We’re so grateful to every person who’s celebrated our match with us. Truly, we’re humbled by the amount of people who love our family, including our daughter. She’s so loved! Matching was a huge step, but we still have a long way to go until we can travel to bring her home. This graphic gives the short version of what steps we have next…
Since being matched, our paperwork load amped up again! I guess paperwork is an odd thing to be excited about, but it excites me! Our adoption was at a stand-still for so long, and doing paperwork means there’s movement! We applied for I-800 approval. This is approval from US Immigration to adopt our specific child from India. We’ve also begun the task of putting together our acceptance dossier. “Dossier” is a term I had never heard of until we entered the adoption world, but basically, it’s a huge set of paperwork that a judge will look at in India to (hopefully) grant us custody of our daughter. I’ve seen pictures of other families mailing off their dossiers, and their packages are HUGE! Needless to say, I’ve been a little nervous about this step! It’s quite the daunting task. Our agency sent us a detailed list with awesome instructions on how to assemble our dossier, and we’re taking it one step at a time. A lot of it is re-gathering or updating information we previously gathered for our home study.
Once we have our I 800 approval, the next steps will be DS 260 and Article 5. After that, we can apply for the next big approval we need from India, NOC. NOC stands for, “No Objection Certificate”. It’s basically India saying they have no objections to our adoption our specific daughter. NOC doesn’t make our daughter legally ours (that happens in the court process), but it’s a HUGE deal and a very big milestone!
Once we have all of this, we can be registered for court in India. For now, though, we’re keeping our focus on these big steps right in front of us. Here are some specific prayer requests:
- That we’ll be able to collect and complete our dossier quickly. We know we can’t fully control the timeline of our adoption process, but we want to do our part in bringing our daughter home as quickly as possible!
- That we’ll receive all of these approvals quickly.
- For our daughter- her salvation, her health, and that the Lord would already begin working in our hearts and her’s for bonding and attachment.
- For her caretakers- that they would have wisdom as they care for her and that they would know the love of Christ!
- For those in US Immigration and India who will review our paperwork and make decisions.
- Ultimately, for God to be glorified!
Of course, we have so many wonderful things to praise God for:
- Being matched with our daughter, of course! It’s so sweet to have a face to go with the name we’ve been praying for for so long.
- All of YOU! We have such wonderful people surrounding us. We’re so, so grateful and praise God for you!
- Our boys’ questions, conversations, etc. about their sister. It’s so precious. Hunter even came home from school having written her a letter and drew a picture of the 2 of them together. Isaac, too, says the sweetest things about her.
God’s faithfulness is great! Thank you for journeying with us, friends!
diariesofadaughter.com 