Our Timeline

Many people thinking about adoption have lots of questions.  Many people who hear we are adopting have many questions...
One question that is consistent for both groups is:

What is the process to adopt?

Truth is... this is ALWAYS different.  The country you are adopting from determines your process and timeline (most of the time, however, that is not always consistent either).

We are going to track our timeline on this page (the best we can) to help others adopting (especially from Haiti) have an idea of what to expect from one family's perspective.  Please note that if you are starting a Haitian adoption.. ALL cases seem to be different... this may or may not be anything like your timeline.  The process will be the same but the times between steps could be drastically different.


December 2012- officially decided to adopt internationally.

February 2013- started meeting with adoption agencies to determine who to use and which country we should/could adopt from.

May 2013- Decided to use America World Adoption Association (AWAA) and applied to that agency.

June 21, 2013- Officially accepted into the Ethiopia Program with AWAA and began "paper chase" (dossier building).

June 28th, 2013- Contacted by AWAA's Oregon social worker to begin home study process.

September 20, 2013- Home Study Completed and Approved

October 2013 through January 2014- Began applying for adoption grants.  It had been recommend to us to apply for all the ones we had planned on at one time rather than separately.

October 29, 2013- Dossier competed and ready to be sent to AWAA.

November 3, 2013- Found out Haiti was changing their adoption laws and held off mailing dossier to do more research into that program.

November 7, 2013- Received FIRST APPROVAL of grant application!! Received a grant from JSC Foundation! We ended up receiving 5 additional grants.

November 8, 2013- Officially began transfer to Haiti program with AWAA.

November 15, 2013- Approved and accepted into the Haiti program with AWAA.

December 10, 2013- Home Study Update interview to change our home study to a Haiti approved home study.

January 24, 2014- Home Study Update Completed and Approved.

February 2, 2014- Haiti Dossier is completed and mailed to AWAA.

March 6, 2014- Signed a Power of Attorney over to the lawyer for Foyer De Sion. They have a child that meets our request of male 0-24 months at time of referral. We cannot find out any details of this child but it is the child that the lawyer will push through the court systems and match with our dossier.

March 18, 2014- received an email informing us that our dossier has been fully translated and authenticated by the Haiti consulate. It is now mailed to the Foyer De Sion in Haiti.

April 15, 2014- received an email that our dossier was submitted to MOFA, not sure when it was submitted exactly.

May 27, 2014- Our dossier was submitted to IBESR to wait for official referral. IBESR stated our wait for official referral should be 6-8 months (between Nov 2014 and Jan 2015). At this point we have what is called a soft match, but they cannot tell us about him (age, name, photos, etc...) until we have our official referral.

January 2015-March 2016- Praying like crazy for our officially referral that has yet to be received. Currently have a deadline of April 1, 2016 to receive our officially referral. If not received by April 1st, we essentially have to start back at the beginning by applying for an I800 (since I600 approvals will no longer be valid due to Haiti becoming a Hague Convention Country).

March 12, 2016- Received an email from our family coordinator that we will most likely not receive our official referral by April 1st and that we should start working on our home study update to apply for an I800.  Praying for a miracle to happen!

March 28, 2016- Home Study interview for home study update.

March 30, 2016- Home Study Update completed, approved and notarized.

April 4, 2016 - Found out that we received our final judge signature by April 1st just not our officially referral letter.

April 5, 2016- Mailed our I800A application

April 6, 2016- received an email that Department of State put out an alert that I600 may be able to move forward without transitioning to I800 so long as paperwork was filed before February 15, 2016 ("check that box" by far too many months!).

April 12, 2016- Got notified that all I600 families can continue as I600 families until their approval expires (ours does February 2017 so we should be ok). Will not be refunded the money we spent for the I800 approval but can hold both authorizations for now. IBESR says they intend to give all official referral letters for I600 families within 3 months.

July 12th- 3 months is up and not all of the 70 I600 families have received our official referral. We have not yet, praying it comes soon!

October 20, 2016- (29 months after entering IBESR)Received a phone call from Michelle at AWAA, WE HAVE OUR OFFICIAL REFERRAL!

October 23, 2016- FINALLY received our first photo of little R (we still cannot share his name until we have our adoption decree).

November 15, 2016- 2 Week Bonding Trip- We got to meet R for the first time. After a couple years of praying for this little boy, we finally got to meet him!

May 11-May 17, 2017- Family trip to Haiti so the girls could meet their brother for the first time!

May 16, 2017- (6 months after bonding trip) Exited IBESR

August 25, 2017 - (3.5 months after exiting IBESR) Judgement Received 

Court System (1-2 months) - (4 months after exiting IBESR) at the end of this step in the adoption is when R will have our last name and legally be our son, we come out of this step with what is called an adoption decree - Decree received September 15, 2017.

Attestation Signature (National Archives) (2  to 4 weeks)
Minister of Justice (2 weeks to 3 months)- these 2 steps are very unclear to us.  We don't really know what happens during this step and we don't know when we finished this step.  We do know we entered MOI (the next step) on or before Sep 29, 2017. 

MOI – Minister of Interior (3 weeks to 4 months)- (4 months after adoption decree) Sept 29, 2017-January 18, 2018

Passport (2 weeks-6 weeks)- (6 weeks after exiting MOI) January 28, 2018- March 1, 2018

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Everything Below this line is future steps in our process and estimated timelines for each step... but as we and many other families have experienced, estimated timelines can mean nothing in the world of international adoptions, and especially in Haitian adoptions.
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USCIS (currently stated at 6 weeks processing time)- February 5, 2018- 

VISA Appointment (1 day – 14 days from I600 approval notification)

Visa Pick-Up (1-3 days after visa appointment if visa approved and no additional appointment needed).

IBESR Travel Authorization (48-72 hours after visa printing)

Trip to bring Axel home!!