Stahlke Adoption

Some News

Two days ago, Jonathan received information about our visa from the Department of Homeland Security (Chicago office). We're still not clear about how to proceed, so he forwarded the DHS message to Wendy, Darlene, and Masha (our Illinois social worker, LSS-Connecticut program director, and Ukrainian facilitator, respectively.)

Masha wrote back right away. I won't go into her answer concerning our visa, because she had other big news. Yesterday she met with the Ukrainian SDA (State Department of Adoption) to submit our dossier (officially called registration of the dossier). According to Ukrainian law, the SDA has twenty working days to process our paperwork and decide to approve or deny our request. If approved, our documents are entered into their database and an invitation for an appointment is issued. We've heard from Darlene that families at various U.S. agencies have experienced about six weeks between notification of an appointment and the appointment itself.

The website of the U.S. embassy in Kyiv states that the time from submission to the actual appointment date ranges from three to twelve months. But three years ago, our time frame was less than four weeks. Also, the embassy website states that the SDA must process the dossier within twenty working days; that means they might move faster.

All in all, we don't know yet when we might travel, but events have now taken a definite turn. It's difficult for me to concentrate on anything else.

posted by Stahlkes @ 9:17 PM