The Foreign Adoption Process

People often hear about celebrities adopting foreign children, and it seems like they swoop into a country, see a child, take them home, and that’s that…There is actually much more to the story than that, despite media portrayals.

For those who have never experienced adoption firsthand, it seems like an infinite stream of papers and approvals and corrections and re-approvals. Each new document feels like a new obstacle, but it helps to understand that many of these requirements are intended to protect the children.

The Homestudy
(Began 30 August, completed 23 September)

Any adoption, domestic or foreign, requires that a social worker licensed by your home state conduct an evaluation of prospective parents and their home environment. When we first heard this, we envisioned some underpaid, miserable, pinched-nosed person whose primary goal in life was to keep us away from out child.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. While one of their roles is to weed out the psychos, their real job is to talk with us, understand our motivation to adopt, and to make sure we have realistic expectations of the process and of the challenges with being an adoptive parent. In short, they are in place to partner with us to ensure that the adoption is successful.

One of the first decision that prospective adoptive parents make is to select the homestudy agency. Each agency does things a little differently within the confines of the requirements from the state, the US government, and the government of the country from which you adopt. Several factors went into our choice, including turnaround time and cost, but our main decision was based on the recommendation of the organizers of the hosting program.

Once we selected our agency, we received a pretty hefty packet of forms to complete and documents to provide them in order to complete the report. We had to write an autobiography AND complete a 10-page questionnaire, as well as provide financial information, medical forms, birth certificates, etc. This batch of forms and information was only for our agency’s use in preparing the final report.

We were very happy with our social worker, Vicki Allen. She was very quick, thorough, and so kind and helpful to us. Even though she’s based in Indianapolis, she arranged a trip to Fort Wayne just for us (we did reimburse her mileage in addition to the homestudy fee). I would recommend her to anyone needing an Indiana homestudy!

USCIS Approval
(Began 1 September, Submitted 23 September, Fingerprinting 9 November, Approval received 30 December)

The next step in the process was submission of an I-600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition, to the United Stated Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly Immigration and Naturalization Services, or INS). Seems that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security prompted a renaming of this department!

So….we hopped online, downloaded the form, filled it out incorrectly, had it corrected by our facilitator, sent it in with a nice little check and a thousand supplemental documents (at least they accepted photocopies!), got it back asking for certified check or money order, corrected that, sent it in again, and then waited. After about three weeks, we received a letter in the mail, kindly inviting us to appear at the Indianapolis office of CIS to get fingerprinted by Homeland Security for an FBI background check.

After fingerprinting, we waited and waited and waited and waited. When I finally lost patience and called to followup, I learned that the woman at CIS who process all the adoption applications had a family emergency and took off to the Phillipenes for a couple of weeks right before the holidays. She approved our application the day after she returned, and we got it in the mail just before the New Year’s holiday!

The Dossier
(began collecting docs 15 September, Documents sent for translation 28 December, Submission to Ukraine pending)

Once our homestudy was completed, we set to the task of collecting all the other documents required by the Ukranian government to apply to adopt a Ukranian citizen. These documents are collectively known as the Dossier.

We had to complete a form requesting the adoption of a generic child, and another requesting the specific adoption of Masha. We had to commit to maintain Masha’s Ukranian citizenship until her 18th birthday, and to submit regular post-placement reports so they can feel confident that she’s safe and doing well.

We also had to provide a pile of additional documentation such as a new report from each of our doctors (including new checkups and blood work), and copies of their medical licenses, certified copies of our marriage license, and a collection of family photos.

Once all these documents were collected, we had to have all of them apostilled, which is a certification process by the secretary of state, to authenticate that each notary that signed off on each of our documents was, in fact, registered as a notary. Then they attach another sheet of paper and a seal to each individual document, doubling the size of the pack!

During this phase, we discovered that one of our notaries had not signed her name exactly as it appeared in the notary register (and they were very particular about this tiny detail…SORRY and THANKS, Lori!!), and that another one had actually expired prior to the date she notarized our documents (the bank had gotten her a stamp with the incorrect expiration date). This resulted in another round of corrections and re-certifications. We finally got the last of the documents back in the mail on the 27th. We then made copies of the whole mess of paperwork (total of about 75 pages), and sent it off to Kiev on the 28th. It’s supposed to arrive there on Wednesday of this week, and we’ll be watching it closely!

The final document for our dossier, the approval from CIS, will be copied, notarized, and apostilled this week, and we should be able to send that to catch up with the rest of our package next week. Hopefully, our Dossier will be submitted to the Ukrainian adoption authority in late January or early February.

Once Ukraine accepts the dossier, it’s another waiting game—this time for an appointment to travel to Ukraine. They have a LOT of dossiers coming in, as they’ve not been accepting any new packages as they restructure their internal agency for children’s protective services. They opened up again in mid-December, and we have no idea at all how long the wait for an appointment will be. We have been told not to expect anything earlier than May, but we’re still praying for God to work on the situation and make things move along a little faster!!!

Unlike Russia, Ukraine only requires one trip, but it’s a long one. We will have to travel to the capital, Kiev, where were will receive our official “referral” to go to her city to meet with the orphanage, see Masha (finally!!), and go through the legal proceedings to adopt her in Ukraine. This should take a couple of weeks, and then there is a mandatory 10-day waiting period before the adoption is final and we can take her back to Kiev. There, we meet with the folks at the American embassy, process the final paperwork and come on back home!! We’ve been told to plan about a month in Ukraine, thought it could be longer.

Note: This entry is a description of the process to adopt an orphan from Ukraine as we understand it today. Processes for different countries vary widely and change often, and this should not be taken as advice or guidance to take the place of someone who actually knows what they are doing! If you are considering adoption, either domestic or international, please seek the advice of appropriate agencies, facilitators, attorneys, AND parents who have already been there! Every one of them will have valuable information to share…..