We got a court date!

We’ve been waiting for a few days now to confirm our court date and we found out this afternoon that we got it when we wanted. So at 10:00am local time on April 21st we will be petitioning the court to grant our adoption.

For those that have never tried something like this, here is the approximate steps you need to get through an international adoption in Kazakhstan (apologies if I get some of this slightly less than accurate…I’ve done so much paperwork in the last year and a half my mind is fuzzy on what exactly I ended up doing).

1. Decide you want to adopt from Kazakhstan
2. Engage an agency to work with
3. Engage an agency and social worker to do the home study (a document that describes your background and home situation)
4. Do the home study
5. Apply for Homeland Security approval to adopt a foreign orphan
6. Go get fingerprinted so Homeland Security can run an FBI check on you
7. Get yourself fingerprinted at the local police station
8. Send the fingerprints into the FBI for another background check that is completely different (yet exactly the same) as the one Homeland Security is doing
9. Get a document from your employer to confirm your income
10. Get documents from your doctor to confirm you are healthy
11. Get references from people you know confirming you are great and all that
12. Build a whole stack of documents including certified copies of every identifying document that you have ever received (passports, marriage certificate, birth certificate and so on)
13. Get the whole load of documents notarized
14. Get the whole load of documents apostilled (where the Secretary of State confirms the notary is duly registered and can notarize documents)
15. Go back and get new documents notarized as they changed the required notary language and didn’t tell you. Then get them apostilled again.
16. Send the entire package into the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington (or New York in some cases)
17. Wait….wait and wait some more
18. See if they ask you for updates to any of the documents (medical certifications are only good for 3 months for example)
19. Go get all the updates done
20. Get them notarized
21. Get them apostilled
22. Submit them back to the Embassy
23. Wait…wait…and so on
24. Get approved by the Embassy
25. Realize your Homeland Security approval is going to expire prior to you getting your future child home
26. Apply for an extension
27. Go back in and get your fingerprints updated for another FBI check (like they would have changed?)
28. Get approved for the extension
29. Send your dossier to Kazakhstan for local approval
30. Wait (you get the idea)
31. Get approved locally
32. Wait some more
33. Have your agency come back and tell you they believe there is a child that fits your desired profile at an orphanage somewhere in Kazakhstan
34. Cross you fingers (as these are blind referrals – no information on the child is provided)
35. Wait for your letter of invitation to arrive
36. Get Visas for Kazkahstan
37. Book your flights
38. Update a whole pile of documents (likely medical again, income…all the hard ones to get)
39. Get them notarized
40. Get them apostilled
41. Fly to Kazakhstan
42. Go to the Education Ministry to present your approvals and request permission to visit the orphanage
43. Get permission
44. Go to the orphanage
45. Discuss available children with the orphanage Director
46. Choose a child
47. Meet the child
48. Spent 2 hours a day with the child for 14 days as part of “bonding period”
49. Pick a new name for the child (if you decide to do it)
50. Apply to the court for a court date
51. Wait (chew on nails)
52. Get your court date (usually 10 days after the completion of the bonding period)
53. Hang out in Kazakhstan waiting for your court date (and visiting your child)
54. Go to court
55. Get approved (hopefully)
56. Decide whether to stay or leave Kazakhstan as there is a 15 day “cooling off” period to allow anyone who wants to contest the adoption to come forward. Chew on nails
57. Fly home if you decide to
58. Wait (chew on nails) until the 15 days have passed
59. Get custody of the child
60. Apply for the child’s passport
61. Wait (5-10 days) while the passport comes and your agency does the final sets of paperwork
62. Get a doctor to examine the child (required by the US)
63. Go to an interview at the US Embassy in Kazakhstan
64. Get permission to take the child home
65. Get on a plane
66. Try to pass out and fail as your new son or daughter has not only never been on a plane but has likely spent little time outside the orphanage.
67. Entertain child for 25+ hours and 10 timezones
68. Land back in the US. The child becomes a US citizen as soon as their feet hit US soil
69. Go home

But of course it doesn’t end there. There are follow-up placement studies that need to be done and a yearly progress certification that needs to be filed until the child is 18 years old.

Worth it though.