I just had to post. I figured I wouldn't be posting our adoption journey for a while yet, and I guess I'm wrong!
We'd been told that we'd have to be in Idaho for 6 months (we arrived like the 29th of April) before we could be on the waiting list to adopt through an agency here. Our local social worker thought that strange, as they accept out of state families for placement, and the news is good!
From what I can gather, they will go ahead and accept us on the list with our old homestudy, and update before our first six months are done. We'll just qualify as an out-of-state family until our renewal on our homestudy! From what I understand, we're looking at $100 to apply, and then $3,500 to become active on their waiting list. They keep 15 families on their list, all 15 families have a Dear Birthmom letter that I guess I need to get busy writing, and the birthmom chooses the family she wants for her baby. Most families wait less than 18 months, but there is not a guarantee, of course. Birthmoms can choose any family, regardless of how long or short they've been on the list!
We don't exactly have the money lying around, but do have $ owed us from a project we've been working on, so hope we'll be paid soon, and in full, so we'll be able to get on the list. I'm going to be looking at some other Dear Birthmom letters to get an idea of what others have done. We can pretty much make it however we want.
So, that is our update!
Andy