I800A

We left off at the end of the last post with an approved home study (woohoo!). Next up we completed an I800A application and sent it in along with a copy of our completed home study (and a fat stack of cash...j/k, it was a check).

So what’s an I800A? It’s an Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country. It’s basically asking the United States for permission to bring in an adopted child.

The process for this step goes:

1. Mail application, home study, and payment to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) Lockbox Facility in Texas

2. Receive notification that package was received (by text or email if you remember to include the form that allows them to text or email you...if not, you get a letter in the mail like we did)

3. Check is cashed and everything is packaged back up and mailed from Texas to the National Benefits Center (NBC) in Kansas (bureaucratic red tape...amiright?)

4. Receive notification that paper work was received in Kansas

5. Receive an appointment time to be fingerprinted at the local (Des Moines) USCIS field office

6. Once fingerprints have cleared, NBC will issue I800A approval


As of today we're waiting on our notification of receipt from NBC (Step 4).      

So that's our little update! Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support you've shown, it's truly so uplifting.

Oh, also...I was thinking about doing a Q&A. We get tons of questions about our adoption and we love answering them but thought it might be nice to do a Q&A to answer a bunch at once for anyone who's interested. So if you have any questions let me know (comment, message me, email me, text me, whatever)!