And as adoptive mom I would say that you must understand that there can be no definitive timing in an adoption..........a rare few are fast but most take longer than you think. In other words, there is no definitive way to plan for a child to be adopted between XX month and XX month.

Wow. Keyboard went mad. We were there at his birth.

For a healthy white baby you'd best start now. Adopted our healthy AA baby within 3 weeks. Had to rush to get homestudy done before he was born. Wherebtherebat his birth.

Oh sorry - PP here. I forgot that you had mentioned that you were definitely decided on an agency, so ignore my points about independent/private adoption. Even with an agency, most of them require you to have a birthmother letter, etc, which will take some time to think about and write.

I agree with other posters - start now. At the very least, get your home study started. It can take a while to get everything done - ours took about three months in all just for scheduling issues, etc. The home study only lasts for one year, but most of it can be easily updated if your adoption takes a bit longer than that.

Then hook up with an agency (if you are doing an agency adoption) or prepare your website and birthmother letter, etc (if you are going the private route). There's a lot of information to gather and thinking about what you will write in your birthmother letter, as well as gathering photos, etc.

Then if you go with an agency, you can always turn down birth mothers if you aren't ready, and if you are going the independent/private route, you can always get all your information together and wait to put it online or advertise.

I would start now OP. The Home study can take up to six months - it took four months for us but I have heard of certain checks (FBI, CPS) can hold things up. We started the Home study process last April, were approved early August. We are still waiting, and we are completely open to sex and ethnicity.

This is 0628, OP call an agency and ask. We used adoptions together. The friend I talked about used the same agency.

I know someone waiting for a white newborn girl, and she has been waiting for 3 years. Some birthmothers will not pick families who specify gender. they want to choose a family who will love any baby, and are turned off by the request, even f they are carrying a boy.

I would start now. We have an AA daughter we adopted domestically and it took just over a year. Friends of ours live in a more rural area and wanted a white baby, Theres only took about 2 months longer than ours.
Once you have done everything you are put in the waiting pool of parents. It sounds bad but you can also turn babies down. We turned down one because we felt we weren't quite ready and another one because of alcohol and drug use by the mother.

It is political correctness gone crazy when you feel you have to apologize for wanting to adopt a baby who looks like you.

We have a 3 month old. Due to medical reasons we will be adopting domestically our next child. And we plan on asking for a white female newborn (please don't flame, we have our reasons). We are planning on using a national agency. I'd like to get her when DS is 18-30 months old. When should we start our process? And should we start with the home study?

Thank you!