How long does the adoption process take in Armenia?

Another Frequently Asked Question we are getting is, "So, how long does the adoption process take in Armenia?"

Most discussions of "how long" begin at the point of dossier submission. (A dossier is the collection of required documents - this varies from country to country.) The reason for this is that the time it takes to collect your dossier will vary widely from state to state and family to family. A lot of that time is based on waiting for the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to finish the paperwork that gives the adoptive parents approval to bring an orphan into the US. Each USCIS field office (most states have one field office) has different processing times (for a variety of reasons, I'm sure).

We expect our USCIS to return our approval about 3 1/2 - 4 months after we submit the application. We hope to submit our application (we are using the I 800A - for Hague compliant countries) in late May or early June, thus we expect to have our entire dossier ready to go when we recieve that approval in Sept or October. Most of our dossier documents can be gathered in a few weeks' time. The approval from USCIS is the last piece of the dossier, which is then sent off to the Secretary of State of NC to be "Apostilled". Once returned the dossier is complete and ready to be submitted to Armenia!

Now here's the timeframe from that point:

1) documents are translated into Eastern Armenian and hand-delivered to a special committee on adoption in the Prime Minister's office. (1-2 weeks)

2) The Prime Minister then gives his first approval. (1-2 months)

3) A search begins for suitable referral (child matching our requests: girl, generally healthy (minor or correctable special needs considered), under 1 year (will consider toddler). (2-3 months) If a child was relinquised by the mother to the orphanage there is a mandatory 3 month waiting period. If the child is a foundling there is a 6 month waiting period. Some children have already been through this waiting period before they are referred for adoption.

4) When a referral comes, we will have 2 weeks to consider the referral (and have the child's medical history reviewed by a doctor). (2 weeks)

5) After we've accepted the referral, we begin the final approval process with the Prime Minister's office. (1-2 months) After which, we recieve notification to travel to Armenia to complete the adoption.

6) About 2 weeks later we travel to Armenia! (2 weeks)

7) From here the adoption completion travel can be handled two ways: one trip of 38 days or two trips of 4 and then 10 days with a 30 day waiting period in between. (1 1/2 months)

Total time from dossier submission to completed adoption: approximately 10 months.