The Waiting Game

 During the process to adopt from Bulgaria there are lots of steps that require waiting. It feels like you’re always waiting for something! 

1) Homestudy. This can take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months. Ours was estimated to be 6 months but Bulgarian gives a time limit once you’ve made a request. So, since we had not yet started our homestudy we needed to pay a fee to expedite the process. This increases the cost of the homestudy significantly. My suggestion is to have your homestudy mostly done before making a request for a specific child. 

2) i800a: This must be applied for once the homestudy is completed. It is an application to the USCIS (US Immigration) to be approved to adopt a child from a Hague convention Country. This usually takes about a month, but I have seen it take three months. What you hope is you don’t get a dreaded pink slip called an RFE (Request for Evidence) In our case, we received one, for something they already had in their possession. This is quite common. Still, our process took about 4 weeks so not too bad. 

3) Ship your dossier! This is a big step! You have just spent the last 6-9 months gathering MANY  documents, getting each of them notarized (state) and apostilled (that is a federal notary to certify the first state notary is actually an actual authorized state notary) Sending off your dossier is a little scary! Those documents cost a lot of money to gather and authenticate, and you just put them in an envelope to make their way to Bulgaria! In our case we send the to our agency who sends them on to Bulgaria. 

4) Get an approval and invitation to travel!! That is trip one and scheduled just a few weeks out at this point. That’s the post you read prior to this. 

5) i800: This form is to determine the chosen child’s eligibility for classification as an adoptee according to The Hague convention. In other words, the child is legally available for adoption.  Some families submit this prior to traveling on their first trip, while others submit it after the trip. Our agency has us submit after the first trip. This process takes about a month. It approval comes with a magic number that is then submitted to the Bulgarian authorities verifying all steps have been completed. Lots of cross checking going on here!

6) Submit to the Ministry of Justic (MOJ) in Bulgaria and wait for them to review your case, give final approval, and allow a court date to be issued. This can take one week or six. Nobody really knows. 

7) Get assigned a court date! Some families find out one day prior that court is happening in Bulgaria. Personally we had a one week notice. 

8) Court!!!!! The court date to finalize the adoption happens while you are home. Our court date was February 18, 2022. Our daughter legally became ours that day! Her name is now Adell! Her Bulgarian name was kept as her middle name, and she has my last name. 

9) One week wait: The court has a one week waiting period before the adoption decree is signed and issued. Once that is done a new birth certificate can be issued and everything starts to move pretty fast. Except for us!

10) Receive a travel date. This usually happens a week or so after court. In our case, due to Adell’s age of 14 she was required to have a two-shot Covid vaccine series. It took a bit, for this to happen. While other families are able to travel 2-3 weeks after court, we had to wait until three weeks after she’d had her first shot and was read any for her second. 

11) Pick up trip!!! TIME TO GO GET YOUR KID!!!! 

Next post: Pick up trip!!!!