The Process

In this post, I'll share a little bit about the process.  An international adoption from the country of Lat^ia starts with an application to a Hague certified adoption agency.  The Hague Adoption Convention is an international agreement that sets the boundaries to ensure ethical international adoptions.  Our agency is a Hague accredited adoption agency.

The process starts with an application (Round 1 of paperwork) followed by a contract (Round 2 of paperwork).  Once the contract and a bunch of money is in, then we will go through an exhaustive home-study.  The home-study consists of full medical physicals, two rounds of fingerprints, a septic letter, tons of really invasive questions like "what do you think 'love' means?" and "describe how you fight with your spouse", two visits from our super-nice social worker, auto-biographies, and Round 3 of paperwork.

Once the home-study is complete, we will then apply to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Then we'll wait for a couple of months for approval.  Once approved by the USCIS, then we'll go for Round 3 of fingerprinting.  Once that's done, the agency will send what's called a dossier to Lat^ia.  The dossier will be translated into Lat^ian and sent to the Lat^ian Ministry.  Once the dossier is approved by the Ministry, we will get a 'referral' email with detailed information about W.  We'll be asked to accept the 'referral'.

Once we accept the referral, we'll get an invitation to a court appointment in Riga.  We'll only be given two weeks notice to travel.  Kristie and I (and possibly a few kids) will travel to Lat^ia where we will stay for at least three weeks (Trip 1).  We will visit the orphanage on the first day there.  On the second day, we'll appear in court with W and hopefully be granted temporary custody of him.  We'll stay together with W in an apartment for three weeks and have several visits from a social worker.  At the end of the three weeks, we'll hopefully be given approval by the court for him to travel back to the US with us.

Two months after we're back in the US with W, I will go back for a second visit for another court appointment (Trip 2).  This trip will only be about two days in country.

Two months after that, I will go for a final trip for one week (Trip 3).  I'll be required to bring W with me.  In Lat^ia, W will do final medical exams, get his visa and we'll do some final paperwork.  Once this is done, the international adoption will be complete.  We will still be required to have two more years of observation by our social worker once he's back.  This is a requirement of Lat^ia.  We'll also have to go through the process of readopting him domestically.

We expect this process to cost us approximately $30,000, which includes the cost of our travel.  We plan on applying for grants and holding fundraisers to offset some of this.  Please pray for us and W during this year - specifically that it will go quick.  We hope to be done with Trip 1 and have W back in the United States by June or July.