For about ten weeks now, I have been preparing our dossier. The dossier is our official application packet that will go to China. As is the case with pretty much anything having to do with the international adoption process, this is an exercise in trying not to express exasperation.
Here are the documents that are required, as outlined in our agency's ever-practical 22-page "China Dossier Packet":
1) Application letter. There is a sample for our reference. We should base our letter on the sample, but not blatantly plagiarize it. Of course, certain phrases must be included verbatim, so in that case, plagiarize away. This letter basically introduces our family to the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) and outlines our request to adopt a special needs child. The letter must be signed, notarized, and state sealed.
2) Current certified copies of my birth certificate and Angry Driver's birth certificate. This cannot be more than 6 months old at the time of authentication. Even though they are "certified" copies, they still need to be state sealed in the state(s) in which the certificates were issued. Fortunately, Angry Driver and I were born in the same state. Unfortunately, it is not the state in which we currently live.
3) Newly-issued certified copy of our marriage certificate. Again, this must be state sealed in the state of origin.
4) Verification of employment letter from my employer. Also notarized. Also state sealed. Since Angry Driver is a full-time dad, we had to craft a letter verifying his non-employment status and - you guessed it - this letter had to be notarized and state sealed too!
5) Financial statement. This lists all or our assets and our liabilities as outlined in our home study. Signed by us, notarized, and state sealed.
6) Medical suitability certificates for each adoptive parent. These are different forms than we had to have completed for the home study. We also needed lab work. The forms had to be signed by our physician, notarized, and state sealed. Since I have health issues, my doctor had to write an additional letter explaining my medical conditions and attesting that she believes that I am healthy enough to adopt and parent. That letter had to be notarized but not state sealed (it's an arbitrary process, really).
7) Signed and notarized letters from our local police department verifying that Angry Driver and I do not have a history of arrests, criminal charges, or convictions. Of course, these have to be state sealed.
8) Our original home study, notarized and state sealed.
9) A copy of our I-797 USCIS approval with a signed and notarized attestation stating that the copy of the USCIS approval is true and unadulterated. State seal? Yes!
Then there are a bunch of documents that have to be notarized, but don't need to be state sealed:
10) At least 3 reference letters. Since Bean is in school, one of the letters had to be written by his teacher. Although one might think that obtaining these letters would be difficult, we have such awesome friends (and Bean has such a kind teacher) that this step actually turned out to be one of the easiest.
11) My psychological evaluation report. As stated previously, I've been certified SANE.
12) A signed and notarized agreement that we will comply with post-adoption requirements, such as regular updates to China.
Then there are more documents that need to be included in the dossier, but that don't require notarization or state sealing:
13) Copy of our passports. I'm so glad we already had passports!
14) New passport photos of Angry Driver and me. Not my finest photo shoot, unfortunately.
15) Recent photographs of our home and family. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! The instructions specify the types of photos, the required size, the placement of the photographs on the page, etc. No labels. No pets.
16) Copy of the certificates we earned through Adoption Learning Partners when we completed our online adoption training courses.
17) Our agency's license. Now, someone needs to tell me why it is my job to obtain the agency license to send to the very same agency? This actually turned out to be quite a challenge, since the agency sent me a certificate that expired within a month of them sending it to me. When I raised my concern about providing China with an expired agency license, I was met with befuddlement. Yes, befuddlement. As in, "Oh, wow. It's expiring soon? I guess we need a site visit." I still don't have that renewed agency license, but I am hopeful that the agency has a valid license.
18) A copy of our service plan. Again, I had to request this plan from my agency to give my agency.
19) A signed and original agency fee agreement. This was a fascinating item. A few weeks ago, I raised a concern about a charge that the agency billed to us. The agency's response was that the charge was clearly outlined in the fee agreement. About a week later, I asked about obtaining an original fee agreement for the dossier, and the agency's response was that they would have to send us the fee agreement to sign. If we never obtained or signed a fee agreement, how were we supposed to know about the fee agreement? I digress...
So, just a word about state sealing. This is the process by which a state authenticates the notarization of a document. The Secretary of State's office verifies that the notary public is real and had the authority to notarize said document on the date that it was notarized. Some states have big, fancy seals (as is the case with the state from which our birth and marriage certificates originate), and others have simple, boring seals (like the one in our current state. The clerk at the Secretary of State's office claims that our Secretary is very budget conscious and sees no benefit to using taxpayer funds for such frivolity as a gaudy seal).
Fortunately, one does not make it through 13 years of public school education followed by 12 years of post-high school education without learning how to complete forms and request documents. After many weeks of harassing people to complete forms, mailing birth and marriage certificates for state sealing, stopping in the Secretary of State's office to have a batch of documents state sealed, and faxing a request for state sealing of our USCIS approval, the dossier checklist was complete.
And then, a wrinkle. We received our "Home Study Addendum" at the end of May. Actually, we received a big manila envelope from our adoption agency that contained 3 original Home Study Addendum documents. The Addendum addresses our ability to parent a child with the specific medical and psychosocial needs identified in the child to whom we have been matched. The envelope contained no instructions. There wasn't even a Post-It note. Nothing. I immediately sent a message to the agency requesting guidance. I then called the agency and left a message. At long last, I was told that, yes, the Home Study Addendum should be included in our dossier. And, yes, it should probably be state sealed.
Aargh!
And so, I sent yet another fax to the Secretary of State requesting a state seal. This was on 6/2/14. We received our seal 6/5/14. Correction: we received TWO state seals on 6/5/14. Rather than issuing one state seal containing my name and Angry Driver's name (like he or she was supposed to have done), the person at the Secretary of State's office issued a seal under my name and a seal under Angry Driver's name. The problem with this is that ONE document cannot have TWO state seals.
I can't believe I even wrote that last sentence. It's as though aliens abducted me and replaced my body with that of some low-level government bureaucrat. I guess this is the kind of person one becomes when she spends months completing mindless paperwork and running the government agency gauntlet.
Naturally, since I was issued two seals, I was charged for two seals. I don't even care about that; I just need my seal so I can send out this dossier. No dossier = No child. The longer this takes, the slower the process becomes, and it is already so darn slow.
I called and the very nice woman at the Secretary of State's office (who, incidentally, is the very same nice woman who was working when Angry Driver and I stopped in the office on USCIS Fingerprint Day) typed up a new seal and informed me that it would be mailed the very next morning, i.e. - 6/6/14.
The Secretary of State's office is a two hour drive from Blahtown. I figured the seal would arrive by Monday (6/9/14) or Tuesday (6/10/14) at the latest. Nevertheless, I tried to convince Angry Driver to go and pick up the seal on 6/6/14, but he would not hear of it. I must have had a premonition of doom, because I really did try to convince him to JUST GO PICK THE STATE SEAL UP SO WE CAN MAIL THIS OUT AND BE DONE ALREADY.
Angry Driver claims that if I had seriously asked him to go pick it up, he would have done so. I told him that his experience of reality in no way corresponds with actual reality as experienced by everyone else in this particular dimension of space and time.
It is almost anti-climactic to report this, but the state seal did not arrive on 6/9/14. It did not arrive today. I have no way to track the envelope. I think that I could have hired an army of ants to carry me the letter and they would have delivered it in a more timely fashion than the US Postal Service. There may be 7 circles of hell and 50 shades of grey, but I guarantee you that there are at least 600 layers of rage. I am currently operating somewhere between "seething" and "mind-numbingly impotent".
It is so frustrating when I try, try, try to do everything right and I just can't seem to make progress. Our child is waiting for us and all I can do is paperwork. And yet, I'm dependent on other people doing their jobs and I have no control over how quickly or accurately they do their jobs, if they do them at all.
Yes, I know that this is an exercise in patience. I understand that I can't control everything, or anything, for that matter. I appreciate that there are many more bureaucratic snafus ahead in this process. It is still irritating! Why on earth does it take at least 5 days to deliver an envelope from a city two hours away in perfect weather and with no encroaching federal holidays? Seriously, people, get it together!
Alas, there is nothing to be done but wait. For his part, Angry Driver just offered to make the two hour drive tomorrow in order to pick up a new state seal for the Home Study Addendum. He just stumbled upon Rage Level 142: Blind Ferocity in the Face of Too Little Too Late.
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