I-600A

People continue to ask us where we are at in the process of adopting our 2 kids. (and we love that people are so caring and loving - thank you all)

So, let me tell you where we're at.

We are very close to submitting our I-600A. The I-600A is an Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. In English it is a "pre-approval" to adopt internationally. Because we have not received a referral and therefore have no idea which children we will be adopting, we have not actually applied to adopt anyone yet. Rather we are getting ourselves pre-approved.

If you want to see what an I-600A looks like, go to:

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-600a.pdf

When filling out this document, we will need to include:
1. Proof of citizenship. (Birth Certificate and/or Passport - We're including both)
2. Proof of marriage (Marriage Certificate - that's easy enough)
3. Home Study Report. (We've received the rough draft from our case worker. Should be a matter of days before this is all cleaned up and ready to go)
4. Fingerprints (we've done this once, I guess we'll do it again)
5. A check for $545.00 (All part of the big price tag - well worth it)
6. Another check for $140 for the fingerprints (I'm in the wrong business - where was my guidance councelor when I needed him?)

Then, we wait some more. When its all been processed (maybe a month or 2?) we will receive a I-171H (I think). This will be the official United States government approval that we are eligible to adopt a child.

From there, we submit a bunch of stuff to our agency who, in turn, translates it to Russian and submits it to the Russian government. More on that later...

NOTE: I've been told that even though we are adopting two (2) children, we only need to submit one (1) I-600A. If anyone knows different, please let us know.