It’s been a while since I updated you on Esther, our little girl we are adopting from Hong Kong but for the most part there hasn’t been anything to update. A couple of months ago I shared the list of events that had to take place before we travel to get her. An adoption journey is hard to follow and for the most part different every time so here’s the list and what we still are waiting on before we can travel.
Operation: Bring Esther Home
DTHK (Dossier to Hong Kong)- check
Dossier review from team at Mother’s Choice- approx.. 1 week
Dossier sent off to AUSWD (Adoption unit)
Dossier review at AUSWD 4-8 weeks
Follow up questions sent to family from AUSWD- can take several weeks to get these questions
Responses sent back to AUSWD- 2-4 weeks (of course, that is what they give you- you can respond more quickly)
We sent our responses back to the Adoption Unit just over five weeks ago. We are waiting for official matching approval from them before we can move forward with the next steps. Our social worker says we can expect to hear back anytime in the next three weeks. Of course it could take longer… you never know. All this to say, “I check my e-mail often.”
Waiting period for referral begins:6-9 months (just be prepared for a shorter time frame in case)
Acceptance of referral Because we matched with Esther who was on the waiting child list we bypassed the referral period and have already signed our acceptance of referral. Yay!
Submit I800 for approval- 1-2 months
Approval received/ Article 5 issued from US Consulate in HK: 2 weeks
High Court for final approval- 6-8 weeks
Travel!
So in the grand scheme of things we really don’t lack that much especially considering we started this whole process around eighteen months ago. Whew! Of course we did drag our feet a little during the home study and switched countries two times. I can’t believe we are down to just a matter of months.
We get asked often, “So when do you travel? When do you get to met her?” Well, the truth is we don’t know. With each step that we complete we get a better idea but because each step has a variable time frame we can’t actually book a trip yet. In fact we could have as little as two weeks notice! Which will make for one crazy momma! Even though we don’t actually know when we will be traveling we are hoping for late December/ early January. Mainly we just want to get our little girl home before her birthday in March.
Hopefully, I will be writing a post soon letting you know that we got official matching approval from the Adoption Unit and then we will be onto the next step.
Until then, here a little FYI about Hong Kong for you.
Hong Kong Disneyland is there! I may or may not be trying to figure out how to work this into our trip. Not sure if it will be before or after we get Esther but children under three get in free and the cost for ML and me is only about a hundred bucks. Definitely worth checking out. Even if the only ride we get on is Dumbo.
For more Color Transformed Family follow me on:
Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Hometalk,
or RSS.
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
Have you been watching the Little Couple on TLC? They just adopted a child from China, and are going to be adopting a child from India as well.
Melanie recently posted…Coming Up With A Winter Game Plan
That’s cool. I saw an episode when I was over at a friends house earlier this Summer but haven’t seen it since then.