When you finally get that all-important call and your baby is being born, it's likely that you'll be leaving your state and going to where the birth mother is giving birth. This is an exciting time! Once you get to the hospital, you will be bonding with baby and spending time with birth mom while she is in the hospital. Once everyone is discharged, you will take the baby to a hotel and wait. After the birth mother has left the hospital, she will meet with an attorney or social worker and sign her relinquishment documents. In some states, this must occur before a judge (requiring some scheduling). This may take a couple of days. Once the documents are signed, your legal representative (attorney or agency) will submit the ICPC paperwork along with your adoption documents and home study to the state ICPC office. This is usually done via fax or overnight mail and is quick. Once the office gets the documents, there are a number of factors that will determine how long it will take them to give approval. Nothing will happen on weekends. In addition, they may (or may not) have a heavy caseload. ICPC officials are usually as prompt as possible in getting to your paperwork and will review it as soon as they can. Once reviewed, if they have questions or concerns, those will be addressed, and then the approval will usually happen within a short period of time. Once you get approval from the "sending" state, where the baby was born, your own "receiving" state, or home state, will also have to review the documents and approve. Again faxing or overnighting the paperwork is generally the method used to expedite things and within 48-72 hours, your own state will likely approve the documents (which have already been approved by the sending state and are merely reviewed).
The total wait time for ICPC could be anywhere from 4 or 5 working days to a couple of weeks, depending upon where weekends and holidays fall, and how many cases are being handled by the state office at that time. This is a time when families get anxious to go home and want to speed things up. While this is understandable, it's not a good idea to try to call the ICPC office yourself, have relatives call, or call your local congressman or senator to intervene on your behalf. This may do more harm than good. There is generally a limited number of staff in the ICPC office (1-3) and they are working as hard as they can to get to everyone. It will only delay their ability to review cases (yours included) if you tie them up on phone calls explaining why they haven't been able to get to your case before.
Once you are cleared to go home, your attorney or agency will call you and let you know. You don't have to be confined to a hotel room in the meantime. You can explore your surroundings and do a little sightseeing or get out and have a nice dinner or lunch together. Remember that this is very valuable time with your newborn. It may be the only quiet alone-time you have to bond. After you get home, you'll have relatives and visitors coming and going and you may wish you had that time back. So, smell the roses (okay so diapers aren't so rosy!) and relax and enjoy the time you have with your newborn. Check out their parts, watch them sleep, photograph them and send e-mails with details! Soon, you'll be back at home and work and there will be no time to just enjoy quiet time gazing at your baby.
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