When a family asks Wyoming Children's Society to serve as the adoption agency, an Application Form must be completed and an application fee paid.

The family defines their child preferences (by sex, age, ethnic background and so on) applies for a United States passport in order to travel to Russia, begins to gather the documents (which are required parts of the dossier) and applies to an agency to conduct their home study in their home state.

Within weeks of completing the dossier (to include home study), a family can be traveling to Russia to meet the child that has been matched to them based on the child preferences criteria they selected.