One step closer

Yesterday in the mail we received Claire's 'Legals' from our adoption agency. This batch of papers is the first official step that happens after we turn in all our acceptance and immigration forms. The legals are a series of documents issued by the Korean government confirming that Claire is an orphan and has been officially relinquished by her birth parents. It includes her family registry which is the Korean equivalent of her birth certificate. The other documents include a transfer of her guardianship to our adoption agency until we are able to finalize the adoption once she has been home with us for three months. We were surprised to see them arrive yesterday as most families have been getting theirs in 6-8 weeks. It has only been three weeks for us so we are keeping our fingers crossed that the rest of the stops along the way will move quickly too!

Next we have to wait on US immigration to issue her I600 approval. They need the legals in order to issue this document. Once the Indianapolis Immigration office issues this they will send it to the National Visa Center in DC, and from there it will be sent to the US Embassy in Seoul. Once the paperwork reaches Korea the US Embassy will schedule Claire's visa physical and they will issue her with a US visa to get into the country. While all this is going on the Korean government will be working on more paperwork called an emigration permit. This document allows Claire to leave Korea as an emigrant. Once all this is done we will get a call from our agency letting us know she is ready to travel. Recently the travel notices have been taking anywhere from 2.5 months to 5 months from acceptance of the match. We will pick her up most likely at O'Hare airport in Chicago. However, sometimes they fly into Detroit too. It just depends on where the person escorting them is going. Once she is ready to fly we will get anywhere from a one day notice to a couple of weeks that we have to be at the airport. Obviously, we'll drop whatever we are doing and get there!