As I mentioned in my previous post, it was important for us to identify a country and an agency almost simultaneously. The two go hand in hand like Peanut Butter & Nutella or Peanut Butter & Ice Cream or Peanut Butter and Chocolate (Yes, I like Peanut Butter). You can eat them by themselves, but they taste so much better with their companion. On the adoption journey, you don’t want to walk too far ahead once you have chosen a country or agency.
Each country has qualifications that are specific to that country. Your level of income may not be enough for some countries. With other countries you might have too big of a family. For other countries you must be married for a certain number of years. I recommend that you identify a few countries to adopt from before deciding on a country.
We went through a 3-4 week process of identifying our country. During this time, we kept a list of 2-3 countries that we were interested in adopting from. We then identified and interviewed agencies that worked in those countries. We went through 3-4 countries before making our final decision.
Ultimately, we chose to adopt from Costa Rica while choosing to go through Lifeline. As with the other countries, we were cautiously optimistic as we waited to hear back from our initial application to ensure that we met the requirements.
We chose Costa Rica for several reasons…
- We discovered that we were drawn to a Latin America country.
- PANI (Child Welfare Agency) takes great care of vulnerable children.
- It was on the quicker side of the 18-36 month adoption process.
- They take the attachment and bonding process very seriously.
- They work quickly with families if they are a match for "waiting children."
So now what? We are currently ready to begin our home study process. Since Lifeline is not licensed in the state of Indiana, we must choose a Hague Accredited (more on this in a future post) agency to process our home study. Based upon great referrals we chose to go with Gateway Woods.
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