s standpoint. But I’ll let you know for sure after we get The Call!
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
We too are thinking about an interim Vietnam adoption. We are hearing/reading good things about VN adoptions and then, every now and then, we read something not so good. We are a little nervous about it.
spiritualknitter - I am wondering which agency you are with? Can you PM your Vietnam agency to me?
LID 6.13.06
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Ernabel, I don’t know how to PM you if your name doesn’t link to a website. Feel free to visit mine and comment or leave your address. I’m not unhappy with my Vietnam agency, but the Vietnamese government has changed all their rules midstream as well (with no grandfathering), not to mention that each province has quite a bit of freedom too, and some of them are changing criteria out of the blue. Like I said, it’s much riskier than I initially realized. I do believe the days of quick adoptions of young children from Vietnam are coming to an end. Pretty short-lived for a country that has only been open for about a year or year and a half (after being closed for years because of previous problems.)
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I think with the wait as long as it is now that interim adoptions could easily be spaced out so they are a year apart. I don’t think that the CCAA or agencies should have control over our family planning but I do think it may be in the best interest of the children / families to have adoptions / pregnancies spaced out. I don’t know if a year is appropriate or to long but some spacing to adjust to a new child is appropriate. I have been thinking about this a lot today after reading the chew blog.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I think there needs to be a time for adjustment for each child brought into the home. If you don’t time it just right, you could find yourself with more issues than you are prepared to deal with. Also, if you adopt from one country and the following month have to turn around and go to a whole other country to adopt, can you imagine the stress level? What if the first child has attachment issues?
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
spiritualknitter —
Can you please let me know your URL I would like to chat with you.
Thanks!
M.
LID 01 24 06
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 am
Clicking on my name should bring you to it, but my adoption blog is http://www.dearsamandsophie.blogspot.com. The name Spiritualknitter is from my creative/knitting blog.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:48 am
spiritualknitter - I’m not sure how to visit yours either. Do you post on the forum. If so, you can pm me there. Thanks.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:20 am
OK, this is my last comment on this. I just spoke to my agency and they say this is absolutely not true. The agency that is saying this even acknowledges that it doesn’t come directly from CCAA. And, as several commenters have noted, people have completed domestic adoptions while waiting for China with no problem. Apparently China doesn’t even ask for an updated home study. Only USCIS does. Whew.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 am
My agency says that is we want to switch to another country we have to pull our dossier out of China and our agency covers 7 countries. We are on the waiting children list and are #19 in line(started out #51). We may get a call sometime at the end of the year. LID 8-31-06
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Our agency said the same thing-
Keep in mind that JCICS is an oversite group and they get no more info from CCAA than the agencies do. Many agencies do not even participate with them.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Hi!
I am not sure I exactly know what concurrent adoptions mean, but if it is what I think I can se at least one point in defend of this rule (it may not be a CCAA rule(?) but it is obviously an agency rule sometimes).
I think the risk of parents “turning down” a referral is greater if there has come a new member into the family between application and referral. A lot can have changed in the family, including the decision to have another child. This means that the CCAA has made a lot of administration for no use, and worst case that a child has to spend more months at orphanage while new adoptive parents searched and referred…. Of course this “turning down” can always happen for different reasons, but my guess is that the risk is greater with “concurrent adoptions” (maybe someone have statistics to this?).
/ToAda
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I think it’s such a luxury that my American and Canadian friends can even think about a concurrent adoption! Here in France with the agency my husband and I are with - there is no chance! We had to sign a paper on our honor that we promise not open a dossier in any other country or with any other agency. If this should occur or should a pregnancy occur, our dossier will be immediately pulled. My agency says that this is a requirement from the CCAA. In fact, we had to have this document translated into Chinese, slong with the rest of our dossier. Cheers!
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:38 pm
This is my first time posting. We have a lid of Mar ‘06, and were pulled out after the Review Room box cleared all of March… perhaps someone just forgot to tell us that there were problems. My past health history seems to be a problem, though I am perfectly healthy, had a previous Breast Cancer but did have a pre-approval to adopt from China. We seriously have been waiting to hear about “the verdict”, and I’m petrified that we will be rejected. It’s one month today that we were told we needed to wait for a Doctor to review our paperwork. 5 weeks since we were asked for our Doctor to supply more info, of which a perfect report was sent out. We’re still waiting. Now, if we are approved, I wonder just how much time will actually have been lost, given the current rate of referral. I’ve been considering starting up a Vietnamese adoption, but we have so much money tied up already, and our current agency doesn’t do Vietnam. I’m beside myself with doubts that there will ever be a child for me…. sorry for complaining. I suppose first off, I need to call my agency and just see if they allow concurrent adoption. Then, I’ll worry about the money………. I do feel as though I’m the poster child for the “new rules”, old lid.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I’m interested in the Vietnam agencies too, and don’t know how to pm you.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:42 am
I think you have all been very lucky the past years. In Holland you can start the next procedure 1 year after gotcha-day of the youngest child. Then there is a inquiry of the justice department which will send the report to only one agency. This agency uses this report for only one procedure. So we have a lid of april 10th (2007), but gotcha-day of our daughter was in august 2005. Our first procedure took about 4.5 years and we expect the same for this procedure.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:36 am
GothchaBack,
My heart goes out to you. I thought I would go mental during the wait for the Feb LIDs to clear the Review Room because I have some health issues–I can’t imagine how difficult waiting must be for you. I really hope things work out –with China or elsewhere. I have recently heard stories about people being pulled for additional information in the review room and then being approved and passed to the matching room–if that helps at all. My extended family and friends think that the adoption process was invented by a sadist because of all the setting and re-setting of expectations that goes on.
I have been thinking about doing a concurrent adoption with Korea or domestically. But I am in the same place–money and agency restrictions are a big concern. I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I haven’t posted in a while, but talked to our Vietnam agency today and WE SHOULD BE GETTING OUR REFERRAL FOR OUR SON IN ABOUT 5 WEEKS!!!!!
We are LID 3/06 for China and have had some great advice from friends who adopted previously and that is “Don’t ask…Don’t tell” also known as “better to seek forgiveness then ask permission and be denied”. As you can see by our LID, we were one of those families who had just finished paperchasing when the s**t hit the fan. I would call our agency and they’d give me a bunch of reassuring bull.
Finally early last winter I’d had enough and we looked into other options. Our agency would do concurrent adoptions but their only other alternative was not one that worked for us. We are using a Vietnam only agency for this and decided that although we initially informed our China agency of our desire to do a concurrent adoption, we weren’t going out of our way to keep them informed of our progress. After all, why should we? They don’t seem to want to be bothered by keeping us informed as things went downhill with China!!
So we’re keeping our mouths shut and hoping for the best. At the rate things are going we will have about a year between adoptions anyway, and since originally we intended to adopt twice from China, having it work out this way suits us just fine. Forgive me if I seem unconcerned about inconvienencing the CCAA or our agency, but somehow I can sleep at night with our sins of ommission.
P.S. Our VN agency currently has about a 2 month wait from DTV for assignment of a boy with about 4 month wait to travel.
April 24th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
We got the word today, and have been celebrating EVER SINCE….. we are totally approved……… so, while I relish in that, I’ll wait to see where we end up as far as getting back with our group, but won’t worry about that now……we WERE GRANTED A MIRACLE, and will just think about that for a long while………. then when it’s all said and done….. maybe we’ll look into that baby that may be waiting in Vietnam………. Firstimemom, I may want to talk to you………………… maybe catch you on the Marching Pandas board??????? In the meantime thanks to everyone for their supprt……….
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm
FirstTimeMom:
Congratulations on being so close to a VN referral. Can you PM me the name of the agency you worked with. I would really appreciate it.