The Timeline

I am going to start a short series of what John calls my "Tell All" posts.

In short, it took a series of miracles to get us out of the Congo in one piece, and now that I've had time to recover from my Adoption PTSD, I am ready to tell.  But first, let's revisit the whole process and what it looked like in numbers.

This was the journey of our second adoption:

3/25/10 Application to Holt

4/15/10 (ish) Application to ANDI (home study agency)

(lots of terrible communication and misunderstanding)

8/1/10 Home study Visit

8/1-3/2010 Parent Education

9/16/10 Completed Home Study Received

9/17/10 USCIS I600A Sent

10/1/10 Fingerprinting Appt Received 

10/25/10 Fingerprinting Appt.  

11/19/2010 USCIS Approval Received

11/19/2010 Dossier Papers Complete

11/29/2010 Dossier Approved by Holt (after one minor revision)-- On the Wait List! #60(ish)

(12/6/2010 Wait List #56)

12/28/2010 Dossier to Ethiopia

(2/1/2011 Wait List approx #43)

(2/14/2011 Wait List approx #34)

(2/25/2011 Wait List approx #28)

(3/5/2011 Wait List approx #24)

(3/18/11 Wait List approx #21)

(5/25/11 Wait List approx #19)

(6/14/11 Wait List approx #17 or 18)

(8/1/11 Still approx #17 or 18)

Increased Age range to 0-4y (got home study update done, but never sent in papers)

9/28/11 Saw Pierre's picture on a waiting list and emailed about him, thinking he was in Ethiopia.

9/29/11 Found out he was not matched yet, but was in the DRC, not Ethiopia

10/4/11 Decide to switch to the DRC and accept Eli Pierre's Referral!

11/19/11 Home Study and Dossier redone and mailed to A Love Beyond Borders

(Translating, Authenticating at DRC Embassy in Washington DC, etc)

12/27/11 Receive Raya Francisc's referral!

1/9/12 Submitted to Court (Papers Received by attorney in DRC)

1/31/12 Passed Court

2/5/12 Learned we Passed Court

2/29/12 30 Day Wait Ended

3/5/12 Certificates of Non-Appeal Issued

3/12/12 (ish) LBB Applied for kids' Passports

3/20/12 Passports Received

4/27/12 Had to Cancel tickets departing 4/30 due to an error in our documents, and the judge just left town for 2 weeks so they won't be fixed any time soon.

2.5 weeks later (when the judge returned) Found out there was actually no error in our documents in the first place

5/26/12-5/27/12 Travel to Congo

5/28/12 Meet Babies!

5/29/12 Visa Appt and Medical Appt

6/26/12 Visas and Immigration Packets Ready

6/28/12 Exit Permits Ready

6/29/12 Head out of DRC

6/30/12 HOME!