Progess to Date (Part 3)

During the time Elena was here, our American facilitator Tonya was busy compiling our Ukrainian Dossier.  We gave her all the needed forms including medical forms, certified warranty deed for our house, apostalled  copy of our marriage license from the State of New Jersey (this cost over $100), employment verification letter and various other forms.  This allowed Tonya to finish our Home Study paperwork and almost all the Ukrainian Dossier.  Our almost complete dossier was sent over to Ukraine with the team heading  back to the Ukraine with the host children.  The dossier will be translated and ready for the two additional forms that are required to submit our application to the Ukraine government.

At the same time we submitted our I-600A form to the US Department of Homeland Security/Immigration to get our pre approval to bring an orphan (hopefully Elena) back to the USA from Ukraine.  We Fedexed the forms on January 13.  We received a letter stating that they got our application but then received another letter saying we need to submit our Home Study (we of course did submit it).  I called Tonya who made a new notarized copy of the Home Study and gave it to me the next day.  I went straight to the Post Office and mailed the Home Study out again.  Hopefully we will not lose more than a few days in the process.  We are still waiting to get a letter with the date and time of our last set of fingerprints (hopefully).

The last form that we need to complete is a new form for the Ukraine.  We are now required to submit to an Interpol background check.  Originally Tonya thought that this would add 40 days to our time horizon to get Elena.  However she told us that the background is only needed for the court hearing which occurs later in the process and that the Interpol background check should not delay the process.

I will provide a post in the next few days with our estimated schedule for bringing Elena home to her forever family.