May 17, 2007 - Progress of our Paperchase

On Friday, May 4th, we sent off the first packet of our paperwork to the translator. We'll wait until we get our finalized home study to send in the last four pieces to be translated.

On Monday, May 7th, we sent off our application to the facilitator. We learned from the director on Thursday, May 10th, that we'd been approved to adopt children from their orphanage, and use them as our facilitator, coordinating the process in Haiti for us, via the orphanage and their lawyers. They can't have had our application for more than a day, because we mailed it Monday, and they're based a few states away. What a wonderful birthday gift for Lisa!

We have now heard from their stateside adoption coordinator, have been assigned an adoption buddy (another adoptive parent who is further along in the process) to help us and answer questions as we go along, and have been invited to join their Yahoo Group. It's basically a web forum where people post messages, ask and answer questions, and encourage each other as we all go through the various stages of the adoption process in Haiti.

We have also discussed with the director about the possibility of getting referrals instead of choosing our children ourselves. (See our last post.) She said they'd be very willing to pray about it and prepare referrals for us, if we just provide our age & gender preferences for them to work with, and we've done this now. She will be in Haiti for the next few weeks, and said she'd be looking for our children and praying over it.

Yesterday, we received our completed home study. Today over lunch, Lisa ran a marathon of errands: to the Secretary of State's office to get the notary certifications for the last four documents, then made photocopies and sent them off to the translator.

Next steps:
- Send in I-600A form, home study, and birth and marriage certificates, and await appointments for fingerprinting for CIS/INS pre-approval.
- When we receive all of the translations back, send dossier to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago for "Legalization".
- When our dossier is back with legalization stamps from the consulate, and we have our referrals in order, send the dossier to Haiti.
- Then of course, the long wait begins.