Why does it take so long?

I have been in the adoption process since January, 2008. People often wonder why it takes so long. What they may not realize is the large number of steps, and the amount of time, effort, and bureaucractic procedure involved in this process. Although prospective parents find this frustrating, it is not altogether unexpected when you consider what is involved: transferring the care and legal guardianship of a child from an institution in one country to a complete stranger in another.

In January, 2008 I filled out an application and put my name on the adoption list for Kazakhstan with my Canadian adoption agency. The next step was to hire a social worker to conduct a home study, which in my case took two months, although for some people this takes six months or even a year. The home study is quite demanding and includes: answering a series of essay questions (this took me 12 single-spaced, typewritten pages), completing a long series of questionnaires, four two-hour interviews with a social worker, a home inspection, a medical including blood tests, TB skin test, and completion of forms for both the Ontario government and the foreign government, fingerprinting followed by criminal record checks for every country one has lived in for over a year (I had to get documents from the RCMP, the FBI, and the French police), city police check for one’s own city, child welfare checks for every city lived in within Canada, financial statement, employment letter, statement about arrangements made for guardianship, four letters of reference from friends and family, and other assorted paperwork. Then there is the 27 hour, mandatory training course for all prospective adoptive parents (called PRIDE), which has to be completed before the social worker can write the home study report (I did this over three weekends). The report is then submitted to the Ontario Ministry for approval, which in my case took eight weeks. During this time, I compiled my dossier for Kazakhstan, which contained many of the above materials but also a photo essay about myself, my neighbourhood, and my family and friends, as well as other assorted paperwork. Once my file was approved by the Ministry, all of this paperwork had to be notarized, reviewed and stamped by Foreign Affairs, and translated into Russian. (New regulations caused my file to subsequently be resent to the notary and Foreign Affairs; the latter had to stamp every page, and apparently had a bureaucratic rule that they would only stamp 20 pages per day!) My file then had to be bound and wrapped in a special ribbon (no kidding) before being sent to the Kazakhstan Embassy. In the meantime, I applied to Immigration and Citizenship Canada to sponsor my future child to enter the country. All of the above took from January until August, 2008.

At this point, the true waiting began. While I had been told that my file could expect to be at the Kazakhstan Embassy for one to two months before it was authenticated and passed on to the authorities in Astana, Kazakhstan, it in fact did not leave the country until March 12, 2009. It then took until June to be forwarded to the local city from which I will adopt, Almaty. In August, I was told to get a new passport ‘in a hurry’ because they wanted to issue me a Letter of Invitation (which is normally followed quickly by travel to Kazakhstan). In November, I am still waiting, knowing that any day I could be told to be in Kazakhstan on as little as two to three weeks notice.

There is nothing unusual about delays in the transnational adoption process. I know people who have been waiting for far longer than I have. We constantly revise our plans, renegotiate with our employers (much of the travel overseas, which can occur on short notice, has to occur before official parental leave can begin). I thought I might travel as early as March 2009, but now I imagine it will be 2010. I find this far less frustrating than some, and generally take it in stride. The inability to plan ahead is, nevertheless, a challenge.