Moore Family Adoption

We spoke with Anya and Artium today, thanks to our translator Zina from ECAS.  We also sent off a packet to them today with letters, cards, stickers, etc, just to let them know we are thinking about them.  Anya told us she is really missing us.  We heard from another family who is adopting, the Ritzmans, that they received their call for a travel date.  They submitted their dossier to the SDA on 02/08/11, and got their SDA appointment date notice this week.  Nellie and I are so happy for them.  They will soon get to see their boy. We confirmed with Judy at ECAS this week that our attorney, Victor, is still set to submit our dossier to the SDA on 03/01/11.  If we follow the Ritzman's timeline, we should find out our SDA appointment date the 3rd week of March, with travel likely 2 weeks after.  Which puts us in Kiev about April 2nd or 3rd. We told Anya to hold on, and not to doubt that we are coming.   I've been in touch with Chris Haak th...

On the lighter side, I wanted to share some photo's with you.  Not everyone knows the different personalities in our family.  We wanted to show Anya that we are a loving family, and totally normal by American standards. I think Anya quickly got the picture of who we were...you know, what the Moore's are all about.  We are cut from the same cloth all Amercians are cut from.  She really seemed to fit in with us. 

I've just spent the better part of two straight days chasing after documents and getting Apostilles done.  Apostilles are documents that the Secretary of State issues to guarantee the validity of a document, as compliant with the Hague Convention on Adoption.  We had over 30 documents needing Apostilles.  The agency, ECAS, had taken care of at least a dozen.  Nellie and I had to get our employment letters and Health letters into ECAS by Thursday.  We had other letters we had asked from our real estate agent, our accountant, and our doctors.  I was begging for sign offs in time to get our documents shipped to our attorney in Ukraine.  Our attorney, Victor, wants to file with SDA on March 1st, and as I've stated before, we are trying to get to Ukraine to get Anya and Artium, who could be adopted by anyone.  So deadlines are very important.  My doctor, a really great guy, Dr. R from Northwest Family Physicians, filled out his form for a 2nd tim...

Nellie and I are super excited, because in the mail today, and unannounced, was our I-171H form from the USCIS.  This is essentially the last big form we needed to compile our dossier.  We have employment verification letters that will be finished by tomorrow, and Health letters that will be finished on Thursday.  Essentially, all of our dossier documents will be at ECAS on Thursday.  I say unannounced because other blogs we have followed indicated the case worker sent emails  first to notify the case was being worked.  We received no word.  But God be praised.  We asked him for a very fast review.  We got ours approved in just 35 days.  The timeline going forward looks something like this.  Hopefully, by Friday or Saturday, a visit to Fedex will occur, and our dossier will be on its way to Kiev to our lawyer, who will translate all documents to Ukrainian, and submit the dossier to SDAPRC.  This is the Ukrainian authority tha...

We spoke to Anya last Saturday.  The first thing I remember her sharing is that her and Artium are waiting.  That is hard to hear.  We are waiting over here as well.   We are filling out paperwork for our dossier, and waiting for the USCIS approval, the I-171H form to come from the Federal government.  Their own documents indicate that after BioMetrics, there is about a two week wait until approval.  Some other bloggers mentioned their worker emailed them a week before issuance.  Our adoption agency called in a request to expedite our petition.  But, for an I600-A form, there is no progress indicator, and no one to call to find out the status.  The process was changed in 2010 so that all the I-600A applications are processed in one location.   An email from a caseworker indicating they are working on it would be most welcome at this point.  The entire adoption rests on getting all the required paperwork assembled before i...

After finding someone to translate during a three way phone call, we successfully made a call to Anya and Artium this morning. It was so wonderful to hear Anya's voice and to find out how her trip back to Ukraine went. She seemed pleased to have been able to see the ocean from the airplane. She has told Artium about us and shared with him the photos that she took back with her. We were able to hear Artium's voice for the first time. He seemed a bit shy, but answered our questions with the help of his big sister. He has such a sweet little voice, we can't wait to meet him. Anya was happy to hear from us and asked if we would call her again tomorrow. We assured her that we would call her again next week. We miss her sooo much, and anxiously await the day when we will be able to bring them home forever.

Biometrics was today.  We brought Josiah even though his appointment is on the 9th.  Thanks to all for prayer, because they let Josiah get his done today instead of waiting six more days.  We are now getting our dossier ready for Ukraine.  Based on many other adoption blogs I've seen where Ukraine adoptions are getting completed in recent months, the time between biometrics and getting the needed I-171H approval from Homeland Security is two weeks.  Therefore, we are moving as fast as we can to get our dossier together. A dossier is a pamphlet of documents from federal and state agencies that verify we are really Nellie and David Moore, and that we would be good adoptive parents.  An adoption is a legal matter, filled with many requirements.    One of the comments on the last blog was what all the terms meant.  USCIS is the Federal Immigration Service.  In order for us to adopt two foreign children, we need to US government to a...