- Leave March 9 and arrive in Kiev on March 10
- March 11 we will catch up on sleep and tour Kiev some. We have a meeting set up with a western trained doctor (Dr. Yuri) who will go over some common diagnosis we will encounter while looking over the files of the children.
- March 12 is our appointment with the adoption center where we will look over files of children who are available for adoption. The appointment is only about an hour and we will be given a lot of information to absorb. We are requesting a girl between 14 months (when they are available for adoption for foreign citizens) and 7 years old. We will select a child to visit and wait for the paperwork from the adoption center that will allow us to visit the child. We will take a plane, train or car to the orphanage depending how far away it is. Dr. Yuri will either travel with us or meet us there. The paperwork could take a couple of days to complete.
- March 13-14 or so we will meet with the orphanage director and inspector to gain approval to visit the child and go over her medical, and if school aged, her educational files. They keep files on every cold, flu and sniffle the child has ever had while in the orphanage as well as any information they have on the child's family and when she came into the orphanage. Dr. Yuri will examine the child for us. If we decide to adopt the child, we will submit paperwork to the adoption center and wait for a court date. This usually takes at least a week. During this time we will be able to visit our child usually twice a day for an hour or so.
- Hopefully we will have court on March 20th or so. Court can be as quick as 15-20 minutes or as long as an hour. I have heard people being quizzed about what is in their homestudy and why they want to adopt this child and why they chose Ukraine. After court there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period for any family member of the child to contest the adoption. I will not say this has never happened but it is very rare.
- Our ten days will be up around March 31 or April 1st. After the wait is up we will need to get her new passport and birth certificate. If she was born in a different region than where she is in the orphanage we will have to travel to that region to get her birth certificate changed.
- We will leave the region and travel back to Kiev where we will need to get a medical evaluation from the US and her visa so she can come home with us. Once she steps off the plane she is automatically a US citizen!
Our return ticket is scheduled for April 15th and I hope we are fortunate and make that date. Most adoptions are taking between 4-6 weeks.
I am sure I am forgetting some part of the process and other things will come up but this is the gist of the process.
5 comments:
I've been following your blog, and can't wait to follow your journey! Good luck with everything!!
Ken and Joy rae
www.kjrae.blogspot.com
Michelle, I can't believe the day is almost here! We are so excited for you guys! Please post updates as much as you can. We will be following you throughout the process. We wish you all the best and hope to meet the new little angel soon!
-Shana, Kevin, Mia, Haley, and Kyan
We are so excited - but we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get everything done! I think you're right - this week will be a blur. See ya next week in Kiev!!!!
Having just lived through your list, I can say you've got a realistic view of what's going to happen and your 4-6 week estimate is good. We were there 5.5 weeks and our adoption was relatively problem free.
We'll follow your journey and wish the absolute best as you travel to find your daughter!
Praying all goes well. Just remember to stay flexible and expect the unexpected!
We had court 12 days after our appointment, but that was actually pretty quick compared to some families we met while in country. 4-6 weeks is definitely a reasonable expectation - our door-to-door (with a very uneventful adoption) was 33 days.
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