We are officially on the waiting list with our agency. We are number 6! I am so excited. We have been told to expect a referral within 4 weeks with travel (if we accept) two weeks after. Which means we should be in Russia the end of May or first part of June. I am trying to stay calm and not panic, boy do we have work to do!!
We got the bulk of our dossier sent off to the Florida Department of State for apostilling and they should be to our agency the end of next week. Our hold up may be US immigration but everyone keeps telling us that will pan out in the end. You call when you have travel dates for trip 2 and they rush it through for you.
I will post as soon as we get our referral!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Some great news early in the game
Our last home study visit went great on Monday evening. I really like our social worker, I think we could end up great friends in the end. We turned in to her all of our paperwork that she needs from us. She is waiting on our background checks to come in and then can finish things up. Hopefully it will be done within a couple of weeks.
We got our contract and dossier package on Monday from our adoption agency. Of course I dive right in to it to get it done as fast as humanly possible. I gave our social worker the list and examples of what is needed from the home study agency on Monday night. I then worked on it until late trying to get a head start. On Tuesday I called our agency to ask some questions, while I was at it I asked how long for a referral. I was quoted a month or so for a boy. Oh my gosh. I sent our contract in on Tuesday and they should have it by the first of next. Which would put our referral in May, best case scenario. I have a ton to do before then. I am in gathering paperwork mode and plan to send our first package to the Secretary of State on Monday for the Apostille. We should have our psychologist and MD appoints done the first of the week along with our CPA paperwork. We had a friend offer to do the CPA portion of things. And a friend of a friend agreed to do the psychologist portion in a hurry for us.
Anyway the great part of all of this is that we should be traveling for trip one and two in the summer months and have our little guy home by fall. I am trying to stay grounded in case something happens and we start encountering delays. This is always very possible with international adoption especially Russia. I keep thinking I am misunderstanding things. I will be nervously asking again, however this is the second time they have told me. I just can't believe it.
I have to get a crib by the weekend so I can take pictures to send with our package. We also have to buy a camera to take pictures with. Our pastor and his wife are graciously donating a crib to us. I haven't seen it yet so I hope it will work in the nursery we have planned. The nursery will be firetrucks in case any of you had any doubt. Ok, I am off to do my real work so I have time to get my dossier done! I probably need to take a day off of work to work on it all. Maybe Monday that will give me the weekend to do what I can at home and Monday to hit the notary, maybe one of my darling friends. Great thing about being in the legal field.
We got our contract and dossier package on Monday from our adoption agency. Of course I dive right in to it to get it done as fast as humanly possible. I gave our social worker the list and examples of what is needed from the home study agency on Monday night. I then worked on it until late trying to get a head start. On Tuesday I called our agency to ask some questions, while I was at it I asked how long for a referral. I was quoted a month or so for a boy. Oh my gosh. I sent our contract in on Tuesday and they should have it by the first of next. Which would put our referral in May, best case scenario. I have a ton to do before then. I am in gathering paperwork mode and plan to send our first package to the Secretary of State on Monday for the Apostille. We should have our psychologist and MD appoints done the first of the week along with our CPA paperwork. We had a friend offer to do the CPA portion of things. And a friend of a friend agreed to do the psychologist portion in a hurry for us.
Anyway the great part of all of this is that we should be traveling for trip one and two in the summer months and have our little guy home by fall. I am trying to stay grounded in case something happens and we start encountering delays. This is always very possible with international adoption especially Russia. I keep thinking I am misunderstanding things. I will be nervously asking again, however this is the second time they have told me. I just can't believe it.
I have to get a crib by the weekend so I can take pictures to send with our package. We also have to buy a camera to take pictures with. Our pastor and his wife are graciously donating a crib to us. I haven't seen it yet so I hope it will work in the nursery we have planned. The nursery will be firetrucks in case any of you had any doubt. Ok, I am off to do my real work so I have time to get my dossier done! I probably need to take a day off of work to work on it all. Maybe Monday that will give me the weekend to do what I can at home and Monday to hit the notary, maybe one of my darling friends. Great thing about being in the legal field.
Friday, April 6, 2007
The Russian Adoption Process
1. Home Study with a local adoption agency. Time frame for ours is 6 weeks, started in March of 2007, hopefully it will be completed by May 1st.
2. USCIS I600A. This is the immigration paperwork that ultimately leads to approval by US government to adopt your child and make them a US citizen. Time frame for our USCIS office is eight weeks upon completion of home study. Initial application March of 2007, eight weeks starts once home study is submitted.
3. Dossier to Russian government. This is the time consuming portion. It is a compellation of paperwork including marriage license, physical, phsych exams, home study, criminal background checks, etc. All of it must be notarized or certified copies then sent to the Florida Secretary of State, translated and sent to the Russian govt. for your approval to adopt in their country. At this point you must select a region of Russia that you want to adopt from, everything is done in the region except the US side of things.
4. Referral of child. You usually receive minimal background information including some medical information along with a photo and possibly a short video of the child. You then submit all of this to an international adoption physician and they review it to assist in medically assessing the child. Based upon that information you have to decide if you want to travel to Russia for trip one to meet the child. If not, you decline the referral and wait for another one. Time frame for referral from completion of dossier can be two weeks to several months depending upon your request. Right now our agency is saying 2-4 weeks for a boy. We are hoping they are right.
5. Trip #1. This usually takes place within a month or two of acceptance of the referral. This is usually a one week trip. You meet your child at the orphanage and decide whether or not to officially accept the referral. If your physician had additional information needed you can try to obtain it, sometimes they need more pictures, etc. You then email the information to the Dr. and they get back with you pretty quick since you have to sign paperwork before you leave the region . If you do not accept the referral while in country one of two things can happen, you may get another referral while there or you may have to return home to wait for another referral and start all over.
6. Trip #2. This hopefully will take place a month or two after you return home but may be much longer. This trip is usually a couple of weeks. You travel to the orphanage and see your child before your court date. You then go to court for a hearing for a judge to hopefully approve the adoption. Here is sticky part, Russia has a 10 day waiting period after the judge's approval which sometimes is waived. If it is not waived you may or may not get to have your child with you for the ten days, once again depending on the region. You may spend the 10 days visiting him at the orphanage or some people return home and do trip #3 to bring him home. You then have paperwork to finalize in region so you are there a few more days. Depending on that you must then travel to Moscow to complete the US immigration paperwork at the US Embassy.
7. Home at last!! The minute the little touches US soil he is a dual US/Russian citizen. They must decide at 18 which one to relinquish.
2. USCIS I600A. This is the immigration paperwork that ultimately leads to approval by US government to adopt your child and make them a US citizen. Time frame for our USCIS office is eight weeks upon completion of home study. Initial application March of 2007, eight weeks starts once home study is submitted.
3. Dossier to Russian government. This is the time consuming portion. It is a compellation of paperwork including marriage license, physical, phsych exams, home study, criminal background checks, etc. All of it must be notarized or certified copies then sent to the Florida Secretary of State, translated and sent to the Russian govt. for your approval to adopt in their country. At this point you must select a region of Russia that you want to adopt from, everything is done in the region except the US side of things.
4. Referral of child. You usually receive minimal background information including some medical information along with a photo and possibly a short video of the child. You then submit all of this to an international adoption physician and they review it to assist in medically assessing the child. Based upon that information you have to decide if you want to travel to Russia for trip one to meet the child. If not, you decline the referral and wait for another one. Time frame for referral from completion of dossier can be two weeks to several months depending upon your request. Right now our agency is saying 2-4 weeks for a boy. We are hoping they are right.
5. Trip #1. This usually takes place within a month or two of acceptance of the referral. This is usually a one week trip. You meet your child at the orphanage and decide whether or not to officially accept the referral. If your physician had additional information needed you can try to obtain it, sometimes they need more pictures, etc. You then email the information to the Dr. and they get back with you pretty quick since you have to sign paperwork before you leave the region . If you do not accept the referral while in country one of two things can happen, you may get another referral while there or you may have to return home to wait for another referral and start all over.
6. Trip #2. This hopefully will take place a month or two after you return home but may be much longer. This trip is usually a couple of weeks. You travel to the orphanage and see your child before your court date. You then go to court for a hearing for a judge to hopefully approve the adoption. Here is sticky part, Russia has a 10 day waiting period after the judge's approval which sometimes is waived. If it is not waived you may or may not get to have your child with you for the ten days, once again depending on the region. You may spend the 10 days visiting him at the orphanage or some people return home and do trip #3 to bring him home. You then have paperwork to finalize in region so you are there a few more days. Depending on that you must then travel to Moscow to complete the US immigration paperwork at the US Embassy.
7. Home at last!! The minute the little touches US soil he is a dual US/Russian citizen. They must decide at 18 which one to relinquish.
Home Study Paperwork is done
Yippee!! We have completed our home study paperwork and our adoption classes. Monday evening is our final visit from our social worker. It took us less than two weeks to gather all of our paperwork for our home study. I had a jump start on it since I was reading up on what is all necessary. Our social worker told us the last time I spoke with her last week that it would be four weeks for completion, so hopefully just three weeks to go. It is all dependent on the background checks coming in to her. Oh, I forgot hopefully the social worker will approve us?? Never know we might have scared her off with our bickering.
Anyway, we decided on an adoption agency last week, Adoption Options in San Diego, California. For those of you unfamiliar with international adoption, it really doesn't matter where your agency is located since they must be recognized by the foreign government. They have come very highly recommended to us by several different families. The final decision came when some people we have become acquainted with through a Russian adoption message board were in country adopting two babies and encountered some pretty big challenges and Adoption Options staff handled it all for them.
We are now starting on our dossier, which is referred to as "the paper chase". It is a bunch of paperwork that has to be notarized, apostilled with your state's Secretary of State, etc. and then translated before being submitted to the Russian government for approval by them for you to adopt. This might be a long process, I am hoping that my background in the legal field will help me. Of course I have already been acquiring a lot of what I have been told is needed so I am hoping to have a jump start on it. I understand we need very thorough physicals and psychiatric evaluations. Those are scary for us since you all know we are just a little on the crazy side, both of us!!
By the way, Brynn is very excited to have a new little brother in the house. Michelle and Stephanie are very supportive but of course all three think we are a little nuts starting all over when they are just about adults. See I said we are crazy. They all want to go to Russia too. We will see how things pan out on that front. Everyone says the trips are pretty hectic with adoption things each day. Not really a vacation but we plan to add a few days on to one of the two trips to be tourists. It will be whichever trip is in the nicest time of the year. If we end up with both trips in the dead of winter we may not be tourists but wait until the little guy is older to visit his home country.
We are off camping this weekend for Easter. It will be interesting to camp once our little guy arrives. At some point I need to put pictures of the Airstream and the girls on here.
Happy Easter!!!
Anyway, we decided on an adoption agency last week, Adoption Options in San Diego, California. For those of you unfamiliar with international adoption, it really doesn't matter where your agency is located since they must be recognized by the foreign government. They have come very highly recommended to us by several different families. The final decision came when some people we have become acquainted with through a Russian adoption message board were in country adopting two babies and encountered some pretty big challenges and Adoption Options staff handled it all for them.
We are now starting on our dossier, which is referred to as "the paper chase". It is a bunch of paperwork that has to be notarized, apostilled with your state's Secretary of State, etc. and then translated before being submitted to the Russian government for approval by them for you to adopt. This might be a long process, I am hoping that my background in the legal field will help me. Of course I have already been acquiring a lot of what I have been told is needed so I am hoping to have a jump start on it. I understand we need very thorough physicals and psychiatric evaluations. Those are scary for us since you all know we are just a little on the crazy side, both of us!!
By the way, Brynn is very excited to have a new little brother in the house. Michelle and Stephanie are very supportive but of course all three think we are a little nuts starting all over when they are just about adults. See I said we are crazy. They all want to go to Russia too. We will see how things pan out on that front. Everyone says the trips are pretty hectic with adoption things each day. Not really a vacation but we plan to add a few days on to one of the two trips to be tourists. It will be whichever trip is in the nicest time of the year. If we end up with both trips in the dead of winter we may not be tourists but wait until the little guy is older to visit his home country.
We are off camping this weekend for Easter. It will be interesting to camp once our little guy arrives. At some point I need to put pictures of the Airstream and the girls on here.
Happy Easter!!!
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