Dossier Checklist

Dossier Checklist

1.      Birth Certificate for Shawn Verified and Authenticated

2.      Birth Certificate for Sharon Verified and Authenticated

3.      Marriage Certificate Verified and Authenticated

4.      Financial Statement Verified and Authenticated

5.      Physical Exam for Shawn Verified and Authenticated

6.      Physical Exam for Sharon Verified and Authenticated

7.      Police Clearance for Shawn Verified and Authenticated

8.      Police Clearance for Sharon Verified and Authenticated

9.      Letter of Employment for Shawn Verified and Authenticated

10.  Letter of Unemployment for Sharon Verified and Authenticated

11.  I-797C Notice of Action Approval Notice Verified and Authenticated

12.  Adoption Application Letter Verified and Authenticated

13.  Homestudy Verified and Authenticated

14.  Copy of Passport for Shawn

15.  Copy of Passport for Sharon

16.  Passport Photo for Shawn

17.  Passport Photo for Sharon

18.   Family Photos that Reflect Our family Life

 

We started our adoption of Cora with an application to WACAP on 04/20/2012. We are sending our dossier out to China (by way of WACAP) almost one month before our deadline of 12/09/2012.

The original estimated time of travel to China is 04/2013.

Good news! ...Bad news.

Good news! Our documents are here from the Chinese Consulate!

Bad news, we still have to wait for the two we did not do properly to come in. They signed for the documents on October 11, 2012 so we are hoping they will be back to us by October 21, 2012.

The Chinese Consulate puts a stamp and sticker on the backside of the Authenticated page from our Secretary of State Great Seal. It is very cool, the kids loved it. There was a little delay because the Consulate was closed for the Moon Festival and then again for Columbus Day.

We still need to have our passport pictures redone for our dossier but other than that we are ready for our dossier to be sent in. We are starting to think about what needs to be done to get ready to travel.

Dossier documents are at the Chinese Consulate

Our dossier documents are at the Chinese Consulate. I got a call (the good part because now I know they arrived) that one of our documents were not apostled and needed to be redone (the bad part). They will send all the documents back when they are verified and we will have to resend the ones that were not done properly. We were ahead of schedule but this will put us back another 10 days or so. Not too bad but we are so excited about bringing Cora home that these small setbacks that I should have noticed drive me crazy! We are still one step closer and getting very excited.

We are trying to figure out how to decorate Sasha and Cora’s room, get it organized and built in a way that it will be easily accessible for Cora to reach all she will want to play with and a bed built to suit her needs. I feel like the nesting stage is kicking in and we are still a long way from bringing Cora home.

Received our approval for our I 800

We received our approval for our I 800 on Thursday. I finally feel like we are really going to get this adoption done and Cora will be home with soon. It is such a game of hurry up and wait, the waiting is the worst part for me. Friday I went to have the last few documents notarized and drove to Lansing and had them apostled/ authenticated. IT seems that I need to check our notary more close because when I got to the Secretary of State Department of the Great Seal it seems that my notary did not date a document so they refused to authenticate it. I had to find Auntie Cheryl, who happens to work in Lansing, and have her find me a notary. She walked me personally to one. We only had about 20 minutes before they closed for lunch and I do not like the “crunch time” feeling. Everything worked out so I can send the documents for my dossier off to the Chinese Consulate. They need to have all of our original documents plus copies of each. I am so scared that something is going to happen during delivery (like they get lost) and I will have to start collecting documents again. We only have until December 9, 2012 to get all documents to China and I do not think there is any way to get that done. Everything has gone smooth so far so I know that my worry is not doing me any good, things always work out.

 

I hope to have the documents in the mail and on their way to the Chinese Consulate on Monday, three days to get there and checked in, ten days for them to return to us, and then we will be sending our Dossier to China! Everything is moving along at a good pace so I recalculated our “hope to travel date” to being the end of February instead of April (of cource I can always be wrong).  I will try to keep up with adjusting the date as we complete a new step towards bringing Cora home.

 

USCIS biometrics appointment

Drove to Detroit today for our USCIS biometrics appointment, this is just getting fingerprinted. We got up at 5:30 to get ready and woke up Rey and Max to get them ready for school. They both rode the bus and this is new for them in the morning. After they were up and moving we got Sasha up. She did really well for getting up almost 2 hours early. Everyone was ready for the bus and we only left about 10 minutes late. Sasha rode with us because the bus would not be by to get her for another hour and we would never make our appointment. Two hours later we arrived, walked in to an almost empty building, filled out a short form, were first in line, got fingerprinted and were out the door. The whole process took maybe 10 minutes.

We were very close to Comerica Park (Tigers Baseball Team) so we decided to stop by and take some pictures. It is very cool!

After we dropped Sasha off at school we decided to go and see a movie. Shawn picked one that he took the children to. It was The Odd Life of Timothy Green. It was very good but hard to watch. It is a movie about a couple who wants to have children and cannot. They went through the process to have a miracle happen, literally. I do not want to ruin the ending so all I can say is that it touched our hearts and lives in many ways. The ending really opened our eyes. It seemed like this movie was talking to us and letting us know we are doing the right thing. We were talking about the movie and our adoption and Shawn looked down to find a leaf very similar to the one in the movie. It spoke volumes to us. We saved it and it will go in Cora’s book with a copy of the story as to why it is so special. You need to see the movie to understand.

Next step will be sending our documents for authentication of our documents from the Chinese Consulate.  It will be so hard to put our only original documents in the mail and hope they make it there and back to us safely.

Received our biometrics appointment at USCIS

We received our biometrics appointment at USCIS today. Our appointment is for September 13, 2012 at 8:00 am. Our other children need to be at school at this time but I am sure we will find a way to work this out. This will give us the approval for Cora’s visa and give us the last piece of paperwork needed for our dossier!

We sent in our Application (I-800A) to WACAP

We are one step closer to Cora! We sent in our Application (I-800A) to WACAP so they can add a few supporting documents and they will then send it to USCIS. This will approve us to bring an adopted child with us back into the United States. Once we get our approval we will be able to send all of our documents to the Chinese Consulate for Authentication. We only have a few steps left!