New Timeframe

When we first started the adoption process in April 2012, we thought we would be bringing our child home in the spring of 2013. This was based on our agency's expected timeframe and from the timelines of other families who had recently adopted from Congo. Then our home study took longer than it should have, so we mentally pushed back our travel date to the summer. Not too long after that our agency told us that the wait times for a referral are taking longer due to the increased popularity of the Congo program and the new requirement of the birth mothers to testify in court in Kinshasa before the orphans are available for adoption. So, we then estimated we might travel sometime around October. We have just recently been notified that there is now an additional delay of 3-6 months while the U.S. Embassy in Congo completes the orphan status investigation. We probably will not be travelling to Congo to pick up our child until January- March 2014.

When we first applied for adoption, we thought this process would only take one year. It has now been 10 months since we started and it looks like we may have a whole other year to go. (This is not even counting the two years we spent waiting before we even began the adoption process, due to financial constraints.) It is very disheartening. I was so looking forward to having our child home for Christmas. The only thing that kept me from being all- out depressed last Christmas was telling myself that it would be the last one without our baby. We really don't know when we will be able to bring our child home, but the chances of it being by this December don't look so good anymore. It is very aggravating to have already done all of this work and waiting and know we still have more ahead of us than what we have already gone through.

I guess it could be worse. At least the Congo adoption program is still open; it is just taking longer. Russia, on the other hand, has suspended adoptions with the U.S. I can't imagine the emotions that the families who already have referrals are going through. It touches our hearts pretty closely because for a long time we were planning on adopting from Russia. That could have been us right now. I suppose it is better to be where we are than to be matched with a child and then have the government close adoptions.

{sigh} I just have to keep faith that we will get there eventually.