Because You Asked

We have been inundated with questions lately. "What's a dossier?" "What did you have to do for a home study?" "What else is left to do?" and my personal favorite... "Why don't you guys have a kid yet?"

What follows may either be the most boring, information-centered post I will ever write or the most fascinating, eye-opening peek into the paperwork stage of adoption. Either way, it will definitely be the most times I ever type "documents" or "notarized" for a post ever again. And it will prove why it is handy to have a mother who is also a notary.

Once Upon A Time...

It all began with a fundraiser that God blew out of control and enabled us to pay our initial agency fee and get the ball rolling. Following our adoption agencies' acceptance of our application and one very large check, we were neck deep in home study prep... (along with another fundraiser or two thrown in for good measure.)

Documents Collected For Home Study:
Original Birth Certificates for all family members
Original Marriage License
Copy of Deed
PA State Police Clearance
PA Child Abuse Clearance
FBI Background Check (requires fingerprinting)
Medical clearance forms for all family members (notarized)
Molly's Veterinary Records
Guardianship Info Form (notarized)
Letters of Employment (notarized)
3 Recent Pay Stubs
3 Years of Federal Tax Returns
Financial Form (calculates all assets & debts)
Monthly Expense Log
Current Bank Statement
Copies of Health Insurance Cards
Copies of Life Insurance Statements
Copies of Retirement Assets
4 Letters of Reference (notarized)
Completed Essay Questions
12 Hours of Adoption Education (1 workbook & 6 online classes)
Plus various signed agreements & disclosure statements

Once we had gathered all our documents from the four corners of the earth, we were ready for the next stage: two home study visits, including a home inspection and 6 hours of interviews. Yee Haw.

We have survived thus far and are currently waiting for our case worker to finish writing our home study. It will be a 15-20 page report detailing the information from all those documents, interviews, and the home inspection.

Once we have our home study finished, we will mail an original copy with another fancy form (an I-600A, if you really want to know) and a chunk of money to the US Citizenship & Immigration Services. This is basically our way of politely asking them to please let us bring a new citizen into the country. Pretty please with sugar on top. They will send us an official letter granting this. 

This letter (called a Favorable Determination Letter), plus another original copy of our home study will join a host of other documents to form our dossier. (We have already collected all the following and they are sitting on my desk, ready and eager for their date with the UPS man.)

Da ta da da!!

Dossier Documents:
Home Study
Favorable Determination Letter
Family Letter of Intent to the Ethiopian Government (notarized)
Two Powers of Attorney (one notarized, one state certified)
Photocopies of our Passports (notarized)
Letter of Employment for Andy (notarized)
Stay-At-Home Statement for Jill (notarized)
Yet Another Set of Original Birth Certificates
Yet Another Original Marriage Certificate
Financial Statement (notarized, different than the home study financial form)
Medical Letters from Doctor (notarized, different than the home study medical forms)
State Police Clearances (notarized)
Two Letters of Reference (notarized)
Photographs of family and home
Various signed agreements

The dossier will be translated into Amharic for the Ethiopian government and then there will be much rejoicing.

And celebrating.

And maybe even a little dancing.

Because our crazy-long paperwork marathon will be over and we will actually be on the waiting list for our child.

We are so close...