We got an updated preliminary approval form from CIS (Citizen’s and Immigration Service) this week. It shows that we’re adopting from Vietnam and, hopefully, that will satisfy all government agencies that need to review these sorts of documents.
 Our situation has been complicated by the fact that we won’t be returning immediately to the US with Alyssa from Vietnam. Instead, we will be coming back to Turkey. This means that we won’t apply for her immigrant visa in Vietnam, but in Turkey. The good news is that the consular officer in Turkey tells that she has all of the necessary approvals to process the visa for Alyssa. The consular officer is also working with the Turkish authorities to determine what type of visa we will need to get to bring Alyssa to Turkey from Vietnam. At that point, she won’t be a US citizen and will need to get a different visa than the rest of us. The consular officer assures us this won’t be a problem. It’s really great to have such competent people working hard to help make this adoption as easy as possible.
A real quick update on our dossier. Talked with the adoption agency last night. They got the dossier back from the Vietnamese Embassy, but a couple of documents had to be re-done. They hope to have them completed today and be able to send our dossier to Vietnam.
Our dossier is complete and has been finalized, stamped, etc by the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington. The Adoption Center of Washington should be sending it to Vietnam later this week. That means the clock can start ticking on the process in Vietnam. Still no definite word on how long that will take.
I spoke with our adoption agency last night. They anticipate that Alyssa will come from the orphanage that they have been sponsoring over the past several years. Right now, there are no infant girls in the orphanage - just four small boys. But, the agency is optomistic that a girl will arrive soon. We will be the first family from the ACW to get an infant girl since Vietnam has re-opened.
Looks like the final document is in place for our dossier. We had to re-submit our medical clearance. The Vietnamese government changed the form from one that was in Vietnamese and English to one that was only in English. Seems odd, doesn’t it?
Anyway we finished the new form and fedexed it back to the Adoption Center of Washington. They’ve received the forms and also have our dossier back from the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington. So, it is ready to be sent to Vietnam! Should happen this week.
We’re also working on getting a new pre-approval letter from the US government that shows we’re living in Turkey. But, that won’t hold up the dossier so it can come later.
We put up Alyssa’s crib yesterday! This makes it seem like her arrival is very imminent although it is probably still a few months away. Jessie and Alyssa are going to share a room. A fact that Jessie is very excited about. She was also thrilled to see and try out the new crib as we can see from the picture below.
Just a follow up to say that the licensing process is complete. We received a second email from our adoption agency with a picture of their Vietnam rep getting a copy of their license from a Vietnamese government official. The email also included a process for adoption that spells out the time line for adoptions in Vietnam. It says that the time from receiving a complete dossier until a finalized adoptiong is 120 days. We don’t know exactly what that means, yet. Hopefully that is the maximum time and it can be shortened.
Great news today!! We got an email from our adoption agency saying that they had received a call telling them that the Vietnamese government had approved their license. Nothing in writing yet so they are holding this news close, but they expect to have written confirmation by early next week.
So, one of the big hurdles has been cleared. Our agency also told us that our dossier was still at the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington being translated. As soon as that is complete, they will fedex it to Vietnam to be presented to the Vietnamese government. Ours should be one of the first to be submitted by a US adoption agency since Vietnam has re-opened for international adoptions.
We are obviously very excited, but many questions remain. The exact process for this adoption is not clear so we don’t really know when to expect a referral from the Vietnamese or when we’ll be able to go to Vietnam once we get the referral. We also are not sure whether we’ll have to only make one trip to Vietnam or two like we did for Jessie. But, these questions will clear up with time. Since the licensing was the one issue that had the potential to really hold things up, we’re very happy.
More to follow as soon as we get news.