To Lori

Originally Posted By MichelleLori,Well here is my take on the process, and we have one from Romania already & working on another:The adoption process starts with selecting a home study agency. A home study is nothing more then a complete investigation into all your previous and current activities, including the following:Criminal Background CheckPhysical Abuse & Neglect to a Child or SpouseSexual Abuse to a Child or SpouseInfertility Investigation (has it been resolved - level of treatment)Finger Print CheckLocal Criminal CheckMental Health AssessmentFinancial AssessmentWork History InvestigationIndividual InterviewFamily InterviewInspection of your homeYou will also have to write an auto-biography about how you feel about your life from birth until current. The auto-biography and all the items listed above will need to be conducted for every member of your household. (Criminal for all over 18 years old). Usually the fees associated with the home study range about $1,400 - $3,000 depending on the number of persons living in your home.The next two steps run hand in hand. Select your placing agency (I would strongly recommend not using one agency to do the home study and placement because if you dislike them or they dislike you it makes things difficult. We have friends that had this happen.)The next step is to contact INS to obtain the I-600A to have an agency start the search and placement of a foreign born child in your home and Interpol fingerprints for a word wide criminal search. (INS has a $405 fee for the I-600A and $25.00 fee for each set of finger prints.) In some cases your local town will not be able to perform the CCBI fingerprints for INS and you might have to drive to a larger city or appear at the INS office in your state. Once the appointment is set, you can not reschedule it or break the appointment without putting your approval at the bottom of the pile to be re-assigned a new appointment date. When the home study is complete and INS is approved, you will receive an I-171 form that shows you are approved to adopt from a specific country and a specific age range. The I-171 cable allows the agency and or foundation in the other country to act on your behalf for placement and adoption proceedings. Selecting a placing agency is the most difficult because they all tell you that they can deliver. When I was researching adoptions, I checked out the eeac (www.eeac.org) to see who was placing the youngest children and emailed their references. I would urge you to do the same. Each placing agency has their own fees and they vary from place to place and age to age. If you are looking for a price range, plan on about $25,000 total and then travel fees which could take it to around $30,000. Our son's adoption fees were around $30,000 total with Travel. When I selected our placing agency, I looked for the following:The responsiveness to my calls prior to signing upThe willingness to tell me the name of the foundation they are working with in Romania.How many adoptions they have processed successfullyHow many adoptions they failed to processHumanitarian aid to the countries they work in and the ones they do not.Their ability to get updated photos, videos, medical information while you are waiting Their foster care plans for children that are referred.We used Carolina Adoptions for Sam's adoption and had a good experience. We are adopting a second baby, and are using Cherished Children International Adoptions. They are getting referral of really young babies and all are in foster care. Our daughter was referred very quickly and we are looking forward to an update at the end of July. They are responsive, nice, helpful and will work with you every step of the way. Our costs with Cherished Children will be about $30,000 with travel too. The difference between the two agencies are very distinct. Carolina gets referrals of 6 month olds and up, limited updates during the process, additional fees in excess of $2,000 for foster care if it is available - above and beyond the approx. $30,000. With Cherished Children the foster care fees for the first 4 months are included in the $total costs. If you are looking at taking a loan out for the process, contact your mortgage company and try for a home equity line of credit that way you can write the checks as needed & write the interest off on your taxes. :-) Here are some really useful links about adoption: (INS) (lifebooks links - regular baby books don't work well)Please feel free to email with questions. I fully understand where you are coming from. It's a tough choice and I can tell you that Cherished Children is awesome to work with.Regards,Michelle Goff