An Update from Inna

We had a phone conference with our agency's director, Inna and spent about an hour discussing our adoption.  I really appreciate how communicative staff at Kids First have been.  They are a smaller adoption agency, but Inna has been at this for close to twenty years and it's clear that she cares very much about the success of every adoption she handles.  It had been almost 7 months since our dossier was accepted when we spoke to her on September 8th.  She was very upfront about the fact that we would probably not hear anything about our adoption until the one year mark which will be February 2018, but it was refreshing to hear that she had spoken with our attorney in the Dominican Republic to have the most up to date information available for us.  She describes the Dominican adoption process as one with a lot of heart and that they really care about the kids there which was wonderful to hear.  She also let us know that there are approximately 8 adoptions processed every month and she expected things to happen in the timeline that was given to us.  We discussed next steps and really tried to hammer out the details of cost and time.  At the earliest, it sounds like we could be matched in the Spring of 2018. We will need to come up with approximately $20,000 to cover all expenses and fees.  We will need to update our homestudy and USCIS approval by February 1st which will be added expense and paperwork. The harder part is the planning for the time we will need to spend in the Dominican Republic.  Once we get matched, we will need to submit another I-800 form to get Article 5 which is permission from the U.S. government to adopt the specific child we are matched with.  From there we need to head over to the Dominican Republic within 6 weeks of being matched for the cohabitation period with our child.  Both Adam and I will need to be there for 5 weeks with the child.  We will need to find a place to live in Santo Domingo.  Staff from CONANI will visit us regularly during this time to observe how things are going.  After the cohabitation period, our adoption case will go to court and one of us will need to stay there through the court process which is expected to be an additional 6 weeks and then another week or two to finalize all documents needed to travel back to the U.S.  We aren't sure how this will all play out with our daughter Anjali's schooling and Adam's work.  But we have it in our hearts and minds to all be there for the entire time if at all possible.  We still have plenty of time to work out those details once we are matched with our child.  For the time being, we will work at getting the house and finances in order so that when our time comes, we will be in a good place.

Anjali has been talking more and more about her brother.  She pretends all the time that he is with us and is making big plans for what to do with him once he is here.  She buckles him in the back seat and most recently has taken to setting a place for him at the dinner table.  We are all so excited and getting ready for you little one.