Paperwork, Paperwork and More Paperwork

The process for international adoption has been interesting - so far just full of paperwork. The beginning phase of the adoption process has been given the nickname “paperwork pregnancy”. Just so you know…it is a lot of work. When we first got the information from America World, we thought “this doesn’t look too bad”. It seemed simple looking at the required documents on the computer. Here are a few examples of the paperwork needed:

• Birth & marriage certificates - has to be issued within the last 5 years
• Fingerprinting – this was done at the police station
• Physical Exam - This has to be notarized which means bringing a certified person with you to the doctor’s office (Thanks Clint!)
• Criminal background checks
• Letters from your employer
• Letters of reference
• Financial statements
• Etc. Etc. Etc.

Slowly but surely we have been gathering all the necessary documents. The hard part is keeping it all straight. Because one person needs some documents, another person needs other documents and then some of those have to be combined. Confused yet? We sure were. For a few days we had all the documents lying on the kitchen counter in different piles. Every once in a while we would rearrange the documents, make a new pile and start another checklist. We finally decided, after talking with our social worker, that we should just complete each form and then email it her and our family coordinator with America World. So we fill it out, scan it and email it to both of them. Then they tell us what else we still have left to get to them and what we need to keep for our Dossier.

Definition: Dossier dos•si•er (dŏsˈē-āˌ, dôˈsē-āˌ)
A collection of papers giving detailed information about a particular person or subject. (from http://www.yourdictionary.com)

Our definition of dossier is: tell us everything about you plus some more information that you don’t even know about yourself yet. This has all been an interesting process and has brought up some great questions about what kind of parents we will be. We have already had some good discussion about parenting styles, discipline and how we can foster bonding/attachment with our child. Of coarse we still have a lot to learn!

Update: We have just completed our second meeting with our social worker. She will now work on typing up our home study while we complete dossier paperwork. We are hoping to be done and ready to send it all to immigration by beginning of October. Thank you for continued prayers!