Notarized!

My how time flies! It's December and we've advanced a bit in our process since my last post. We completed our home study in early November and sent it off to our adoption agency.

This major step triggered two big next steps. First, it meant we could send our 1-800A (Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child from a Convention Country) documents off to Immigration. Second, it also meant we can now start receiving child referrals.

1-800A: Fortunately, they processed the application quite fast and we already have received a letter with a set appointment to come in and get our "biometrics" captured. I'm thinking fingerprints? But, wouldn't they have just said that? You can tell I'm a bit nervous about what there will be beyond fingerprints. Anyhow, my appt. time conflicts with an important work date so I have to mail the docs back in to see if I can reschedule. If you ever go through this process, try to not to reschedule. It's not at easy as calling the dentists office.

Child Referral: This is such an exciting phase, but I have also discovered it is the most difficult we've encountered so far. Now that the home study is done, our adoption agency can send us children matching our criteria. We received our first one instantly. He was a little boy who just turned one. Unfortunately, his medical background caused us to decline. It's been about a month and my heart still breaks from this decision. We were spoiled with that first referral because we assumed more would come in just as fast, but we are still waiting.

During our waiting period, we are finalizing all the Indian dossier docs that will go to the Indian courts once we accept a child and our approved with immigration. Just to give you an understanding, we have been working on all these documents since this past May. I can't believe it, but we have gathered everything (or so I hope). Part of the requirement is that each document be notarized. In terms of costs, each signature runs around $10. Once all is said and done, it would cost between $250-300 to notarize the dossier docs. If you are thinking about adopting, make friends with a notary! Lucky for us, my friend Jed connected me with his friend Niki who is a notary and she only charged us a very small travel fee. Tonight we finalized our last couple of docs. [If you ever need a notary, please ask me about Niki...she is awesome and will come to you!!!] So, tomorrow we will take all these notarized forms to be apostilled with the Secretary of State. This is the process where we certify the notary is a notary. We are hoping the holidays won't hold up the turnaround time.