Priority List - Questions

Hi ! I can tell you what my husband and I have learned in the past 2 years. When we started the process with the Philippines, we were told that they prayed over the applications and that they really believe that they can match "the perfect child with the perfect family". 2 years ago, the process was going much faster. We were told because we wanted a child of either gender and are childless, it would take about 8-9 months at the most. Well, we have been waiting 15 months since approval with no indication of anything happening. They don't go in order at all. For example, I have been asking our agency lady about the matches through our agency and there have been people waiting a couple of months who were matched. I understand that people wanting just girls, some have been waiting over 20 months since approval!! At our agency, there is a couple who has been waiting for a child up to 5 years old who have been waiting longer than a year and a Filipino woman/Caucasian man waiting almost a year. I have been trying to find out what is causing the delay over there but I haven't been able to get an answer. I keep hearing how wonderful the children are and how great the program is there but if you have a problem waiting and not knowing how long it is going to take, you may want to look into another country.

Hi all! It's me again! One thing I don't think I've mentioned is that the majority of the babies that are in the orphanages aren't even adoptable. Their parent(s) have placed them there for a temporary place to live until they can get on their feet. I feel badly for everyone who is waiting, I know it's hard, I'm just hoping that ours went so fast (10months from approval to picking her up) because of some help we hopefully will be able to provide, which, will in the future (next 1-2 years) be a way to speed up the adoption process from the Philippines. We are working with the directors at ICAB on a process to get them connected faster with all their processes, and connected better to each of the orphanages (there are 38). I hope this helps a little. Jen

Thank you both for your insight. I am sticking with the Philippine program because I know God has a plan for us and He will match us with our little girl at His timing, not ours. I guess I am just trying to figure out a timeline -- my agency said to expect 9 months since I am of Filipino heritage but the comments in this forum website seems to indicate the wait time is much much longer. I was just hoping to get feedback from those who's wait times have been much shorter than the average to see if I could figure how the matches are made. The thought that there is no type of "order" makes me nervous that some people's file may be at the bottom of the pile regardless of the timeline vs those who may be at the top -- makes you wonder. Jen

To put you at ease just a little, I saw their "list" of waiting families, and it is catagorized in order by approval date. Being Filipino just might catch a social workers eye first is all. It also depends on whether or not they have a child available at that age range/gender/etc. When a child is abandoned, they have to go through at least 6 months of court proceedings, to prove that that child has no possible other family to go to/claim them, so sometimes the children are there, and their paperwork is just still in the courts waiting to be finished so they can become "adoptable". Ours was different since they knew James was also adopted, and we were asking to be able to go to the same orphanage. Even with them knowing us, it still took them 3 1/2 months to officially make the match (to get all our paperwork through the different meetings, etc.). Hang in there! It'll happen!!! Jen