Adoption: Starting the Process

In a previous post (one from our India Trip I believe) I said that I would post some of the details of the start of our adoption process. Not much has actually happened since then, but I can post what I know as of right now.

When we were in India we went to an orphanage in Hyderabad, which is where Narasimha is from. We didn't actually expect to find anything out about our own potential adoption while we were visiting. Narasimha actually told the lady on the phone that we weren't interested in adopting right now, because if we would have told her we were, she likely wouldn't have let us come. And, he didn't lie to her - we were just going to check it out as maybe something to look into down the line, and see if the facility was someplace we could see taking a child out of and into our home. However, somehow when we were there, Narasimha started asking hypothetical questions about the process, and they ended up turning a little personal to our potential situation. I think the lady must have known we weren't trying to pull a fast one on her, so she was willing to answer all of our questions and turned out to be very helpful. I think they try to steer clear of foreigners thinking they can show up one day and walk out with a baby the next or something. Some of the things we learned from her (some of this might be a repeat from a previous post - sorry):
-There are restrictions on age, couple status, etc., of people who want to adopt. None of these restrictions should be a problem for us.
-First priority for placement goes to resident Indians; second priority goes to non-resident Indians; third priority goes to anyone else of any other nationality who meets other criteria. We would get to use Narasimha's non-resident Indian status (NRI) and be "second priority."
-The orphanage gets something like 9,000 applications for adoption a year.
-The waiting time to get a healthy baby is something like 2-5 years, depending on your priority status and the gender of child you want. I think that might be from the time the application is received or processed, but it could be from the time the homestudy is approved - I'm not sure.
-If you get a baby, you could have the baby as early as 3 months old, or even earlier.
-Children who come to the orphanage later than newborn, or babies or children with medical issues, are harder to adopt out. If a couple is willing to take an older child, or one with medical issues, they will put you on the fast-track for your homestudy and you could have a child within 6 months. These medical "issues" could range from mental retardation, to unfixed cleft palate, to heart defects, to umbilical hernias, etc.

That's sort-of the general information that comes to mind - now here's where we are:
-We have to fill out a packet of information and do some things and send it all in. Our packet then goes to a place in New Delhi to the national government for sorting and processing. Someone from the Indian Government who is here in the US (I think) will then contact us and set up a time to do a homestudy.
-I have called the US Government and left a message with someone about what we would need to do to get paperwork for the child to be able to enter the country. I think we might have a good situation here as far as N and I having different nationalities: we can get a baby faster from India through him, and we can get the baby into the States easier through my American citizenship. I have not yet heard back from them.
-I am not sure if I need to contact an adoption lawyer, although right now I haven't and don't see any reason to. Everything we have right now we can easily do on our own, and since the child would be coming from and Indian orphanage, I don't think we will have placement or custody issues - I am pretty sure the biological parents, when the child goes to the orphanage, relinquish their parental rights. And once we have it in the States, I don't think they could fight to get it back anyways.
-We have not yet decided what we want in a child. I know we don't care about gender (you don't get to pick that if it comes out of you). We have some serious talking and praying to do regarding the age and potential medical problems we are willing to accept. This is no light matter, and we want to be sure we are informed, but also let God lead us and not scare too easily. So many of the medical "issues" could be fixed with a surgery (simple or very complex) that a child might not be able to have in India, and I am not sure I am willing to disregard a child who has something wrong with him or her that could very well happen if we had a child biologically. We have also talked about the possibility of getting an older child (and our limit would likely be around 4 years old) because there is still a chance we could get pregnant. If we adopted an older child, and then got pregnant, there would still be some gap in our children's ages (which is what I would prefer).
-Praise the Lord! I actually called our insurance company today for something unrelated, and while I had the lady on the phone I decided to ask about how adopting a child with a known medical issue might affect coverage on that child under the presumption of "pre-existing condition" - that was one of the issues we decided we'd need to know about before accepting a child with a medical problem. She didn't know, so I got transferred around a bit, but the final answer I was given was that they would pay for anything, even in an older child, as they would if you birthed or adopted a newborn, keeping in mind our deductible and out-of-pocket max, etc. This is a HUGE blessing and quite encouraging, and I really think the insurance company is doing a good thing here that they wouldn't necessarily have to.
-I am not sure how little or much we will know about the child's past, family medical history, etc. We forgot to ask until now but I am sure there will be opportunities in the future.
-As I understand it, if we decided to go with an older child or one with medical issues, we could be parents by the end of 2008 :)

That's basically the gist of it - I have to get busy and get some paperwork and other things going. Then, I have to clean the house and get ready for the homestudy. And, as I said before, we have some serious praying and thinking to do regarding the aforementioned issues. God will lead, of that I am confident. I just want to be sure that we invite God into every step of this process. Please feel free to ask any questions if you have them. And we would very much appreciate your prayers for wisdom and discernment as we begin this very exciting journey!