I600A Approval

So Thursday we came home from a long day of wedding preparations to a pleasant surprise... The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has given notice of a "favorable determination concerning application for advance processing of orphan petition." Or in other words, they said YES!

We have our US approval. Now we wait for Ghana's approval.

Kingsley and the social worker will go over our dossier, making sure everything is in place and we fit the rules of Ghanaian adoption. Kingsley is going to request a court date of September 4th! Hopefully he gets it!

After we have court approval and Ghana says we can take Sarah out of the country, we can fly over there!

On a side note, it seems that Ghana is now being forced to strictly enforce a not-so-fun little adoption law. Their law states that interim adoptions may be granted up to 2 years, and that final adoptions will not be granted right out unless it is in the best interest of the child. Up until now, most judges have determined that it is in the best interest of the child to have a finalized adoption when leaving the country.

Apparently some other countries have complained that Ghana is not following their own laws and they are forcing the Ghanaian judges to issue interim adoptions of 2 years from here on out. :(

That means that we will be considered Sarah's legal guardians, but we will not have a finalized adoption decree for probably 2 years. :(

Most adoption experts (mostly people who work at agencies and have seen this in many, many other countries) are not really worried about it and say it won't really effect the adoption. I suppose the idea is that if the child and adoptive parents don't bond over the 2 years, the child can go back to the country. It's not a permanent thing that can't revoked or changed, unlike finalized adoptions.

We've been assured that it is EXTREMELY unlikely that Ghana (or any other country for that matter) would just take the child back as opposed to awarding a finalized adoption after the 2 years.

But you know what? I'm still a little *annoyed*. I want Sarah, no "take-backs." Do you think that game works with the courts??? lol. I hope so!