Q & A

We have been seeing a common round of questions so I thought I would share them :)

Q: What age are you looking for? Boy/girl?
A: To the adoption house in Colombia, we have to say that we are willing to accept a child up to 36 months. But we are able to request the youngest possible (since this is our first child, we would like them to be as young as possible so we can experience as much of the infant stage as we can). We have been told that babies have been referred as young as three months, and it is common for our request to receive a baby within three to nine months old. I would tell you that I would love either a boy or a girl, Nate would tell you he would like a boy! I think as we get closer we might be able to state a preference but i am not sure on that.

Q: What is the time frame looking like?
A: I have no idea. Honestly! We are expecting it to take another two months to get our dossier together (not on our part, it takes time for government approvals) and then ? We have heard that there are a lot of children at the adoption houses, but there are also families in front of us (and only two can apply to an adoption house at a time) so once our dossier is submitted it could be six months or it could be well over a year.

Q: Why did you choose Colombia?
A: Countries have requirements for adoptive parents (such as age, length of marriage, even body fat percentage) so that narrows it down (ha! i didnt even try to do that). And then some countries only have older or special needs children available, and some of the wait times can be quite long. We wanted a short wait and a young child, and it was basically Colombia and Ethiopia that we felt comfortable with. To give you the short version, we felt that a child from Colombia would "fit in" best with our families and in our community, we love Latin American culture, and we appreciated things like the level of care in the orphanages, as well as other reasons.

Q: How soon will you get to travel?
A: I believe that most families travel once they get a referral within about 4-6 weeks.

Q: How long will you be in Colombia?
A: We will be in the country for somewhere around six weeks- we need to stay in the country during the adoption process. The exciting part is that on the first day, we get to take the baby with us, they don't stay at the adoption house! Most families stay at a hotel with other adoptive families- and the hotel will cook, clean, and do our laundry. We are allowed to travel within the country so are planning on spending time experiencing the culture, etc. I know six weeks might sound like a long time in a foreign country to some, but I am elated. I will miss home and our family and friends, but I know it will be a great opportunity to get to bond with our child and learn more about their culture instead of getting right back on a plane and flying back home.
Right now we are  planning on Nate being there for the first two weeks and then going back home, he is hoping then to come back towards the end again so we can travel home as a family.

Q: Can people come visit?
A: Yes, whoever would want to is welcome! And especially if you speak Spanish :)

Q: Where is Colombia again?
A: Ha, yes Colombia is in South America, but is the most NW country, bordering Panama. Apparently it is within the same time zone as Michigan so that is awesome. And someone told us it is only about a 5 hour plane ride (from somewhere in the southern US).

Q: What is the "training" you have to do?
A: Most of the training has to do with potential adoption issues: grief/loss that the child experiences, attachment issues, potential medical issues, becoming a multi-racial family, etc.

Keep the questions coming!