Book 'Em!

This afternoon Evan and I went to jail! Technically we were at the Medina County Jail, but they didn’t keep us. We were there to get our fingerprints taken, which is required by the State of Ohio for our Home Study. It is really nice and easy these days. All you do is put your fingers on a touch pad and it shows up on the computer. Now our fingerprints are off to both the State of Ohio and the FBI. That puts us another step closer to being finished with our Home Study.

This afternoon I realized that I really had not discussed the adoption process. So, I thought I would give a general timeline of events. I figure our Home Study should be completed by the end of October. Pretty soon we will start collecting our documents for our dossier. This will take until December or January to complete. The hold-up is the government. We already sent in our I-600A Form, which is an "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition". We will need to submit our Home Study as well once it is complete. They will also make us get fingerprinted once again in the next month or so. Then they will send us the Form I-171H, “Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition”. This is what we will need in order to be partially approved to immigrate our son to the United States (the remainder of the approval happens while we are in-country). The Form I-171H is what takes the longest.

Once the dossier is complete and we received our Form I-171H, our dossier is reviewed and sent to Russia. This is where we wait and wait and possibly, wait some more. The waiting may even take up to a year (we hope less). Then we are given a referral. Unfortunately, most of Russia’s referrals are a “blind referral”. This means that we will probably not get a picture or any information on our son. We have requested an infant boy that is 18 months or younger. That is the youngest age range that you can request. Most likely he will be 12-18 months when referred. However, a few people are referred a 9-11 month old.

Once we find out that they have a referral for us. We will be invited to come to Russia to meet our referral. We will probably only get a couple weeks notice. The first trip is about a week long. We will get to meet our son and visit him at the orphanage. We will also be given any medical information and limited, if any, family history.

Then we have to go back home – without him. This will be very hard for us. Russia is a two-trip country. Approximately 2-4 months later, we will have our court date. Yes, we will have to stand in front of a Russian Judge. This sounds just a little intimidating. We will also be able to change our son’s name here and he will be given a new birth certificate. There is usually a 10-day waiting period before we can have custody. Some judges waive this waiting period, some do not. If you would like to start praying now, we would like it waived. This trip is a long trip anyway. We will be there about 10 days. If the 10-days are not waived, we will be there for three weeks!!!!

Finally, after doing some paperwork in Moscow the last few days of the trip, we fly back home. Once our plane hits the United States, our son is a citizen.

I know that was a lot of information to take in. I’ll go into more detail as time goes on. But, I hope this gives you a little more insight.

Kristin