The Fine Art of Paperwork

Smooth sailing
For the most part, gathering the needed documents for our dossier was not difficult. Our agency does not require a lot. I have a few tips (and debaucles) for any PAPs who are chipping away at their mound of paper.

1. Bind it. I labeled a binder and placed a checklist of documents needed, a calendar for 4 months and plastic sleeves for each document needed inside. I labeled each sleeve with the name of the contents it did or would contain. This helped immensely.

2. Copy (or scan) often. By the time we received our last piece of paper, I had almost everything scanned into PDF format and the copies printed using our home printer. It still took the good part of the morning to assemble the dossier, but it went together easily and in an organized fashion.

3. Be crystal clear. My doctor (and our banker and mortgage company) had never filled out paperwork for an international adoption. Write out detailed instructions for everyone who has to produce a letter for you. See below:

4. Expedite when you can.

5. Read and re-read what you need before you go. I had to get two blood tests because I did not re-read requirements before I went to the doctor's office.

6. Open a FedEx account. This made things so much easier! And, using FedEx is not as costly as I believed.

7. Guard it . . . with your life. We took the dossier with us when we went on trips. You could also keep it in a safe deposit box.

8. Keep track of birthdays. Track the age of your documents using a spreadsheet. Our agency required documents to be less than 3 months old at the time of submission so this helped me make sure everything was within that time frame.

9. Ask when licenses expire (home study agency, doctors). Agencies have different requirements for the expiration of licenses. Find out and ask your coordinator if there is a problem.

10. Ask questions on listservs and to others who are in process. This helped immensely! THANKS everyone!

A Few Ripples
Just a few random, RIDICULOUS things . . .

1. Make sure everything is notarized exactly to your state's specifications. The notary's stamp on our mortgage document did not have a BORDER around it, thus no Apostille for that document. See post written on 10/20. I don't know how I would have know that was an issue. There wasn't anything written about it in the Secretary of State's pamphlet. I guess I could have called, but I doubt that would have revealed too much more. This was not a huge deal. We just had to request the mortgage letter for a third time.

2. The state of Indiana does not Apostille birth certificates issued by the counties . . . they only certify those generated by the STATE. I don't know if I want to waste anymore virtual ink on this one. Why would the state have TWO different birth certificates?! AND, only Apostille ONE?

3. Our I171H took about 7 weeks, which wasn't all that ridiculous. But, the wait was excruciating. We had everything ready to go and all we could get from USCIS was that we were in line.

Basically, it took us 3 1/2 months to gather our paperwork - not bad.

Does anyone have any tips or experiences to share?

Reasons to be thankful this week

• Scott & Luca
• Family & friends
• OUR @^%)_+_)&#@!! I171H!
  
  I wish this post could be more creative and better written but I just don't have the presence of mind to do that because WE FINALLY GOT THAT ONE LAST PIECE OF PAPER! I cannot tell you how relieved I am. I cannot tell you how much this convinces me that this WILL happen. I wish I could explain why this is the point at which I start believing . . . why this point marks the beginning. It just does. And, now, I can allow myself to dream about "Saskia."
  
  I could not be more thankful!

AH HA!

A few words about the fine art of speculating
When we started this process, I distinctly remember saying to my adoption coordinator that the process would be easy after "all that we have been through." See what happens when one says such things?! EASY. Ha. What I failed to realize at the time was that we are talking about our daughter here - that adopting our daughter would put me on edge the whole entire time . . . that this is too huge not to stress and wonder and worry every step of the way. Easy. Silly me. And, there is a small part of me that does not want to do all that paperwork all over again if our I171H takes 6 months. But, I really need to get back in touch with my organizational skills, so why not? I would love to do the paperwork all over again.

There I go tempting fate again.

Kazacutie & Gigi
I have been reminded recently why we are doing this. Jen and Marshall (see almost all comment sections - they are there encouraging and supporting us and countless other people who are or have adopted) have received the coveted LOI (letter of invitation that the Kazakh government sends to invite prospective adoptive parents to Kazakhstan to meet their child). They described it best when they compared it to the golden ticket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. This is what we are all working towards. So, they are finally going! A) I want to wish them all of the best on their life-changing journey to meet Kazacutie and B) I want to thank them for reminding me what this is all about. It is not about getting a piece of paper. It is about adopting a child. When I see the bigger picture, everything else becomes pretty simple.

Jennifer and Jim, who adopted their daughter Gigi this past summer, are also a constant source of inspiration. They have carefully chronicled their entire journey with a sense of honesty and reverence. I am happy for them and they give me a glimpse into the possibility of our future life.

I have not really allowed myself to think of our future life with "Saskia" too much because I am incredibly cautious. I realize this cautiousness may be a detriment to getting through the process. I have allowed myself to wonder about things like sleeping arrangements. I was thinking that Luca and "Saskia" could share a room for a while because perhaps hearing another child in the room would calm her during the night . . . because this is what she is used to in the baby house. Any thoughts?

Happiness is . . .

Autumn leaves

"Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn."
- Elizabeth Lawrence

. . . which is what we did yesterday. I was feeling so reflective. I was so close to surrendering to the adoption process (until this morning - more on that later). We had such a good time raking the leaves. Luca loved rolling around in the pile and throwing leaves with abandon. He also went on multiple leaf scavenger hunts (for example, find 20 red leaves with 5 points). It was such a nice day.

Tamales
Scott and I spent the afternoon making tamales. We used the dough from this recipe and two fillings from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen (spicy mushroom chile & black bean). I made the salsa roja from Fields of Greens. Sorry. I am a bit of a food nut. I won't bore you with the rest of the menu. I am happy to report that the tamales were amazing unless you are a 4 year-old. If that is the case, you may say "Bleck!" when required to eat one bite of a "specially-prepared-for-you" cheese-only tamale and opt for the back-up grilled cheese.

A Screeching Halt
Yesterday, I was thinking that, yes, happiness is also a screeching halt in one's life. The screeching halt here is, of course, the adoption process. Here our many pieces of paper sit all dressed up (with Apostilles) with nowhere to go. Wednesday will mark the second week our home study has been at USCIS. I have been doing lots of "why-ing" and "should-ing" and all around "poor-me-ing." This morning I almost cried because I was so frustrated. But, really, I am going to stop now. Happiness can be a screeching halt in the process because this is just how it is. Does that make any sense? One would think that, by now, I would understand that I have very little control over things that happen. I need to remind myself of that over and over and over. Happiness is accepting that I have little control . . .

I can, however, be prepared. Our agency does require that everything except for birth certificates/marriage licenses be less than 3 months old. Almost all of our documents are from September/October except the FBI clearance. I think I am going to go ahead and get the clearance done again just in case.

Kids from Kazakhstan
Have you seen this calendar? Isn't it adorable?!

P.S. I have entered the world of links. Can you tell?

Ominous

Persona non grata?
I emailed USCIS starting on Sunday and each email I sent got kicked back - a "user unknown" message. I started to wonder if they had blocked my email. I swear, I have emailed them only twice. I received another contact email from our state's international adoption group. That one worked . . . and today I received this in reply:

"We received your home study on 10/24/2007. Your case will be reviewed in the order it was received."

Sounds kind of ominous, huh? I read it to mean "there are about a 1000 cases and you are number 999." Call me an optimist.

Our FBI fingerprint clearance will be 3 months old on 11/17. I wonder if we should get new. Any thoughts?

The Apostilles are here though. I am going to go home and look at them and visualize our I171H traveling speedily from 101 West Congress Parkway to our mailbox.

Off to Apostille

Most of our documents are now entrusted to this man - Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State. May they all be to his liking. May they return to us properly Apostilled quickly. If there was an altar to a paperwork god/goddess, I would leave an offering.

And, now, about that I-171H . . .

The BINDER

The egg project from high school
Did you have to take care of an egg as a project in high school? It must have been some educator's idea of teaching responsibility or even rudimentary parenting skills. I have to interject that it would not be all that effective since the egg does not want to eat every 5 minutes and does not scream and cry for no apparent reason. Actually, I didn't do this . . . I only saw it on some sitcom like the Brady Bunch. But, I feel like I am doing it now with this binder of papers and Great seals and identity documents.

We took a weekend trip to see Scott's family and I took the binder with us in case our house burned down. If that happened, we would be homeless, but we would still have our adoption dossier! I didn't really want to admit it to Scott. But, I did. Then he brought it in the house at night so it would not get stolen from the car. So, we are getting an A+ on the egg project so far! Only a few more weeks to go!

It was nice to get out of the routine of daily life, though. I really think I needed some perspective here. It is so hard when you are in the middle of something - gathering paper and freaking out about the future - to stay calm and find a sense of humor. If I have learned anything the last 3 years, it is that one controls so little! It is that illusion that always trips me up.

This is THE week!
Tomorrow, we both have our medical forms filled out and notarized. It seems like we have been going to the doctor for 2 months now - physical, TB and blood tests. It is hard to believe that we will actually have those forms done tomorrow.

Somewhere Susan posted that she needs to get a more recent copy of her marriage license and now I am thinking that I should just go ahead and do that because we got ours way back in March.

I Love Blogs!
All of you adoption bloggers are keeping me sane. Thanks!

Mortgage Company came through!

So close!
So, we only have to have the medical forms filled out and receive the I-171H. I think immigration & IL DCFS have had our paperwork for about a week. Then, off to Apostille. I will also be copying things tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion to copy before all of the annoying staples.

We're Going Where?
This week I started getting a bit freaked out by the prospect of the trip. I have traveled a bit - even lived in London for 6 months. Before we went there, we were under the impression that they had nothing. I think my dear friend Karen filled her suitcase with Noxema because she feared they wouldn't have any and she had a bit of an addiction. We had to laugh at ourselves when we got there and saw the 2 Burger Kings (a sure sign of civilization - HA!) directly across the street from one another. Well, that was 18 years ago. And, this time we are actually going to the other side of the world where we don't even know the language - although I do plan to try to learn some Russian before we go. Traveling is exhilarating and absolutely exhausting at the same time. I mean I actually have to think about everything - directions, communication, clean water, food - so many things that are automatic when I am at home. And then there is the roller coaster ride of the intricacies international adoption . . . anyone else freaking out?