Costs & Timeline


Bulgaria 2015/2016 (2 children, dif orphanages, through AAC)



Timeline:
Submitted agency and referral commitment papers April 2015
Homestudy Update meeting April 2015
Homestudy rewrite draft July 2015
USCIS pre-approval submitted August 2015
Dossier mailed to country August / Sept 2015
Dossier submission Oct 7th 2015
Dossier acceptance (signature) Oct 2015
(below is estimated)
Trip # 1 Metcha Day (2 weeks) November 2015
1800 approval -  Dec 17 2015
Article 5   - Jan 8 2016
Court - Feb 15th 2016
Trip # 2 GOTCHA DAY & HOME (1 week March 2016)


Costs 
Homestudy Update - $700 pd 4-15-15
Local Background Checks - $20 pd 4-15-15
First Agency fees ($1,750 case management, $2250 program fee, $500 HS oversight) - $4500 pd 4-15-15
Marriage License copies $30 pd 4-05-15
Fingerprint fees $15 per print x 3 prints x 3 people = $135 (paid 5/1/15)
FBI & State Background checks - $165 + $90 = $255 (Paid 5-1-15)
Reece's Rainbow FSP Application fee $25 + One time donation $250 = $275 (paid 5-9-15)
FBI Clearance Apostilles $59 + $16 postage = $75 (paid 6/1/15)
Post Placement Reports Prepaid 7/11/15 = $1200
Apostilles for all paperwork - $6 (paid 8/4/15)
Postage for dossier (paperwork) to agency - $20 (paid 8/10/15)
Second child commitment fee (first half) - $2450 (paid 8/19/15)
USCIS Immigration pre-approval $975 (I-600A + 3 Biometrics fees) (paid 8-20-15)
Postage for above to USCIS - $5 (paid 8-20-15)
Postage last half of dossier to agency - $5 (paid 8-21-15)
Next set of program/agency fees $5000 (paid 8-29-15)
Last bit of previous program/agency fees due 8-29 - $1000 (paid 9/25/15)
2nd stage Dossier Update - Medicals + FBI Backgrounds + Postage
($60 fingerprint cards, $135 FBI BG checks, $55 postage, $51 apostilles, postage $36, apostilles for Medical & Parental Rights Verification $3) $240 (paid Nov 2015)

Trip #1 Travel ($2300 flights + $1100 food/in country travel/lodging/etc.) $3400 November
Visas for children $325 each -- $650
Agency Fees (paid 12-7-15) $6500
Second child I-800a $720 (check mailed to USCIS, cashed 12/8/15)


Travel Trip #2 (Pick up trip YAY!) March/April 2016 $4341
Flights = $3306
Apartment 6 nights = $440
Passport escort fees for kids = $300
Food = (we had lev left from previous trip and only spent that. $100 )
Child's TB testing 2x & medical exams = $295

Total = $32,403




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UKRAINE 2013

This is the log of all fees we had to pay. This is why adoption costs as much as it does. The whole process for the country we are going to is approx 7 months start to finish and costs approx $ 20,000 for one child or $ 25-27k for two.

Starting fees:
Homestudy - $ 1650 + mileage ($ 825 due to start and the rest at the home visit)
Application fees & suggested donation - $ 275
Deposit - $ 1000 (applied to travel)
USCIS application & biometrics fees - $ 890
Total to start - $ 3815

Next step, Dossier Prep:
Passports $ 135 each (x2)
Health Checks ($ 30 each x7)

Documents, documents, and more documents!
Notaries, stamps, seals, signatures, postage - $ 43
Mailing of completed dossier (package of documents) to country ($ 75)
Flights for hubby & myself plus return flight for "Jacob" - $ 2700
Facilitation fees - $ 9k for 1 child
Travel in country, plus living expenses (food, apartment, etc) - This ended up less than we thought, we spent about $ 3000 in country.
_____________________________________
Total - Approx $ 20,000 (We spent just under that, approx $ 19,500)



Timeline - This is how things played out for our adoption
October 2012 - I first found Reece's Rainbow and started browsing the site and a couple of the kids broke my heart. Jacob was one of them. I started praying for them to find their families.
November 2012 - The prayers shifted to me praying that we could be Jacob's family. Later that month my hubby brought up the idea and we decided to commit as soon as we could raise the first fees.
December 2012 - We started fundraising for the first fees and contacted a home study agency.
January 2013 - We officially committed to Jacob and had our first two home study visits with our social worker.
February 2013 - We finished our home study visits and got our passports
March 2013 - We had our medical appointments to finish the home study and started working on dossier paperwork.
April / May 2013 - we sent our dossier to the facilitation team for translating and submitting to the government (last paper received in country on May 22nd).
May __ 2013 - We were officially submitted to the government as pre-adoptive parents and are now waiting on an appointment date (anticipating the last week of July or first week of August).
July 7th 2013 - We got our travel date.
August 2013 - travel for our appointment. (August 3rd)
(two days later) arrive and get referral (August 5th)
(two days later) arrive in region meet and "Jacob" for the first time and accept referral. (August 7th)
(2-3 weeks later) court (August 20th)
(10-14 days later) Gotcha Day & paper chase (September 6th was Gotcha Day, and the paper chase had been done earlier in the week)
(1 later week) HOME (September 12th 2013)