The Process From Here

Good news! Our home study has been completed and sent off to the US gov. for approval. We should hear something back within 30 days if we are accepted as adoptive parents. The next step once we receive the approval letter (also known as the I-171H form) is to collect the 30+ documents needed for our dossier to send to Kazakhstan. All of the documents must be notarized, apostilled, and then translated into Russian (which is the national business language, Kazakh is the official language). After our documents reach Kazakhstan, the agency has told us we should receive a Letter of Invitation to travel to Kazakhstan to meet our child about 3-4 months later and then the actual travel is usually a couple of weeks after that.

We will travel for the first trip which will last approximately 3-4 weeks. During that time, we will meet our baby and spend a mandatory 14 day bonding period with her. After that, we will hopefully go to court to finalize the adoption a few days later. At that time, most families return home for a mandatory two week post-court wait and then one parent will fly back to pick up the child. We are praying that I (Emily) will be able to stay in country with the baby during that time and continue the bonding process until I can take her home.

Well, that's the process from here in a nutshell. Thank you all for praying!