So what all is involved in adopting from Ch*na? Part of that depends on which route you go, if you are in the traditional adoption program waiting for a healthy child or if you go through the waiting child program and adopt a child with special needs. This will be our third time through the waiting child program, second time with Ch*na (first time was through H*ng K*ng which while technically is part of Ch*na is a totally different adoption process) and their special focus program (which is children with more severe special needs).
First off is the Home Study which includes:
- hours of interviews with a social worker asking you questions about anything and everything personal,
- paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork (writing essays on yourself - your thoughts on adoption, your marriage and how it works, your growing up years, thoughts on your multicultural family, your parenting style, copies of everyone's birth certificates, marriage cert, green cards, final orders of adoption etc etc etc),
- a home inspection (which includes a whole host of things like illustrated fire escape plans- grateful we didn't need the fire marshal to come out and inspect our home this time around!),
- finances scrutinized,
- medical appointments for everyone (including TB skin tests which the hubby and I always fail due to having the BCG vaccine as kids in HK... so then we get to have chest xrays to ensure we dont have TB),
- background/fingerprint check to make sure we are not criminals,
- child abuse clearances from every state/country we've lived in over the age of 18,
- 6 reference letters (3 personal, 1 work, 1 school & 1 family),
- guardianship agreement document incase something were to happen to us - and these guardians must meet the minimum adoption requirement for Ch*na,
- pet vaccination records,
- documentation from our health insurance company saying they will cover our newly adopted child,
and more I'm sure, I just can't think of it right now :)
***This is where we are right now, waiting on a few of our clearances to come back and our SW to finalize our home study. We have also obtained about half of our dossier documents.***
After our home study is complete we then have to apply for and obtain an approval from the US Govt saying that we can adopt. This involves more paperwork and more fingerprinting.
While we are waiting on all of this we are working on the big D, our 'dossier', which is a set of papers that goes to Ch*na. Ch*na requires that all of these papers are issued within the last 6 months, which means we have to have original copies of the following documents newly created (no photocopies allowed!):
- our marriage cert (from HK - proves a little difficult to get)
- birth certs (one from HK and one from a state across the ocean... again, difficult to get)
- adoption petition
- financial statement
- police clearances from our county
- approval from the US govt
- employment letter for my hubby
- unemployment letter for me
- medical form on me
- medical form on hubby
Once we have obtained all of these documents they need to be *sealed*, which for our state means being notarized 5 times: first at a basic notary level, then by the county clerk, then by the state, then by the US sec of state, and finally by the Ch*nese Embassy in DC. Once we've done this our Dossier is reviewed by our agency and then sent on to Ch*na... Woo hoo!!! We are working hard towards this goal. Our agency has told us that its anywhere from 4-7months once our dossier goes to Ch*na to when we would travel to bring Wen home.
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