I am sorry for the delay in the March update. We were busy trying to get our taxes ready to file and working on adoption paperwork.
Everything about this process seems to move about the speed
of cold molasses while we wait. One the
other hand, time is moving along so quickly that it is hard to keep on top of
our adoption funding progress and goals.
Here is an update on what has taken place the last few
weeks.
On Monday, March 14, 2016, Paul, Jamison and I traveled to
the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service which is located near the
KCI airport. This is otherwise known as “the fingerprinting appointment” or the
technical term is biometrics appointment.
It was scheduled by the USCIS several weeks ago as part of our I 800A
application. Our fingerprints will be
entered into their database and ran through the FBI database. The goal of this is (once again) to make sure
we have a clean background and no criminal history and prevent child
trafficking. The purpose of the I 800A
application to determine our suitability to adopt a child.
While we’ve been waiting for our I 800A to be processed,
we’ve been working on our dossier documents.
This seems like it takes forever to get all of this done. Here is a list of all the documents we have
to have for our dossier. Most of these
have to be notarized, and not only notarized but the notary commission cannot
expire for 12-18 months. We also have to
be sure the date on the document is the same as the notary signature date. The officials reviewing our documents are
apparently very attentive to this particular detail.
Thankfully, since we are not divorced, single or dead it
makes ours a tiny bit easier to complete.
The
following documents are required for the dossier and must be notarized,
verified and authenticated:
_____1. Birth Certificate(s)
_____2. Marriage Certificate
_____3. Financial Statement
_____4. Medical
Form(s)
_____5. Police
Clearance Report(s)
_____6. Letter
of Employment(s)
_____7. I-800A,
Approval Notice
_____8. Adoption
Application Letter
_____9. Home study Report
_____10. Affidavit
of Single Status (*Single applicants only. Forms are enclosed)
The
following documents are required for your dossier and DO NOT need to be
verified and authenticated:
_____11. Notarized
Reference Letters (3)
_____12. Copies of Signed Passports
_____13. Passport Photos (Two (2)
per applicant)
_____14. Six
(6) Family Photos
_____15. Statement
from Guardian (*Single applicants only)
_____16. Medical letter from a
doctor (if required)
_____17. Psychological Evaluation
(if required)
_____18. Divorce Decree (*Single
applicants only, if required):
_____19. Death Certificate (*Single applicants only, if
required):
Once we get our I 800A approval letter, we will take it to
be notarized and then our dossier will go to the Kansas Secretary of State’s
office for authentication. This means
they will verify all of the notaries and make sure they are all legit.
After our dossier is done at the Secretary of State’s
office, it will come back to us where we turn around and send it to the Chinese
Consulate in Chicago via a courier service.
We have to use a courier service because the Consulate does not accept
mailed in documents. They have to be
hand delivered. So we have to pay a
courier service to deliver it for us and then return to pick it up a few days
later ….that is unless we want to make a leisurely drive to Chicago and back. So I guess a courier service will be cheaper
and work better than us trying to do it ourselves at this point.
