Taken at UPS before we shipped our dossier
As I was looking over emails, I saw that one year ago today, on June 4, 2012, we were accepted into the Haiti Program with our adoption agency. They were very prompt in sending us information, guidelines, and the list of paperwork we needed to collect to form our dossier. I looked at all the information and quickly became overwhelmed. It was the beginning of summer and I procrastinated with getting our adoption paperwork started. It wasn't until Dec. 2012 I looked at the paperwork pile again and decided to get started. It has taken about 5-6 months to collect all that we needed. It was with great joy that I we sent our dossier documents onto our adoption coordinator. YAHOO!!!
Next Steps
I've been asked what the next steps are for us in the process.
From my understanding, our adoption coordinator will receive our documents, get them authenticated (no idea what that is), get them translated into french, and get them legalized in Haiti. Once those things are done, and that takes about 6-8 weeks, our dossier documents can be submitted to the IBESR, the part of the Haitian government that handles adoptions. From that point, we wait for a referral (when the IBESR matches us with a little girl). This could be 2-3 months after our dossier is submitted to the IBESR. It would be AWESOME if we could get a referral by Christmas. Then it will take about 18 months before we will be able to bring our little girl home.
It's been a journey to get to where we are today and God has walked with us through this journey. I leave it all in God's hands. He already knows who our daughter is and He will bring us together as a family.
