Court Hearing

I mentioned earlier that March 29th is our court hearing date. Depending on how you look at it (with the date line), that is either today or tomorrow. This initial hearing takes place in a Taiwan District Court; the judge on our case will review our homestudy as well as information regarding the birth family. A representative from the Taiwanese agency that our US adoption agency is working with will be at court to represent us. We may not hear anything, unless a problem turns up. Hopefully not! The usual progression after a first hearing is for the judge to make an initial ruling on the case within 2-6 weeks. The final ruling follows no sooner than 10 days after the first ruling, giving members of the birth family an opportunity to change their minds. After the final ruling, the Taiwanese agency will make an appointment for us at the AIT (American Institute in Taiwan, the defacto embassy) and let us know when we can come pick up our daughter.

Who by then will be our daughter, as she isn't yet. One of the things we liked about the Taiwan adoption program is that there will likely be some opportunity to meet the birth mother. And as mentioned above, she can still change her mind. That happened earlier this week to a family who recieved their referral in January. First they were told there would be a hearing at the end of April, and less than a week afterwards that when informed of the hearing date, the birth mother decided she wanted to mother this child after all. I'm glad that option exists, since I would be very sad to find out years later that our daughter's birth mother had quickly regretted her initial decision to relinquish, but was unable to reclaim her child. But it does leave a small degree of uncertainty in the process, and makes these court milestones more than symbolic.

One of the great things about adopting in the Internet Age is the wealth of information available from other adoptive parents. Many other PAPs (Prospective Adoptive Parents) have blogs, and there are multiple online groups where people share news and information. Incredibly valuable are the timelines that people post, giving some indication on how long the different stages of the adoption can last. Going through the last two years of information, it looks like there is a 50% chance we could have our AIT appointment by June 5th, an 80% chance we will have her home by the end of June. Of course that leaves the 20% chance that we're waiting impatiently into July. So it is all moving along, and we're looking forward to Hsiu-Wen coming home.