On Thursday night we participated in the online seminar that a multi-country agency was hosting. This was the same agency who had the technical glitch in getting us signed up for the seminar. It was a pretty basic, "this is who we are, this is how each country program works, this is why we're really great and you should hire us." They were very upfront about wait times, things that would disqualify you from certain countries, etc. One person did all the talking while a second person answered questions people typed to her during the conference.
I typed a question about their Taiwan program. You see, the US State Department doesn't list any requirements for the length of marriage when adopting from Taiwan, so any requirements seem to be agency-specific. Most agencies seem to want adoptive parents to be married at least two or three years, and they seem to prefer couples who've been together for longer than that. Hubby and I have been married for three years, but we've been together for five. This particular agency stated that couples were required to be married for five years. Now, I KNEW this was an agency requirement and not a Taiwan requirement, and I knew from the talk the agency rep was giving that Taiwanese birthmothers, who are involved in the selection of adoptive parents, prefered educated couples who'd never been divorced, who were financially stable and who only had one or two children in the home. Well, that's us!
I typed in a question directly to the agency rep explaining that we'd been married three years, together for five, both had college degrees, owned our own home, had never been previously married, and had only one child. Would they approve us for Taiwan? She typed back a few minutes later, YES, we would approve you. I asked if they could do some sort of pre-approval process, because I didn't want to go to the time and expense of compiling a dossier only to have it rejected in Taiwan. She wrote back that it was not a problem - they would approve us based on our application, and we would not have anything to worry about.
I left the web conference feeling pretty good about the agency and their programs, but I still had a lot of questions that needed to be answered, so I called back the next day and left a message for the woman who'd done all the talking on the conference the night before. She called me back and addressed me by the wrong name. She claimed to have misheard my phone message. I thought it was strange, but I put that aside.
I asked about the Taiwan program and said something about how we'd been married for three years. She immediately broke in and told me that we didn't qualify for the program. I was a bit taken aback and explained that her colleague had told us last night that we most certainly DID qualify. She cut me off and said, "oh, no, she is totally mistaken. I don't know why she would tell you that. I'll have to have a talk with her. But regardless, you don't qualify, so Taiwan isn't an option for you." I gritted my teeth for a moment and said that I understood that this was an agency requirement, not a country requirement, and she cut me off again to insist (incorrectly) that no, this was a country requirement.
Okay, moving on... I asked about their China program and discovered that it is extremely small. China is at the top of our list right now for country programs, and we want an agency that has a strong Chinese adoption program. But, I figured that while I had her on the phone, I could at least ask some general questions about Chinese adoption, the paperchase, travel, etc. It went downhill from there.
I asked how many times we'd need to redo our I-600A, as the USCIS paperwork is only valid for 18 months. It costs $545 to file your I-600A and another $140 for both parents to be fingerprinted. Add in a couple hundred more for a homestudy update (required by USCIS), and you're looking at $1000 or so just to redo the USCIS paperwork. She insisted that we didn't have to redo it, we could just get a renewal for a small fee. Now, I've talked to probably two dozen families online in the past few weeks, all of whom have just redone their I-600A. They have all told me that 1) there is NO renewal process with the USCIS. You HAVE to redo the I-600A to get your 171-H and 2) You HAVE to pay the $545 fee plus the $140 to be re-fingerprinted. I told agency lady that I was pretty sure it was going to cost us $1000 to get a new 171-H, and for budgeting purposes, I was trying to figure out whether we'd have to redo it once or twice. She got snippy and said that she'd been working in international adoption for years and was CERTAIN that we could renew the paperwork, and that it would not cost anywhere near what you pay the first time you do the USCIS paperwork. Um, okay. I don't care how long she's been working in international adoption, she's wrong.
She said during the online web conference that the wait time for a referral from China was not likely to increase to more than two years. I asked her about that, and she said, "oh, well, it could change, but we don't think it will get longer than that." I said, "Really? Could you share with me why you think that? I really don't want to wait too long for a referral, but just based on the calendar and where CCAA is now with LIDs, we figured that they'd have to refer three weeks of LIDs per batch every month until they hit August 2008... and if they do that, we'd have a wait of almost THREE years." She stumbled around that question a lot, and it was obvious that she knew very little about her own agency's Chinese adoption program. Honestly, I think I knew more than she did.
I asked a few more questions, and our exchange was polite. At the end of the conversation, she thanked me for calling, and as she said goodbye, she called me by a second wrong name.
It was a very strange experience, and needless to say, we scratched that agency off our list pretty quickly!