A Tribute to the 171H...

Our long-awaited 171H letter has arrived from the Dept. of Homeland Security!  It was so beautiful, it made me tear up a little.  It was a little like looking at your baby on an ultrasound for the first time... an affirmation that this really is happening and you're making progress towards meeting your child! 

This is a "guard-it-with-your-life" piece of paper, and since you probably don't know what a 171H is all about or what we went through to get it, I shall honor it with a biography....

If you want to adopt internationally, you first have to deal with the Department of Homeland Security and the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).  You have to submit an application called I-600A, to declare a foreign orphan as an immediate relative.  Ukraine requires us to have this preapproval before we can even submit our completed dossier to the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption, and the preapproval is the first step in getting an immigrant visa for each child at the US embassy in Kiev. 

Just getting to submit the I-600A application was a long process.  We hit the ground running with the adoption on September 24, 2012.  First we had to complete all our applications, request documents (like birth & marriage certificates), have background checks, write essay questions, and get reference letters... all this was just to get our feet inside the door at the adoption agency and home study agency!!!  It took us about a month to do all of this.  Then we completed more paperwork to get the home study started, which we began on October 29th.  The completed home study arrived in our hands after Thanksgiving.  This was all unbelievably fast. 

Once we had the home study, we were able to submit a copy of it with the I-600A application, along with more copies of birth certificates and our marriage certificate.  After about 5 weeks, we had our appointment with the USCIS office in Durham for fingerprinting.  It was a humbling experience to walk into the Citizenship & Immigration office, the center of activity for all who want the privilege of becoming an American citizen, a privilege that I was born with and often take for granted.
 
I guess they decided we're good people, because our 171H approval letter arrived a very short 11 days later. 

So what's next?

This 171H approval letter becomes an important part of our dossier - a dossier is the package of documents that you submit to the country - but there are a lot of other components to the dossier that we have been busy preparing!  Thankfully, our adoption agency helped us to prepare many of these documents, because they have to be flawless.  They included our petition to adopt, affidavits, letters of commitment, various powers of attorney, income statements, home ownership documents, medical documents, (more) criminal clearances, etc.  All of these things have to be court-issued or notarized.  Then we have to send them to the Secretary of State's office to be authenticated, which means that the state is verifying that our notary and the court officials are authorized to notarize or issue our documents.

It's been a little over 4 months since we began this journey, and it seems like a long time to spend on "just paperwork."  It's hard to make the average person who's never adopted understand just how much was involved, but when I think about it, I can hardly believe we've come so far so fast!  God has truly blessed us and we know without a doubt that His hand is in this!   

"FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS"

Here are some of the questions we have been frequently asked in the past three months...

Does the Russian ban on American adoptions affect your adoption?

No, so far we have no reason to think that the actions that have been taken in Russia (stopping Americans from adopting Russian orphans) will have any impact on our adoption.  The only way we can think of that we might be affected would be if those families who would have adopted from Russia in the near future might instead submit their dossiers to Ukraine.  If the Ukrainian SDA is being inundated with more American dossiers than usual, it might slow down the usual timeline. 

WHY adopt from Ukraine?  Why not adopt a child in the United States?  (a VERY frequently asked question!)

Very simply... because our daughters are there! 
We have been talking about adoption since we got married, but it's overwhelming and we struggled for years with knowing when, how, where, etc.  We explored both international and US adoption, but the more we learned about orphans worldwide, the more we felt led towards international adoption. 

We learned about hosting programs that bring orphans from Ukraine & other Eastern European countries to the United States for 4-5 weeks during the summer and over Christmas each year.  The purpose of these programs is for these kids to experience family life, make connections in the United States, and hopefully even find their "forever family."  We were making plans to host a sibling group during the summer of 2013, when we received an e-mail from the adoption agency with a listing of special needs orphans.  And then we saw Tetyana's listing, and the plans changed!  We knew without a doubt that God has been leading us to them.

Do Tetyana and Margarita know that you are trying to adopt them?

They do!  We wrote a letter and sent it with a package of small gifts in the beginning of October, about 1 week after we started the adoption process.  They received it in the end of November, and we were told that they were excited to receive it and liked their gifts.  We sent a second package in December but they haven't gotten it yet.

Have you seen any pictures of the girls?

We have one picture of Tetyana (who is 8-years-old), greeting us on the refrigerator door every day and going everywhere with me in my purse!  Unfortunately we are not allowed to share the picture electronically, so I can't post it on Facebook or here on this blog. 
We have not been able to see a picture of Margarita (who is 4-years-old)... the only thing we know about her appearance is that she has red hair! 

How long will it take to complete the adoption?

About 9 months is the average for Ukraine, and that is significantly less time than most other foreign countries, where it can sometimes take a year or two to get a referral.  That's even less time than most domestic adoptions in the United States, because foster parents often have to wait a long time for parental rights to be terminated.  Right now we are on track to complete our adoption this spring.  We are almost ready to submit our dossier to Ukraine, and then we just have to wait for them to give us an appointment with the SDA (State Department of Adoption).

Will you both have to travel to Ukraine?  How long will you be there?

Yes, we will both have to travel to Ukraine to officially "select" our children at a meeting with the SDA, travel to the region to meet the children, appear in court, wait for the adoption to be approved, take care of business at the US Embassy, etc.  The entire trip could take 30-45 days.  We may be able to travel home during a 10-day waiting period after the adoption is approved by the court, but otherwise we will have to remain in Ukraine.

Will Sophia and Claire travel to Ukraine too?

No.  They would miss weeks of school, and have to endure a lot of "adult" tasks, like court hearings and lengthy traveling... But most importantly we feel that this is our time with Tetyana and Margarita.  This is their time to get to know us, and our time to get to know them and experience their environment and culture.  There will be plenty of time to get to know their sisters when they get home! 

How do Sophia and Claire feel about having new siblings? 

They are excited, and we're using this time to prepare Sophia and Claire in every way we can think of!  We talk about their sisters every day.  Claire is especially excited about being a BIG sister, after 6 1/2 years of being the little sister!
It hasn't been all perfect.  Sophia has asked why we can't just have another baby, and she has also expressed some pretty mature concerns about bringing children into our family that we've never even met!  But we've been talking about adoption for so many years that it's a natural part of who our family is and what we're meant to do.  Sophia believes that and accepts that more than we could have ever hoped she would, and therefore she has been very open to talking over her concerns with us!