DTH (Dossier to Haiti), and What Comes Next

 

Here are all of our dossier documents (minus the I-171H which hadn't arrived yet) before we shipped it to our adoption agency.

So after we received our completed home study from our social worker and signed adoption contracts with the creche, we got busy finishing up The Dossier.

We prepared a letter to IBESR  (Institut du BienEtre Social et de Recherches), which is basically Haiti's Child and Family Services.  It is our official and personal request to adopt a child from Haiti.  Every family writes a letter like this to accompany their dossier.  In the letter, we explain why we want to adopt from Haiti and we share about our family.  Writing this letter took quite a bit of time and thought, but I think (I hope) it leaves the officials with a good impression of us.  Along with the letter we prepared a 3 page photo album of family photos with captions.  This will also help those reviewing our paperwork and idea of who we are.  A Power of Attorney document is also prepared so the agency/creche's attorney in Haiti can act on our behalf during the adoption process.

The last piece of the dossier is the Immigration Approval letter.  We filed the Form I-600A, Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition (July 9th) to bring a foreign-born (Haiti) orphan (W) into the U.S. as our child.  Then we got fingerprinted at our closest immigration office (on July 26th--2 weeks before our appointment--we just showed up early and they let us get printed!) and waited to receive our approval letter, the Form I-171H, Notice of Favorable Determination.  I stalked the mailbox for days and days, and it finally arrived on August 22nd!  Happy dance time!!

Someone at the post office spilled coffee??

This unremarkable looking form is our approval letter!

Once everything was gathered, we FedEx'ed our entire dossier to our adoption agency to be translated into French (this step was actually done when we scanned and emailed our documents to our agency for a first review), a final review, and authentication at the Haitian Embassy in Washington D.C.  On August 28th, our adoption coordinator FedEx'd it to Haiti, and on August 30th it was picked up by one of the staff at W.'s creche!!!  Oh my word, what an amazing feeling, to have our part of the process complete; to have the culmination of months of hard work (and roller-coaster emotions) in the hands of our adoption workers in Haiti.  THIS is where the process really begins.  We saw W's sweet face for the first time in February and by the end of August, our paperwork was in Haiti! :-D

So what next???
Our dossier has one final step before it enters IBESR and starts the review process.  It is currently being "legalized" by Haiti's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (I think that's correct), which can take a few weeks.  Then it will enter IBESR.

...IF...

IF W's file is complete.  Since W is a "true orphan", and as such has no birth certificate and his background is unknown, an adoption file has to be created for him.  The staff from his creche has to track down various people in various places and collect a variety of documents and get a variety of signatures.  Then he will have a file for adoption.  THEN his file and our file, along with a letter from our agency requesting we be matched, will be submitted to IBESR.   

This is a huge prayer request.  Creating a history for a child and gathering the documentation can be very difficult and time consuming.  Please pray with us that the creche is able to get W's file complete and correct and ready to go by the time our file is finished with legalization.  Thank you so much for praying!!!