How?

Everyday at least one person asked me if I have a picture of our boys or how old are your boys. So I thought I would jot down the process of how we are going to adopt our children.

"What is going to happen while you are in Ukraine?"
1. We will fly to Kiev, Ukraine with no knowledge of how many, what sex, what age or the health status of our new children. (Aug 19-Aug 20)
2. Meet for an hour with a phychologist at the SDA which is the official government body responsible for adoptions in Ukraine (sometime between 8am-4pm Thurs Aug 21 UK time)
3. Here we will be presented with a few files of orphan siblings. We will take a large leap of faith and choose one file to request to visit the children.
4. Recieve permission to visit the children and travel to their orphanage which can be anywhere in Ukraine (homefully we can see the children on Fri Aug 22 UK time since Monday Aug 25th is the celebration of Ukraine Independence and very little except partying will be going on. Realistically it is very unlikely that we will be visiting the children until the middle of the following week.)
5. Visit with the children, which could perhaps be in different orphanages in different parts of the country. Have a doctor come and evaluate the children if we feel necessary. (Tues Aug 26th-Wed Aug27th)
6. Hopefully "accept" and begin the paperwork to request a court hearing to adopt the children. In the event that we did not choose to visit any of the children presented to us or for some reason we are unable to adopt the children we visited, we will return to Kiev and file papers to request a second appointment with the SDA. We are guaranteed two appts with the SDA and sometimes you are able to ascertain a third appt if necessary. Lets hope and pray that a second appt is not necessary. (Thurs Aug 28th)
7. Fill out lots of paperwork, wait for our court hearing, and visit the children usually twice a day. (This can take anywhere between 5 days and 14 days or more. So for the sake of this little timeline lets choose a hopeful 5 days -- Thurs Sept 4th)
8. Attend court (Thurs Sept4th). After court Dad will fly home. If we have experienced lots of difficulty and time delays up to this point, I too may fly home as well but our going in plan is that I will stay with the boys.
9. Begin our 10 day appeal wait period. This is put in place so that family members can appeal the adoption if they feel necessary. So far I have only seen one adoption appealed and in the end it went to the favor of the new parents. (Fri Sept5th-Mon Sept15th) Some judges will waive this 10day wait period but typically this is only in the Donesk region.
10. Go back to court for paperwork, travel to the childrens birth town to retrieve their birth certificates and have them changed to their new names. (Tues Sept16th)
11. Return to the orphanage and pick up our children :-) (Wed Sept17th)
12. Travel to Kiev to obtain the childrens US Doc appt, passports and visas. (Thurs Sept18th-Mon Sept22)
13. Fly home (Tues Sept23)

DISCLAIMER -- Nothing ever goes this smoothly. So double the time on 50% of the steps. And add a few steps that I am not even aware of!!!

So what have we done so far................. What have we been doing for the last 9 months?
1. Gain approval our state Social Services office by obtaining an approved Home Study
(Nov 2007)
2. Gain approval from the USA by obtaining Immigration and FBI approval (Dec 2007 - Feb 2008)
3. Gain approval from Ukraine by submitted a packet of all the above documents plus more in a packet called a "Dossier" (Mar 2008-Jun 2008)
4. Wait to travel to our SDA appt (July 2008-today :-)

SURPRISE! Most folks think we were on the fast track getting this far in only 9 months. From what I see the average is closer to a year plus before parents travel.

And we can not wait to just play with our children instead of filing paperwork for them!!!!