The Dossier

I have had a few people who have read the blog to ask me questions about the Dossier- also known as the paper chase. So, I though this would be a good time to get some of those questions answered.

After we signed the adoption agreement with the agency, our next step was to complete the dossier that will be sent to China. The dossier is compiled of many documents that Stephen and I have to obtain and have notorized, then we have to have them certified by the county, then we have to have them authenticated by the state, then sent to the Chinese consolate.

Each week, we get two emails from the agency-- on Monday and Thursday. These emails give us our "assignment" to complete that week. We are four weeks into the emails and it seems like each one gets more difficult as we go along. The first week, we had to obtain certified copies of our birth certificates and our marriage certificate. It was easy! There is a website for the Vital Statistics for Alabama, so we just logged on, ordered them, and paid the fee. We received them in the mail within a week of the order. We thought if everything went this easy, we been done quickly. Boy, were we wrong!

The second week, the emails told us to get our passports. Still, not a big deal-- just go to the post office and get them done. So, I completed our forms online and we scheduled our time to get together and go. The passports are ordered, we are just waiting to get them back from the government.

The third week, we had to find and hire an agency to do our home study. Thankfully, I had already done some research on this and it was already in the works. Our first home study visit was at the beginning on February. We have to complete a few more things on our list before the home study can be completed.

Then, this week, we were assigned to get our medical forms completed. This is simple enough- go to the doctor and have a physical, get the forms completed by the doctor (with legible handwriting), and get the forms notorized.

I may be putting too much worry into getting the dossier done. Just typing this blog, I realized that the tasks at hand aren't difficult, they are just time consuming (as is the entire process). But, again, it will all be worth it in the end and we have Amelia in our arms.

By the way, don't be afraid to ask questions or leave comments! That may give me the material I need for the next blog entry...

I've heard enough....

OK, OK! I finally started a blog! So many of you wanted a weekly update about the adoption process, so I figured the best way to keep you all up to date was to do a blog.

So far, we know that the process is very long- approximately 2 years. We know we'll get a baby girl who will be between 9 and 12 months old. We've named her Amelia Ellen, thus "Amelia Quest."

Many of you have asked why we chose China for adoption. We did some research and narrowed the list down to 3- China, Russia, and Guatemala. From there, we based our decision on the age of the child, health of the children, length of travel time for the parents, and cost. China met all of our needs and expectations.

We are working with Great Wall China Adoption Agency (see their site at http://www.gwca.org/). We've signed our first adoption agreement with them. The biggest part of the process now is called "the paper chase"-- and that's what we are currently doing.

We have hired a social worker for our home study. During the home study process, we've had to get approved by the DHR for Alabama, have our fingerprints submitted to the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, and do a lot of paperwork. Our first visit with our social worker was last Saturday. It was approximately 4 hours, but everything went well. We have to complete 10 hours of adoption training before we'll see her again to complete our home study.

We've had to get copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate. We will have to get employment letters, a letter from our doctor, certified financial statements, more fingerprints, and the list goes on and on. All of the documents are needed to complete our "dossier" which will be sent to the Chinese government for approval. They will ultimately be the ones who will award us the baby.

Sounds simple enough, right? After they award us the baby, we will have between 6 and 8 weeks to plan the trip and travel to China. The process is fairly straight-forward-- we will travel to China and spend 14 days. I'll give more detail on the trip later.