The Paperchase

Warning:  Long post...I'm starting from the beginning...

I'm going to try to document all that we have done and will do for this adoption.  I want to remember each step along the way.  I also want to try to explain the process step by step for anyone else trying to figure it out.  It helps me to remember how far we have come already, and I don't get so discouraged about how far we still have to go.

First, I did a lot of research.  When we first seriously started this adoption discussion, I was scared, and I thought of all the logical arguments about why we couldn't or shouldn't do this.  Matt has said that he wanted to adopt ever since shortly after we were married.  I didn't think I was cut out for it.  When we were pregnant for T, we really started thinking about our family.  We started talking about our options.  Then, I went to a homeschooling retreat and met three families that weekend with little girls from China.  I asked them lots of questions.  One family was local to us, and we got together again after the retreat.  I did searches on the internet and started reading adoption blogs.  I read a couple of books on China's one child policy and adoption stories.  I got through all my questions and concerns.  My internet research taught me so much, and I was able to narrow down the adoption agencies that had good reputations.  My heart kept coming back to adoption from China.  We found out that we would not be eligible until T was 1 year old.  I used the time to learn and research more.

This past December, Matt finished his MBA, and the next week, I sent in the application for our homestudy to a local agency (separate from our adoption agency).  The homestudy process requires 4 visits with the social worker, plus a compilation of lots of documents - copies of birth certificates of all in the home, police clearances (the boys loved seeing us get fingerprinted), doctor reports for all of us in the home, a vet record for Charlie, an inspection of our septic tank (yep, it still works!), referral letters from friends and family, etc. We also had to do 10 hours of online training for adoptive parents (but it would be great for all parents).  At this point, I figured out why this part of the process is called the paperchase.

Next, we sent in our application to the adoption agency.  We are using Bay Area Adoption Services in California.  I had assumed that since we were looking for a little girl younger than T, that we would have to have all our paperwork in China (logged in date or LID), before we could get a referral.  There is a shared list to which most of the agencies have access.  There are also individual lists where children are assigned to certain agencies.  It's complicated.  We found our daughter on the individual list with our agency.  We reviewed her file, consulted with doctors on a medical need that she has (a kidney issue), and received updated pictures and measurements from her orphanage (her referral picture was taken at 5 months old and she was 11 months old at the time).  We wrote a letter of intent (LOI) to China asking for permission to adopt her.  After that, we received provisional approval (PA).  This essentially means that once we send in all the appropriate paperwork, they will process our adoption.

The next step is to compile our dossier for China.  This will include many documents that have to be notarized, county certified (verifies the notary), state certified (verifies the county certification), and authenticated (verifies the state certification).  We have all of our documents ready except for our homestudy and our I-800a approval.  J and I made a field trip downtown to have 11 of those documents state certified (we went to the Secretary of State's office to get the "Great Seal" of our state).  Then, we made copies of everything and sent them via FedEx to a courier in Houston.  She took them in the Chinese consulate to be authenticated.  This had to happen quickly only because we found out that Matt's physical was almost 6 months old, and we thought we had 1 year in which to get them authenticated.  It seems that Houston has recently changed their policy, and now everything must be less than 6 months old.  We were also pushed because the consulate was going to be closed for Chinese New Year, and we had to get them done before the holiday or they would expire while the consulate was closed.

That brings us to where we are now.  We have PA.  We have 11 documents ready to go for our dossier.  Our homestudy is complete and is in California getting reviewed by our adoption agency.

Next up:  homestudy approval and mail off for the I-800a approval

I feel like I'm back at work managing a big project for the company.  Sometimes, I get the urge to put it all in Microsoft project, and yes, I told Matt the other day that something specific was the critical path.  But, I digress...