Well, after all this time, I finally got around to getting Kaylee's social security number. I spent about 45 minutes at the SS office today. They will mail it out and we should have it in about 2 weeks.
From what I understand, you need to have the SS# to be able to claim the adoption tax credit ($10,390). We should be all set. :-)
Drum roll please... After seven months of chasing paper, our dossier has finally been sent to China.
We received an email from CCAI last night letting us know that our dossier has been sent to China. They said that CCAA will receive it in about 7 - 10 days. And that CCAA usually logs in dossiers a few days after it's been received. This log in date will be our DTC date.
Wow, what a ride. Putting the dossier together turned out to be one of the most challenging, frustrating, unpleasurable projects I've ever worked on. But like many things in life that require a lot of work, the rewards are sometimes so wonderful that the negative memories fade away forever...
I think I'm going to just relax, breath a little, and maybe even read a few books on China or adoption.
Thanks to everyone who helped us get through these seven months of paper chasing! Your comments and emails have been appreciated. I'll continue to update our blog. So please stop by from time to time, leave a comment or two, and say hello.
Well, so far, so good. We heard from CCAI last week. They asked us to over-night one document to them. I'm assuming that since they only asked for one document, everything else should be in order.
I can't wait to get that email that tells me our dossier has been sent to China!
I packaged up our entire dossier and shipped it off to CCAI earlier today. I almost feel like I can finally relax a little. But I think I'll wait until CCAI reviews it and notifies me that everything is in order before I start doing the happy dance.
They will receive it tomorrow, and it could take up to 4 weeks for them to review, translate, and send it off to China. So it looks like we'll probably be part of the June DTC group.
We received all of our paperwork yesterday. That means everything has been notarized, certified & authenticated. Monday I'll make copies of the entire dossier and then overnight it to CCAI.
We're actually getting close to wrapping up this crazy paper chase...
Our courier service said that since last Friday was a Chinese holiday they couldn't get things started until Monday. They expect to have it back by Thursday. So I'm hoping we get it on Friday.
If we do, we'll put everything together over the weekend and then put it in the mail to our agency (CCAI) on Monday. They will receive it on Tuesday May 11th. My guess is we won't be DTC until June. But I'll talk to them and see what they can do. I'd love to be in the May group. But I'm not holding my breath.
Has anyone else had trouble gathering the required photos? Ugh... what a pain. The hardest part is finding photos with both Naomi and I in them. Usually, one of us is taking the picture.
We finally got all of our pictures together. But this caught us off guard. I'd recommend not waiting until the last minute to work on this part of your dossier.
We had an appointment today at noon at the Secretary of States office to get everything certified. Then, we stopped by the post office and over-nighted everything to a courier service who will take it to the State Dept and then the to Chinese Embassy in DC!
The courier service is called The Assistant Stork. You should check them out. To me, the extra charge is worth it. Normally you would have to mail your paperwork back and forth twice from you to the State Dept, and then you to the Embassy. With the courier, you send it to them and they take it to the State Dept, then they take it to the Embassy, then they send it back to you. I like that much better! Plus, they hand deliver it to the right person. And they do this every day. So they know how to get it done!
Today we got all of our paper work notarized. And we have an appointment with the Secretary of States office on Tuesday to get it all certified.
We're getting close!
We've got all our documents. All we have to do is get them notarized, certified, and authenticated. Any advice? Anything that we should watch out for? I'm just so tired of set-backs. If anyone had any issues with these steps please let me know.
Wow, we're so close.... it's like the light at the end of the paper-chase tunnel is right in front of us. Then WHAM! it turns out to be just another train.
I've been working closely with our agency (CCAI) as we near the end of this process. And it turns out that I forgot to fax over a few documents for their review. It's definitely my fault. One was Naomi's physical report and the other was our completed home study report. I can't believe I didn't send that to them. Actually, I thought the home study agency was sending it to them directly. But I guess I misunderstood.
Well, they want our home study agency to make a few changes. And they also need our doctor to attach a letter explaining the details of a medical procedure that Naomi had when she was a baby.
More delays. Oh well. At this point it really doesn't make that much difference. Everything will be completed soon. We just have to hang in there.
We drove to Charlotte late yesterday. We have some friends there that we haven't seen in a while so we made arrangements to stay with them. Thanks Lanny & Jaime. It was great.
We arrived around 7:00pm and went out to eat at Carrabba's and then drove to Krispy Kreme for some dessert. As soon as we walked in the door this wonderful lady asked us if we'd each like a free doughnut to sample. She grabbed them right off the little conveyor belt. They were awesome. Perhaps the best doughnuts I've ever had. So we bought 2 dozen! Then we went back to their place and ate a bunch of doughnuts. As soon as we had a major sugar high, we fired up the PlayStation2. I like SSX the best. It's a snowboarding game. Awesome!
Oh yeah, Naomi did the sworn statement thing and we received our I-171H.
We received Naomi's police clearance report for Pinellas County (FL) today. And hey, she's not a criminal. :-) But if she ever decides to go down that road they won't be able to lift any fingerprints from her!
I talked with the Charlotte CIS office this morning and we scheduled an appointment for next Monday. I also called the Sheriff's Department in Florida to find out how we get a police clearance report of Naomi. Then I rushed to the post office & overnighted the request letter to them. I included a return envelope with overnight postage paid. The person I talked to said they would process our request the day they receive it so we should have it back by Thursday.
The CIS office said that after Naomi does her sworn statement, they will hand us our completed I-171H. That will be the final document in our paper chase.
We will still need to get a few things notarized. Then send everything off to be certified. And then get everything authenticated. But I think those last 3 steps will go pretty quick.
We're getting close!
Our records indicate that your fingerprints were again "rejected." Therefore, it will be necessary for you to obtain police clearances from all jurisdictions where you have resided since 1998.
It will also be necessary for you to appear at the Charlotte CIS office for a brief sworn statement. This is national agency policy and cannot be waived.
You will receive your Notice of Approval (Form I-171H) at the conclusion of the sworn statement.
I'll call them tomorrow to make an appointment. I'll schedule a day off from work. And we'll drive 170 miles to Charlotte. Bot most importantly, we'll continue to move forward and we'll stay the course!
And hey, we'll feel much better after we have a little salt & pepper calamari from PF Chang's tonight. Yum!
We received an email from a friend this evening who is in the process of adopting their second child. She told us about their challenges as they waited on their first child. And like most all of us, they had delays. But now that they've got their child, they can't imagine having anyone else as their son.
I've heard a lot of people say the same exact thing. And I know that one day we'll be sharing the same story with someone else who is waiting.
This morning we went back to the BCIS to get Naomi's fingerprints done again. I talked to them about our situation. I explained to them that if her prints failed a second time we would be required to get police clearance reports for every jurisdiction we lived in over the past five years. Plus, we would have to drive to the Charlotte CIS office (170 miles away) and she would have to give a sworn statement.
They told us that if her prints were rejected the first time, they'd be rejected the second time. They said it had very little to do with their ability to capture the prints and more to do with her actual prints. Some people just have bad prints that can't be recorded at the level required to read them effectively.
Wow... okay. So we'll just wait for the next letter and take it from there. They did attempt a different method of fingerprinting her though. The first time they used ink and paper. This time they used a computer to scan her prints. Will it make a difference? Probably not. But we'll wait and see.
"Our records indicate that your fingerprints were "rejected" (unable to be read) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Therefore, it will be necessary for you to have your fingerprints taken again."
That was the first paragraph of a letter that Naomi received today.
Today we got our fingerprints done. It really feels like we're getting close to completing the paper chase. Once we get our I-171H back from the BCIS, all we have left to do is...
- get everything notarized
- send it all off to the secratary of state to be certified
- then send it all to the Chinese Consulate to be authenticated
- and then send everthing to CCAI
Once CCAI receives the final dossier, they will check it over 2 or 3 times to make sure it's complete and w/out mistakes. Then they send it off to China. When China receives it they will check it over and if they find it to be accurate, then we'll officially be "DTC" (Dossier to China). At that point we enter the waiting stage. And from what I understand, the wait is about 10 months... So we've still got a long way to go. But time sure has a way of flying when you're going through an experience like this. Seems like only yesterday we were researcing adoption agencies...
We received notification that we are scheduled for fingerprinting this Friday, January 23rd. The only problem is we will be on vacation that day (we're going to Hawaii - more on this subject later). I'm still trying to sort out the details of the letter we received. It appears as though we can go before our scheduled date but it's a bit confusing.
But that doesn't really matter because there's another problem...
Naomi leaves for Hawaii on Tuesday and I leave on Friday. Naomi's from Hawaii and she has family and friends there so she usually leaves before me and returns after me. Must be nice! :-P Anyway, I'm sitting here thinking we'll just go get fingerprinted on Monday. But here's the problem. Monday is a federal holiday (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) and the fingerprint office will be closed.
So, it looks like we won't be able to get fingerprinted until we return from Hawaii. Naomi gets back on Sunday, February 8th so we won't get fingerprinted until sometime during the week of February the 9th. Wow... that's over three weeks from now.
You know, I look at situations like this and at first all I can see is doors closing on us and blocking us from getting things completed. But then I begin to realize that it's really just part of the overall plan. I believe there's a baby girl out there that God has already matched us up with. And so I will continue to move forward and accept these delays as part of the required timing for His plan.
But I do have to admit that it's still really frustrating!
Ugh... and so the paper chase continues. We finally received copies of Naomi's birth certificate from Hawaii only to find that it was Apostille and not Certified. The good news is that I talked to them and they agreed to correct it at no charge and they said they'd process it the day they receive it.
Last night I typed up our financial statement. And again, I'll fax it over to CCAI for approval before I go through the process of having it notarized, certified and authenticated.
Last night we typed up our adoption petition. I will fax it over to CCAI today for approval before we get it notarized, certified, and authenticated.
Oh boy! We've got our physicals today.
This is the last piece of the home study puzzle (other than the I-600A/I-171H, but I'll save the details on that for another post).
I wish we would have scheduled the appointment a lot sooner. Our doctor was booked up and this has really slowed us down. For those of you just getting started in the adoption process, you might want to consider setting your appointments ASAP!
Naomi and I have a 9:00am appointment to get blood work done this morning. It's prep work for our Thursday physicals.
It's all part of the paper chase...
We ran into another snag. I ordered copies of our marriage license from Vitalcheck.com back on 10.31.03. One week later I noticed that they had charged my credit card but then credited it back. So I called them and asked them about it. They said there was no problem. In fact, they looked the order up and said it was ready to ship out and that I should expect to receive it in about a week.
Well, we didn't receive it so I called them this past Monday. The person I spoke with said they'd look into it and they'd call me back. They called me back Tuesday and said my order had been canceled many weeks ago. They informed me that since we are adopting from China, we have to get our marriage license directly from the Vital Statistics department.
If there's one thing that really disturbs me it's people, departments, agencies, businesses, etc... that can't understand the simple concept of communication. It's okay if they make a mistake on my order. It's okay if they can't fix it. It's even okay if they cost me a little time and money. But it's not okay for them to just ignore me. All they had to do was call me and tell me that my order was canceled. But they didn't. I had to call them four weeks after my order was placed only to find out that I actually didn't have an order with them anymore.
Well, I'm certainly not going to let their incompetence get me down. I went to the post office Wednesday and overnighted my new order directly to Vital Statistics of Florida.
Sometimes you just have to keep your head down, stay focused, and not let external circumstances keep you from staying the course!
We're making progress. We're making progress!!!
I had a nice surprise waiting for me in my mailbox today. My passport arrived. That was fast!
I have to say that if there was ever a contest for the dorkiest passport photo, I'd win it!
Things worked out with my Employment Verification Letter. It wasn't easy. But after a bunch of emails and phone calls we managed to come to an agreement.
I also received copies of my Birth Certificate on Friday. And we've got our first meeting with our Home Study/Social Worker on Wednesday.
Things are really starting to move along...
I talked to my manager about getting an Employment Verification Letter. He said that I had to contact HR. So after looking into it I found a form on our intranet that allows me to submit a request for and EVL. After submitting it and getting a case number I decided to call HR to follow up just to make sure they would be willing to follow the format that CCAI recommended. And here's where it gets ugly...
The person I spoke with said they use a template and basically just change the person's name, the hire date, the job title and base salary. Everything sounded great except the part about the base salary. I'm in sales and so my total compensation is made up of three components - base salary, commission, and bonuses. My base salary is approximately half of the total amount. Ugh... I guess it's a legal thing because they can only predict what my base will be. They don't know if I'll make bonuses and they have no idea how much my commission will be.
The problem is I have 3 different documents that include my salary that have to match. First there's the Employment Verification Letter. Then my Home Study agency includes financial data. And finally I have to create a personal financial statement that includes our income, assets, etc... So all three have to match. Piece of cake, right? Ugh...
You know I expect to run into bureaucracy and red tape when I deal with the government. But not at work. Oh well, they're looking into it. Hopefully I'll be able to get some answers today. We'll see...
We ordered our passports today. I guess that's one more thing we can check off the list!
We signed, notarized and returned the paper work that CCAI sent us (Fee Policy & Service Agreement) along with the first payment. When they recieve it they will send us their Dossier Kit.
Naomi scheduled physicals for us with our doctor. And we plan on filing for our passports tomorrow.
It actually feels like we're making progress!!!
We received the approval letter from CCAI. Now we need to sign and notarize a few documents and send them back. Every time I pick up the phone and call them I'm reassured that we made the right choice!
Yesterday I ordered multiple copies of my Birth Certificate (5) and our Marriage License (4) from VitalChek.com. I really only needed 3 BC's and 2 ML's but since I was ordering them I just went ahead and got a few extra. I'll order Naomi's BC on Monday when I have a copy of her drivers license. The BC's will take 5 - 8 business days to process and then they will be shipped overnight. The ML's will take 7 business days to process and then they will ship them regular mail.
This evening I created an Excel Spreadsheet to help me stay organized. The spreadsheet has 3 worksheets:
Step By Step - a high level to-do list.
Activity Log- I use this to note when we complete things or request items. And when we request items I note the date we requested it, the expected time it should take, and when we actually receive it.
Expenses- a list of expenses with a running total.
I just went to the post office and had our application overnighted. I can't believe it took a week for us to fill out the application and get the required attachments, etc...
I know six months from now I'll be able to look back on this post and smile. But for now it feels like we just took the first step in a thousand mile journey.
And so it begins. Today at lunch I went to the courthouse to get a criminal background check/police clearance report for Naomi and I. Naomi's came back clean. But mine, well let's just say I almost fell over when I read it. There were two charges listed. One for assault on a government official and another one for intoxicated and disruptive behavior. I quickly realized that they gave me the wrong report. It turns out it was someone else that had two names, and one of them matched mine.
I informed the gentleman at the counter that there was a mistake and asked him to please retrieve my record. He said he already did so I pointed out the mistake and he said, "all we do is pull records by name and not by any other identifying characteristics." So when they put a name in the computer they just take the first name that comes up. We went round and round over this. I said surely you can scroll through the list of matching names until you find mine. He looked right at me and said "we don't have a scroll feature." Huh? Hello... This isn't rocket science.
The guy tried to convince me that the adoption agency would accept this as clearance. He said that they would see that the birth date didn't match mine and they would know that the person on the report wasn't me. And so I said great, we're making progress here. We both agree that this report is not mine. So now I just need to know how to get my report. He said.... this is your report. Doh! Unbelievable! I actually started looking around for cameras because I thought that maybe this was some kind of sick candid camera joke.
Well, I kept my cool and walked away. When I got out of the office I called CCAI and explained the situation. CCAI was very helpful. They said I shouldn't have gone to the courthouse and told me to go to the Sheriff's Department instead. Fortunately the Sheriff's Department was right around the corner. I walked in, told them what I needed, and they pulled the correct records. Piece of cake. The records were both accurate and clean.
So this is the beginning of the red tape huh? Bureaucracy at it's worst. I just wonder how many other processes are broken over at the courthouse.
After researching and reviewing several different adoption agencies, we've decided to go with Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI).
CCAI is the most reputable and experienced agency we could find. Since 1994 they have placed over 4,000 children with families. They are a non-profit, charitable adoption agency. And they specialize and focus on China adoptions only.
During the review process we contacted dozens of people who had used CCAI. Every one of them gave them an outstanding recommendation. The only negative thing that we heard was that they aren't a small agency so if you need someone calling you every other day to check in, you won't get that. But that comment only came from a couple of people. And the majority of the people seemed to agree that even though they are a large agency, you get extremely personalized care and attention.
Their reputation is outstanding. The referrals were great. And my first impression of them from a phone call that I made on Friday was fantastic!
So, today we are filling out our application. This feels like the first real step in the process. From what I understand, we've got a long, long way to go...