Waiting on Wait Times

Wait times for healthy infant girls are increasing for families adopting from Ethiopia through our agency. Wait times for families adopting through other agencies have apparently not increased as significantly.

Our agency, AGCI, seems to have stable referral rates regardless of the number of families on the wait list, so as the wait list grows, the wait time increases. Other agencies seem to increase their referral rates as their wait lists grow. Through conversations with a variety of people, we have pieced together the following possible explanation. (If you have additional or different information, please let me know!)

Background. In Ethiopia, there are licensed orphanages and licensed adoption agencies. Orphanages provide long-term care for orphaned, relinquished and abandoned children, advocating on behalf of the child, while agencies facilitate adoptions, advocating on behalf of the adoptive family. Before a child is eligible for adoption, their file must be in order, and their status carefully documented and confirmed.

AGCI Referral Process. AGCI works closely with only one or two orphanages. These orphanages have been carefully selected, based in part on their standards of care and ethics, and their staff receive additional training from our agency.

As the orphanage identifies children in its care who are eligible for adoption, it contacts AGCI. If AGCI believes that it can place the child with an adoptive family, it accepts the child into its care at its transition home, Hannah's Hope.

At Hannah's Hope, each child receives nutrition, medical care and individual attention (the ratio of caregivers to infants is 1:3). Every family who has brought their child home from Hannah's Hope says the same thing: the special mothers LOVE the children, and it shows in everything they do.

Depending on the child's condition and age, AGCI may refer the child to a family within days, weeks or months; AGCI works with the child to help him/her get healthy prior to referral. If a child has special needs, AGCI will match him/her with a family that is open to and equipped to assist that particular child. A child is never referred to a family until he/she is in care at Hannah's Hope.

All of this diligence and care takes time.

Other Agencies' Referral Process. In contrast, other agencies may visit dozens of orphanages to proactively identify children who fit the parameters of their waiting families, referring children to families straight from orphanages, with no interim transition home like Hannah's Hope.

One upside to this approach is that children and families are matched much faster: there is "one less" waiting child today, rather than tomorrow or next month. The downsides may include a longer wait time between referral and "gotcha day," as a child's paperwork may not be in order because the orphanage staff is not properly trained. In addition, children may not receive the same level of care, either before referral (which may lead to unidentified needs), or after referral (which may lead to children being malnourished and with more temporary health challenges when families bring them home).

Point of View. As a waiting family frustrated with the wait times, I find myself almost jealous of families adopting through other agencies who started the process after us and have already returned home with their children. I know, however, that the day we receive a referral I will be grateful that (a) it is less likely that my daughter has unidentified special needs that we are not prepared for, (b) she is, on that very day, receiving exceptional care, love and attention in my absence, and (c) the referral-to-gotcha-day timeline will not be extended because of inadequate paperwork. As tough as the wait is now, after I have her photo and know her name, the wait will be all the more unbearable, and the care that she is receiving in the meantime will be all the more precious.

For now, I have concluded that there is no "right" or "wrong" approach to referrals because the end goal is the same: uniting families to serve the child, bless the parents, and change the world.