Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The Paperchase aka We're "trying" again!

Here is our full "paperchase" timeline. The "paperchase" is the part of the adoption process that involves collecting anything and everything about us for a "presentation to China", if you will, called a Dossier. The documents go through a verification process with notaries, certifying the notaries, and authenticating the certifications. Sounds crazy, I know. We also had to have a "homestudy" completed by a social worker in Florida, which includes 4 interviews with us, and an "inspection" of our home.

One of the best things about this part of the process for us is that in Florida, each document only has 3 steps. If we still lived in Georgia, each one would have 4 steps.

Here's how it works... in a nutshell... each document required for our Dossier follows the originating State's requirements. So, out of 14 of the documents, only 3 were outside of Florida: each of our birth certificates from Georgia, and our marriage certificate from Hawaii.

2006:


  1. May 25 In Atlanta, I decided to go ahead and pick up our GA clearance reports and our "pen in hand" birth certificates. "Pen in hand" is a special request which meant only Charity Warren could sign the document.
  2. May 31 Now in Tampa, Brad and I mailed our application/fee to adopt to our agency, CCAI!
  3. June 1 CCAI requested personal referrals from Tracy, Margie, Eileen/John, and Kathy/Larry.
  4. June 3 We were approved to adopt through CCAI!!! This is one of those moments we won't forget. It was a Saturday, and I was in the car waiting for Bradley to come out of Home Depot. I saw a familiar area code, and it was Tom Cavano from the CCAI FL office with the news! Bradley came out right as Tom was telling me, so we were able to share the moment together. We called Paula, Margie, Tracy, Julie, and my Mom. One step closer than we had ever been on our journey to Kylie Grace!!
  5. June 3 Tom Cavano sent us the information we needed to get started on our homestudy and our Dossier. We spent lots of time together sorting through all of the tasks that were ahead of us. We started our autobiographies, which needed to be very detailed and 5-8 pages in length, for each of us.
  6. June 6 Sent agency fee and agreements to CCAI CO, and the homestudy agreements and fees to CCAI FL. Since we live in FL, we were fortunate to have a social worker assigned through CCAI, rather than going to an outside company. Whew!
  7. June 8 Tracy and I went to get copies of my first marriage certificates from Conyers, GA that were needed for the I-600 USCIS application. Of course I didn't have those on hand, laying around any where... that was over 10 years ago.
  8. June 10 We finished our autobiographies and sent them to CCAI.
  9. June 12 Scheduled our doctor's appointments for the medical exams, requested an employment letter for Brad from McCar, scheduled an appointment with our CPA for my income verification and our financial statement. Completed the adoption petition and faxed to CCAI CO for approval before getting it notarized (Andrea said it looked good!)
  10. June 13 Sent off request for marriage certificates from Hawaii.
  11. June 14 Sent off I-600A application with fees, marriage cert, birth certificates, my previous marriage cert with divorce decree, and crim report information to the USCIS.
  12. June 14 Went to Tampa Sheriff's office for clearance reports and had them notarized.
  13. June 14 Sent financial statement to CCAI, to be added to homestudy info in order to get scheduled with a social worker.
  14. June 16 I completed my physical exam - had the tests taken and when the results came back in a few days, I had it notarized.
  15. June 16 Received receipt and fingerprint appointment for the USCIS, and we were scheduled for our homestudy visits!
  16. June 20 Brad had his physical exam completed. They forgot to order one of the blood tests, so this took a little longer than expected. He had to go in again to get more blood drawn, but all was well, and I went by and picked it up and had it notarized.
  17. July 6 Received marriage certs back from Hawaii. Called CCAI to make sure this was all we needed since I didn't see the expected authentication page. They gave us the ok!
  18. July 7 Our first homestudy visit with our social worker. We met with her together for the first hour or so, and then I met with her by myself for the next hour.
  19. July 12 Our second homestudy visit with the social worker. Brad met with her the second hour. She approved us and our home for up to twins, 0-12 months in age!
  20. July 17th reviewed and made changes to first draft of homestudy. The social worker sent it to our agency for review, as well.
  21. July 18 Requested more specific records for the social worker based on CCAI's review of the social worker's report
  22. July 20 sent all documents except for I171 and Homestudy to Tallahassee for certification through our courier, Cindy Marut
  23. July 20 Final Homestudy reviewed, CCAI sent to USCIS for our file
  24. July 21 Mailed certified copies of requested records to CCAI FL to be attached to Dossier for the USCIS
  25. July 21 Brad and I went to the USCIS for our fingerprint appointments. That was a crazy process, but we were only there a couple of hours.
  26. July 25 Had our birth certificates certified by the Sec of State while I was in Atlanta
  27. more to come

No comments: