32 OCTOBER 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL lives, including plans made six months before to travel to Rio de Janeiro for New Year’s Eve, meeting friends there from Indonesia. We had long before booked our plane tickets and made our hotel reservations. We arrived at Dulles International Airport that Saturday morning, full of anticipation. Then I noticed that the airline staff member checking us in appeared flustered. She anxiously searched through our passports, page by page. Uh-oh. We had no visa and realized, painfully, that we would not be able to obtain one on arrival in Rio. We did some research online, and I called the airline’s main reservation number. We decided to change our ticket to the afternoon flight to Panama, stay there until at least Monday, when we could try and obtain the Brazilian visa, and then proceed to Rio. En route, we watched movies, had a good meal, and arrived in Panama at about 9 p.m. We planned to let our friends at the G et your first home study done as soon as you begin to seriously consider adopting. C arefully think through how you will manage if a child is placed with you on no notice. How much leave could you take? Talk with HR and explore potential options. I f you will need childcare outside the home, try to get on a waiting list as soon as you seriously consider becoming an adoptive parent. Waiting lists can be years long. But spots open up, unexpectedly, so keep checking in periodically with childcare centers. If you are based in the U.S., and the adoption placement occurs in another state, it can take about two weeks to get the requisite clearances to bring the child home. It is possible for an adoption placement in the U.S. to occur while you are posted overseas. Make sure to plan, though, to be in the U.S. for at least four weeks after the birth of the child. Four weeks is about the earliest that the Bureau of Medical Services can issue a medical clearance for a newborn. I t is possible for adoption finalization to take place while you are overseas, via telephone or video. The adoption process can be lengthy, but you and your children will find each other. —C.B. Things I Learned: Tips for Prospective Adoptive Parents Our social worker advised us to go about our lives as normal. U.S. embassy there know we were unexpectedly in town, and try to see if they would be available to get together. We planned to visit the Panama Canal. We would still have a vacation and enjoy ourselves, we resolved. We started getting ready for bed and decided to quickly check Facebook and email before turning in. I saw a message from one of our friends to call the adoption matchmaker right away. We called, and the matchmaker calmly advised us that she was glad we had done so. A birth mother had just delivered earlier that day, decided to place the healthy baby boy for adoption, and had chosen us to raise the child. There were only 10 minutes until the hospital’s phones would be cut off for the night; the birth mother’s cell phone had run out of juice. Did we want to proceed? Yes. b Ted and I hadn’t planned to parent a second child, though we hadn’t ruled it out. Our son was about 11 months old when we received word from the adoption agency that his birth mother was again pregnant, this time with a girl, and wanted us to raise that child, as well. The adoption agency told us that they thought the birth mother would give us some time to absorb the news and get back to her. …We did. At last, we had found our Lucy, and our family was complete. n
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