adoption from the Ukraine in a nutshell

Adoption for the Ukraine (borrowed from another blog):

1. Dossier paperwork – gathering things like birth certificates, marriage certificate, etc., and getting them notarized and apostilled.
2. Home study – a social worker interviews us and looks into our ability to parent and provide for a child. There is paperwork gathering here, too, and looking into assets, etc.
3. Immigration – filing fingerprints and money and such with the USCIS (former INS).
4. Sending completed dossier to facilitator in Ukraine for translation.
5. Submission of translated dossier to the State Department on Adoption (SDA), the government body in Kyiv (the capital of Ukraine) that does international adoptions.
6. SDA accepts dossier and issues a travel date.
7. Travel to Kyiv to meet with the SDA and get the referral of a child.
8. The inspector of the child's region and orphanage director give approval for us to visit the child.
9. We travel to the child's city.
10. We get a court date with a judge to be pronounced our child's parents.
11. There is a 10-day wait after pronouncement. (Sometimes this gets waived.)
    
12. Get passport with our child's new name and other paperwork.
13. Travel back to US Embassy in Kyiv for clearance and medical checkup.
14. Fly home.

(Kyiv is the Urkaine spelling for Kiev)


Sharon added that the entire process usually takes about 18 months.