The Adoption Process...1st Trimester

THE HOME STUDY.

We are working with God's Children Adoption Agency Inc. The agency is out of Fergus Falls, MN but our social worker lives in Moorhead. The adoption home study is a detailed report of our family prepared by the social worker. We, the adoptive family, need to gather a variety of documents and answer many questions on paper and through interviews.

*Application for Adoption
*Individual Fact Sheets (age 18 and older)
*Statement of Faith (parents only)
*Child Characteristic Form (adopted child)
*Disclosure Form
*Statement of Understanding
*Completed Reference Form (3 references needed)
*Confidentiality Statement
*Consent Form
*Preliminary Questions Worksheet
*Copy of Adult Birth Certificates
*Copy of Certificate of Marriage
*Medical Physical Forms (everyone 13 years of age and older)
*Physician's Statement of Health (for those under age 13)
*Physical Description of Your Home (specify bedroom for adopted child)
*Family Picture
*Signed Authorization Forms (age 18 and older for background checks)
*Completed Fingerprint Cards (age 18 and older for background checks)
*Interview with Pastor/Priest
*Verification of Income
*Verification of Investment Assets
*Verification of Liabilities
*Verification of All Insurances
*Verification that Adoptive Child will be covered by Medical Insurance
*Completion of Adoption Training (6 hours online and 4 hours from a book)
*2-3 Home Study Visits (interviews from social worker about our childhoods, marriage, parenting, faith beliefs, and interview with kids)

As of Feb. 6th all we have left is one more home study visit (interview with the kids and parenting), which we will be doing in Moorhead, and I'm awaiting Joey's statement of health from his pediatrician. Everything else is done (I hope) for the home study...yeah!

THE DOSSIER.

Dossier...pronounced "doss-ee-ay"...is a set of legal documents and adoption papers used in international adoptions. Each country has its own set of required documents for the dossier. The documents need to be notarized by a Notary Public (a public servant appointed by state government to witness the signing of important documents). The notarized documents then have to be apostilled by the State Government (an official certification that the document is a true copy of the original). Not all countries require this, however, Ukraine does. Each Apostille costs $10 (in ND)...the notaries have been free.

Gathering documents for the dossier is considered to be like the 1st trimester of a pregnancy. Usually the 1st trimester of a pregnancy is no fun if "morning sickness" is involved and maybe a lot of praying so you don't miscarry. I am "5 for 5" for NO morning sickness so my 1st trimesters were easy as far as that part goes. Putting together and gathering documents has been a bit frustrating at times. The thought did cross my mind a time or two that maybe this adoption is not God's will for us. Like for instance...we sent our first dossier document "Child Specific Petition" (which had to be notarized...took 3 times before we got it right...and apostilled) to our facilitator in Ukraine on Dec. 24, 2009. This form states that we are specifically asking to adopt "Isaiah". Hopefully then he will not be "given" to any other family. Three weeks later we still had not heard if the CSP arrived in the right hands. I emailed my concerns to my Reece's Rainbow Ukraine assistant. She did not know what could have happened other than the document got lost in the mail. I used USPS to mail it and was unable to get a tracking number as it went internationally. I waited a few more days and decided to redo the CSP...had it notarized and got another apostille for it. This time I thought I would send it FedEx so I could get a tracking number. It cost me $12 and some cents through USPS so I thought a few extra dollars for FedEx to be able to track it would be worth it. I walk up the the counter and tell the gal that I would like to send this letter to Ukraine. She types some stuff into her computer and then tells me what it would cost. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I replied back, "Did you say ONE...HUNDRED...ELEVEN...DOLLARS and 70 cents?" She said yes and went on to say that some countries even cost more. I walked out of the store faster than I walked in. What I wanted to send was one 8 1/2 x 11 size yellow envelope with 2 pieces of paper and 1 staple...that is all. And it would have taken a little over a week to get there. So I started asking God for some insight. What's up here? Did you not ask us to adopt this little boy? Are You sending us a sign that we made a mistake...after all, this was our FIRST dossier document and it wasn't so easy to put together. I will TRUST in You. I WILL TRUST in YOU!!! That was Jan. 19, 2010. My plan was to resend it through USPS with LOTS of prayers in the next day or two. The very next day I received an email that our CSP was in the hands of the person it needed to get to!!! Thank You God!!! Thank you for stopping me from spending that extra $111.70. Thank you for telling me that we are making the right decision and doing Your will. Thank you for reassurance and peace.

Back to the Dossier...these are some of the documents we need to gather...all need to be notarized and apostilled.

*Petition for adoption
*Child Specific Petition (2 documents)
*Home study report
*Agency license
*Social worker's license
*I-171H form
*Employment statement for husband
*Employment statement for wife. In case she is a housewife it should be clarily stated in the home study and a seperate petition from wife is not required.
*Proof of home ownership
*Proof of home mortgage
*Medical certificate for husband
*Medical certificate for wife
*Marriage certificate (2 documents)
*Passport copy for husband (4 documents)
*Passport copy for wife (4 documents)
*State Police clearance for husband
*State Police clearance for wife
*Letter of obligation (2 documents)
*Power of attorney (1 for Yulia, 1 for Serge Zevlever, 1 for Marina and 2 blanks).
*Copy of Doctor's License (1 from each doctor if different)
*Petition for Interpol (2 documents)
*1040 tax form from previous year
*Power of attorney from one spouse to another (2 documents...one each parent) (do not mail with dossier...hand carry)

So this is what has kept me busy for the most part for the past month. Right away in the beginning it all seemed so overwhelming and scary and hard, but the more I read over instructions and got the hang of things and asked questions it got easier and easier. We still have a lot to do before the 1st trimester is over. It has been about 11 weeks since we commited to Isaiah. About 13 weeks is one trimester in pregnancy. Usually the 1st trimester in adoption is much longer depending how fast you work to get all the documents needed. We know we don't want to travel until June (after springs work) so we have some extra time.