Dossier COMPLETE!!!

We are having a big celebration here--we received our final piece of documentation today in the mail to complete our portion of the dossier. The dossier (French for "file") is what goes to the Ethiopian government.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, here's an outline of where we go from here:

1. Tomorrow make copies of our dossier and mail to IAN (our adoption agency)
2. Wait for CBI/FBI/etc background checks to be sent to IAN (expected very soon)
3. Once background checks are complete, our homestudy can be completed (hopefully in the next couple of weeks)
4. Homestudy is added to the dossier and sent to Ethiopia. At this point we're officially on the wait list for our daughter!! Woo-hoo!!
5. Complete USCIS paperwork, fingerprints, etc while waiting
6. Wait some more (hopefully not more than 8 months, which is the longest anyone has waited with our agency to date--but, you never know with international adoption!)
7. Get a referral (a picture and info on our daughter!)
8. Travel for court appearance in Ethiopia (about 2 months after referral)
9. Travel to Ethiopia to bring our daughter home (about 2 months after court)

Stay tuned--we'll post when we officially go on the wait list!!

A very happy Kirsta & Michael

Great news on Adoption Tax Credit

This is great news for us! It helps offset the adoption fees.

Kirsta & Michael

Please see the following announcement from the Joint Council on International Children's Services on the Adoption Tax Credit:
Joint Council is pleased to confirm that the Adoption Tax Credit (ATC), which was scheduled to expire in 2010, was extended for one-year (through December 31, 2011). The highlights of the ATC are;

The maximum credit was increased from $12,150 to $13,170,

The ATC is now retroactive to January 1, 2009. This represents a potential increase of $1,000 for adoptive families.

The ATC was made refundable. If a family has no tax liability, the IRS will refund the amount due.

The extension of the ATC through 2011, was passed as part of the health care reform bill which was signed into law by President Obama on Monday, March 22, 2010. There was some concern that the ATC would be included in the reconciliation process, however we have confirmed that it is not part of reconciliation. This means that the ATC is law until December 31, 2011.

Joint Council along with many other advocates and adoptive families have long advocated for making the ATC permanent. We applaud Congress and the Obama administration for the extension and continue to call for a permanent tax credit.

The ATC is a critically important element in finding permanent families for children in the U.S. foster care system and the children of our world, who live without permanent parental care. The ATC makes adoption a viable option for many families who may otherwise be unable to afford to adopt. We again applaud the extension and improvements to the Adoption Tax Credit.

More progress!

We received our Dossier packet March 15 and have been making good progress--getting employment letters, requesting (more!!) police clearances, and editing documents with our details to be notarized.

We are going to meet our contact person, Allison, at the adoption agency on Monday, as well as have some documents notarized and certified by the Secretary of State in Denver. We plan to have all documents compiled and mailed a week from tomorrow. :-)

Rollin' along....

Last homestudy visit complete; paperwork milestone

We just finished our last homestudy visit this morning!! Yesterday we sent a big packet of paperwork to the adoption agency with all of our supporting homestudy documents.

Next step is for our social worker to write the homestudy report (still waiting for background check info from the State and a couple of reference letters). Hopefully within a month that will all be finished and approved by the State.

Next week we'll start working on documents for the dossier (needed for Ethiopia).  Once that's complete we'll be on the wait list for our daughter!

New changes: 2 trips required to Ethiopia

Wow--we've only been on this journey for 3 weeks, and there's another big change. One thing you can always count on with international adoption--change! Here's the update from our agency:

ll adoptive families must now travel to Addis Ababa to be present for their court appointment.  There have been rumors of this change for several weeks now, and the change is a direct result of the dramatic increase of "revocation" cases - cases in which the adoptive parents decline to bring their children home after they have passed court.   This will mean families will make two trips to Ethiopia to complete their adoptions, which will certainly increase the time and money required for adoption. 

 

On a positive note, if parents see their child before the court appointment, the child will be eligible for an IR-3 visa, thus making the child a US citizen immediately upon arrival in the United States. 

Great news!

Update from our agency (IAN) yesterday: We have heard definitively from the US Embassy in Addis Ababa that the current changes in Ethiopia will NOT affect IAN at this time. 


Great news for us!

Change in process and wait time in Ethiopia

Just saw this post on our agency's blog. Trying not to stress or assume the worst, but not the kind of news I wanted to see so early in the process.....  http://adoption.state.gov/news/ethiopia.html

Fingers crossed that this will simply ensure ethical adoptions, and not slow down our journey to our little girl.

Doctor's appts: 2 down, 1 to go

Tate & I have received official clean bills of health for our adoption. After Michael's appointment next week (and assuming we can find our tax returns from the last 3 years this weekend), the first of 2 rounds of paperwork will be complete!

Second homestudy visit completed

We just finished our second homestudy visit with our social worker (who is great!). We have one, maybe two, more visits and we'll be finished with this step. We've gathered most of our paperwork (still have to unearth tax returns and go to the doctor to show that we have no communicable diseases--seriously?!). Need a new fire extinguisher and some additional smoke detectors. Then it will be on to the dossier, the file we have to complete for Ethiopia. (Homestudy stuff is mainly for the state & US).

Glad to be this far into the process and ready to wrap up this phase.

Beginning the journey

My husband, Michael, & I just began the process to adopt our daughter from Ethiopia. We were officially accepted by our agency (www.adoptioninternational.net) on February 15. We've had our first homestudy visit and are making good progress on collecting our documentation. The entire process should take 12-18 months, so fingers crossed for this time next year!

We have a 5-year-old son, Tatum, who we adopted from Guatemala, so we are hoping to add a little girl to our family.

Here's to the journey! (for her!)