Timeline

Many of you have asked us at different times what our timeline looks like for the adoption. As a side note, let me also clarify that the caterpillar Nick and I are so leisurely walking past at the top of site counts up from the day that we mailed in our original application to CAS.

The estimated process times have increased from when we started looking into the program, applied and began the process. When we started looking at CAS’s program last winter, the wait time for referral after submitting the dossier to Vietnam was 1-5 months with a 1-2 month wait for travel after referral. Most people had their baby with them within 10 months of submitting the original application to CAS.

By the time we sent in our application, the wait time from dossier to referral had increased to a 3-6 month wait.

As some of you may have noticed on their website, CAS has recently put a temporary hold on accepting new clients into their Vietnam program because of increased interest in the program. This began on June 30th, and therefore does not effect our participation in the Vietnam program. We can only speculate on how it may effect our process: (1) possibly things are moved more quickly in order to reopen the program–I don’t even know that this is possible, (2) We are sped up or held back in order to have specific families travel together or (3) with increased program numbers, things may take a bit longer. I did notice this morning though that the wait from dossier to referral has been increased again to a 3-9 month wait and a 6-16 week wait from referral to travel.

In order to submit our dossier to Vietnam, we have some paperwork take care of including our home study, fingerprinting, dossier document collection, and the I-171H. A lot of this is stuff we can move forward by just doing it, however the I-171H is the result of submitting the I-600A. It is filed with the CIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) and can take anywhere from 90-120 days to receive the subsequent I-171H in return.

We originally mailed our I-600A to Charlotte, NC on June 8th. It was returned on the 15th and picked up by us on July 1st at the post office. Apparently we forgot to date one of our signatures. We resent it on July 2nd and they received in on July 3rd. It was stamped at the original reception (June 9th) and so we don’t know if the 90-120 days will start on June 9th or July 3rd.

So, with all of those factors in play, I thought I would play out the shortest and longest scenarios for us to meet the babe.

If everything moved as quickly as possibly:
I-600A received June 9th, receiving the I-171H 90 days later = Sept 6th
If the dossier is submitted by Oct 1st and we get a referral in 3 months = Jan 1st
If we travel 6 weeks later = Feb 12, 2008

If everything is drawn out and happens at the end of the suggested times:
I-600A received July 3rd, receiving the I-171H 120 days later = October 30th
If the dossier is submitted by Dec 30th and we get a referral in 9 months = Sept 1st
If we travel 16 weeks later = Dec 22, 2008

That is a fairly large spread. I think that either one of those dates is unlikely and that it will happen somewhere between. We’re hoping to travel sometime next spring, but who knows. Maybe once our dossier is submitted we should let you all guess our referral date and then whoever is closest will get something from Vietnam. We could do the same with naming the travel date as well. Could make things fun.