We are anticipating our completed home study report within the next week which will allow us to send a copy off to the USCIS and another to the interpreter, which I retained TODAY!! The "Big 4" will soon be on their way to the Missouri Secretary of State's office (home study, psych eval, letter to the IBESR & power of attorney), and after translation, on to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago for authentication. Then . . . off to Haiti, baby!
So, "then what," you may wonder. Well . . .
As I understand the process, the paperwork enters first legal: the Minister of Foreign Affairs looks over all authenticated documentation and validates the foreign signatures. Next, our dossier paperwork is picked apart, and a Haitian social worker investigates the whereabouts and validity of the boys' orphan status, compiles medical, psychological and social reports on each of them. The IBESR (Institut du Bien Etre Social et de Recherches = Haitian Adoption Authority) then approves the culmination of documents (the longest phase of approval, apparently) before sending the dossier off to Parquet = second legal. This is when the adoption becomes official! Legalization then occurs at the Minister of Justice's office before going over to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. (Still with me?) So, at this point, we are a family, but . . .
Before we can bring them home, a “mini” dossier containing all of the adoption documents is submitted to the Ministry of Immigration for application for the boys' Haitian passports and Ministry of Interior for study and approval. When the passports are ready for printing, each child is required to have a visa medical examination. Concurrently, the Haitian adoption papers will be translated into English and an I-600 will be filed to allow the boys US citizenship as soon as their plan touches down state-side!
Once the USCIS passes on this "golden ticket," we travel to Haiti again, go through a visa appointment in Port-au-Prince and bring Jimmy and Alby HOME.
Whew. Okay, maybe we aren't so close to that light at the end of the tunnel.
It feels like getting the paperwork to Haiti is the hard part . . . then we wait . . . and pray that we don't have to wait too long. I'll hold onto this bit of optimism I carry and pray that the passage through Haitian legal and IBESR is not terribly stretched out. Not so long that another natural disaster could strike, or more hospitalizations for Alby, or anything else that keeps our boys from coming home, please.
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