April 2007 -- Vision Board features My Wildly Impossible Dream to Adopt
September 2007 -- Actively Began Researching Adoption -- Stepped Into the Dream. Everything is possible!
September 2007 -- June 2008 -- Our Very Long Decision Making Process. Education! Education! Education! Meeting friends, reading blogs, educating family and hubby, reading, learning, begin my own blog about the decision to adopt. A little boy is in my heart and I won't turn back now.
July 3, 2008 -- First Home Study Visit
August 15, 2008 -- Application and Contract Approved
September 2008 -- Begin Dossier Collection, Continue collection of paperwork for Home Study
September 9, 2008 -- File my I600A Form on my 36th Birthday (Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) with the office of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Early October 2008 -- *Final* collected documents submitted by me to Social Worker and Home Study agency towards completion of Home Study.
October 8, 2008 -- Read draft of Home Study. We're almost there!
March 3, 2009 -- Home Study officially complete and in my hands with final edits and changes done. This is after an enormous period of delays that made my Home Study process months longer than is customary.
March 9, 2009 -- I600A application filing finally completed with me having sent in our Home Study to the office of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. I171H should come in about 4-6 weeks.
March 13, 2009 -- Re-did FBI fingerprints today for dossier (originally taken in October 2008) as, due to many delays with Home Study fingerprints, the stamped date is now considered "old" for our paperwork collection. Sent off to West Virginia to await our FBI records which hopefully should take about 3 weeks, like last time.
March 27, 2009 -- Received fingerprint appointment date from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in regards to receiving my I171H. Appointment is set for April 7, 2009.
April 7, 2009 -- 9am. We take our fingerprints at the Brooklyn Immigration office -- and now should be 2-3 weeks away from the long awaited I171H.
April 13, 2009 -- Re-did two more sets each of FBI fingerprints again as last week we received notice that two sets of both of our prints were rejected due to illegibility. Have lost track of how many times we have redone fingerprints for various reasons. Hopefully, in another three weeks, by early May, we will receive a positive outcome and can move forward.
April 23, 2009 -- Receive long awaited I171H form seven months after I first applied for it. Great things come to those who are patient and persevere! Our advance processing application has officially been forwarded to the American Consulate/Embassy in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Woohoo!!!
May 13, 2009 -- Received Apostilles back from West Virginia for our FBI fingerprints. I now have the first official documents ready for my dossier. This was unbelievably quick -- I sent them in on a Saturday and received them back ready for my dossier the following Wednesday. Go Fed-Ex!!
June 12, 2009 -- Dossier Complete and Sent to With Hope and Love Adoption Agency for Legal Review. The day I have strived for -- So many months of dedication and commitment culminated in me praying over and kissing a FedEx package this evening. And off it goes!
Late June -- July 2009 -- Dossier in Translation and Legal Review