India Adoption Stages - Pre-Waiting List

Our family is in the process of adopting from India, and its a loooong process.  All international adoptions are long processes.  I'm going to detail our process for India, but every country's process is a little different, so if you are pursuing this, check with your agency on the details for your particular country.


The India process is around 18-24 months to bring the child home.  Since I count as a non-resident Indian, we get to go to the front of the waiting list once we get to that stage, and there are some legal/court requirements in India that we get to shortcut.  The 5 stages just to get on the waiting list are:

1. Application, Part 1
2. Online Class
3. Application Part 2
4. Home study
5. I-800/Dossier

We started around a year ago, I would guess.  First we picked an agency (Dillion International), then we filled out the first application.  The first application was a piece of cake.  Like applying for a bank account.  It took a few hours and we were done.


Then we did an online adoption class which took 15-ish hours to complete, which we spread out over a week or two of evenings.  


And then we filled out the App Part 2.   This one required original copies of birth certificates, social security cards, and all kind of other stuff.  This is the killer one.  My wife is the one handling all the paperwork (thank God), and there's been stacks of paperwork literally several inches high sitting on her desk.  Katie ran herself ragged getting or ordering all of the information together for this.  It took us around 2 or 3 months to finish this stage.


For the home study, we had a social worker come out several times over the course of a few weeks to make sure we know what we're getting into, and to make sure we're not obviously ax murderers or anything.  She met with us as a family, and then did individual interviews with Katie and with me.  Once she was finished with that, she wrote up her report and sent it to the adoption agency. 

So, now we are currently done with our home study, and are waiting for our I-800 to come back.  As far as I can tell, that's an immigration form of some kind that takes a few months for the government to complete.  Anyway, once the I-800 is done, then we can go on the waiting list at Dillion.  


While we are waiting for the I-800 to get done, we are working on our dossier.  That is the official stack of paperwork that the Indian courts get when they rule on our adoption.  This doesn't have to get done before we go on the waiting list, though.