Adoption Update
It has been a little over a month since I posted the blog about our adoption and the many questions some of you may have had. In the past month, we “started” our home study, finished our home study visits, started gathering documents for our dossier, and have been waiting on our finalized, notarized home study.
February 27th, we had our first (so we thought) home study visit with our caseworker. She is super sweet and we get along great, but we were nervous (as all adoptive families usually are) to have her come to our home and evaluate us. We made sure our home was super clean and things were as spotless as could be. I am not a lover of housework and don’t keep a perfectly spotless house so we were all busy making it just right. Sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, washing, and folding, tucking things away…all for her to just do a quick walk through. I knew she was not going to be getting out the white gloves and looking under beds, but I definitely thought it would be more thorough than a simple walk-through. She was at our house for about four hours just asking us questions and making sure all of her paperwork was correct. In that time, she informed us that that meeting would be counted as our third home study meeting because she was going to count our informational meeting (March 2012) and our International Adoption Seminar (Sept. 2012) as 1 & 2 since we did them with her at the agency office. Then, she informed us that she wanted to do the fourth and final home study meeting the following week! March 2nd, we met her for coffee and finished up the questions, then discussed the next steps. We were not expecting the home study to move so fast. Generally, the home study process takes between two to three months. After meeting with our caseworker for our fourth and final home study meeting, she then took all of our paperwork and made sure everything was absolutely perfect. Every single fact and figure has to be right because China will be checking everything and if it is not right, they could reject us. After she finished her corrections, our home study was sent to the main office in Tulsa and was “put in line” to be reviewed by a lady who reviews ALL the home studies for Dillon. She goes through every single page with a fine-toothed comb and that, my friends, is no easy feat. The paperwork seems insurmountable at times so to have to sit and read through every single detail and make sure the numbers match and every name is spelled correctly and everything is legible is definitely not a job for me. This agency is going to make sure everything is as perfect as possible before they send the home study on to the country of choice. Our country being China, things better be right because they are very strict and picky. So, after she looked over everything, she sent it back to our caseworker in Little Rock and our caseworker made any last corrections. She completed it March 28th (one month and one day after we started), then sent it back to Tulsa to be finalized and legally notarized. From Tulsa, it was finally mailed to us and we received it at the end of last week.
It has been a little over a month since I posted the blog about our adoption and the many questions some of you may have had. In the past month, we “started” our home study, finished our home study visits, started gathering documents for our dossier, and have been waiting on our finalized, notarized home study.
February 27th, we had our first (so we thought) home study visit with our caseworker. She is super sweet and we get along great, but we were nervous (as all adoptive families usually are) to have her come to our home and evaluate us. We made sure our home was super clean and things were as spotless as could be. I am not a lover of housework and don’t keep a perfectly spotless house so we were all busy making it just right. Sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, washing, and folding, tucking things away…all for her to just do a quick walk through. I knew she was not going to be getting out the white gloves and looking under beds, but I definitely thought it would be more thorough than a simple walk-through. She was at our house for about four hours just asking us questions and making sure all of her paperwork was correct. In that time, she informed us that that meeting would be counted as our third home study meeting because she was going to count our informational meeting (March 2012) and our International Adoption Seminar (Sept. 2012) as 1 & 2 since we did them with her at the agency office. Then, she informed us that she wanted to do the fourth and final home study meeting the following week! March 2nd, we met her for coffee and finished up the questions, then discussed the next steps. We were not expecting the home study to move so fast. Generally, the home study process takes between two to three months. After meeting with our caseworker for our fourth and final home study meeting, she then took all of our paperwork and made sure everything was absolutely perfect. Every single fact and figure has to be right because China will be checking everything and if it is not right, they could reject us. After she finished her corrections, our home study was sent to the main office in Tulsa and was “put in line” to be reviewed by a lady who reviews ALL the home studies for Dillon. She goes through every single page with a fine-toothed comb and that, my friends, is no easy feat. The paperwork seems insurmountable at times so to have to sit and read through every single detail and make sure the numbers match and every name is spelled correctly and everything is legible is definitely not a job for me. This agency is going to make sure everything is as perfect as possible before they send the home study on to the country of choice. Our country being China, things better be right because they are very strict and picky. So, after she looked over everything, she sent it back to our caseworker in Little Rock and our caseworker made any last corrections. She completed it March 28th (one month and one day after we started), then sent it back to Tulsa to be finalized and legally notarized. From Tulsa, it was finally mailed to us and we received it at the end of last week.
Now that we have our official home study back, we can take on the next step which is filing our I-800A document. This is an official document needed for our dossier. This single document will cost us $720 dollars just to file plus we each have to pay $85 for fingerprints. That is almost $900 for one document and two sets of fingerprints! For the dossier, we also have to have “certified” documents i.e. birth certificates and marriage certificate. These are official documents from the issuing state with the raised seal and a current date (no more than two months old). These puppies range in price but are usually around $30 each plus the only shipping method is express so tack on an additional $22 per order. Luckily, we only had two orders since we were married in North Carolina, Jess’ birth state. All of these documents were received before the end of March so we should have everything to file our I-800A. We will be double-checking everything today and getting that sent out as soon as possible.
China also requests an official local law enforcement letter. It is just a simple letter on official letterhead stating we have no criminal record. As each state is different and not everyone adopting through Dillon adopts from China, they do not have specifics as to how you obtain these. Yes, they give guidelines and pointers, but what works in California may not work in Nevada. And what works in Nevada may not work in Arkansas. It was clearly stated that you might run into agencies that don’t want to help you. They warned, “if you run into difficulties at one agency, move on to the next (i.e. police, sheriff).” I started at the local county sheriff’s office and wish I had never walked in there. The lady at the front desk was very nice and was doing what she could to help, however she was just the receptionist. The receptionist then enlisted the help of another lady who was more than rude. If it is not a service you offer, simply state that and let the person know where they can go to get it. Instead, she thought it best to yell at me about unnecessary things (background checks and other things) when all I needed was a simple letter and had made it clear that we already had done background checks. Because of her tone, a sheriff and some other guy came out of their offices to keep the peace. The sheriff then proceeded to spout off some things; then he got to the point that should have been made in the first place: they can’t give out that information because it is a felony offense. They can give information to other law enforcement agencies, but they can’t give the information to the actual citizen who is asking for it. Say what? I left there dumbfounded, annoyed, and frustrated. (This process is anything but simple and easy and it can be overwhelming at times). I put my child into her car seat and feebly fell into my seat and began to cry. I was frustrated with the lady, with the entire adoption process and the hoops and hurdles necessary; and I was frustrated at myself for letting the lady get to me. I just cannot stand unnecessarily rude people and my only way of release in the moment was to cry. I just wanted to give up in that moment, but truly, I know that is what the devil wants. The devil does not want us to adopt and he does not want to make the process easy. It is God’s heart who loves adoption (as his only son was adopted by Joseph and then, Jesus adopted us all); Satan loves to tear things apart and bring dissension. I may have been overly frustrated in that moment, but I did not give up. Instead, I called Jess and told him to deal with the people at the next agency. He willingly did and of course he dealt with an overly NICE lady who could not give out the information for the same reason as stated above, (felony offense) but did her best to direct him where she thought he needed to go. She said the local court; the sheriff said the state police headquarters. Ugh! Here we go again. I contacted my case worker about the situation and she along with a lady at the head office in Oklahoma pulled some files from Arkansas adoptive families and came to the conclusion we needed to head to the state police headquarters. We went there March 21st and that place was hoppin’! There are hundreds of people in and out of that building every day, yet every single employee we encountered (4) were very nice and helpful. The receptionist to the department we needed was not exactly sure how to go about handling it, but she called someone who came out to talk to us. I explained what we needed and she asked about a background check. We stated we had already done those and she simply went and looked us up. She found that we had indeed had background checks done recently and was willing to type the letters up right then and there. The only problem was all the notaries (4) were gone that day so she could not give it to us without a notary’s signature. No worries, we just asked her to mail them to us. Not a problem at all; we received them in the mail two days later.
China also requests an official local law enforcement letter. It is just a simple letter on official letterhead stating we have no criminal record. As each state is different and not everyone adopting through Dillon adopts from China, they do not have specifics as to how you obtain these. Yes, they give guidelines and pointers, but what works in California may not work in Nevada. And what works in Nevada may not work in Arkansas. It was clearly stated that you might run into agencies that don’t want to help you. They warned, “if you run into difficulties at one agency, move on to the next (i.e. police, sheriff).” I started at the local county sheriff’s office and wish I had never walked in there. The lady at the front desk was very nice and was doing what she could to help, however she was just the receptionist. The receptionist then enlisted the help of another lady who was more than rude. If it is not a service you offer, simply state that and let the person know where they can go to get it. Instead, she thought it best to yell at me about unnecessary things (background checks and other things) when all I needed was a simple letter and had made it clear that we already had done background checks. Because of her tone, a sheriff and some other guy came out of their offices to keep the peace. The sheriff then proceeded to spout off some things; then he got to the point that should have been made in the first place: they can’t give out that information because it is a felony offense. They can give information to other law enforcement agencies, but they can’t give the information to the actual citizen who is asking for it. Say what? I left there dumbfounded, annoyed, and frustrated. (This process is anything but simple and easy and it can be overwhelming at times). I put my child into her car seat and feebly fell into my seat and began to cry. I was frustrated with the lady, with the entire adoption process and the hoops and hurdles necessary; and I was frustrated at myself for letting the lady get to me. I just cannot stand unnecessarily rude people and my only way of release in the moment was to cry. I just wanted to give up in that moment, but truly, I know that is what the devil wants. The devil does not want us to adopt and he does not want to make the process easy. It is God’s heart who loves adoption (as his only son was adopted by Joseph and then, Jesus adopted us all); Satan loves to tear things apart and bring dissension. I may have been overly frustrated in that moment, but I did not give up. Instead, I called Jess and told him to deal with the people at the next agency. He willingly did and of course he dealt with an overly NICE lady who could not give out the information for the same reason as stated above, (felony offense) but did her best to direct him where she thought he needed to go. She said the local court; the sheriff said the state police headquarters. Ugh! Here we go again. I contacted my case worker about the situation and she along with a lady at the head office in Oklahoma pulled some files from Arkansas adoptive families and came to the conclusion we needed to head to the state police headquarters. We went there March 21st and that place was hoppin’! There are hundreds of people in and out of that building every day, yet every single employee we encountered (4) were very nice and helpful. The receptionist to the department we needed was not exactly sure how to go about handling it, but she called someone who came out to talk to us. I explained what we needed and she asked about a background check. We stated we had already done those and she simply went and looked us up. She found that we had indeed had background checks done recently and was willing to type the letters up right then and there. The only problem was all the notaries (4) were gone that day so she could not give it to us without a notary’s signature. No worries, we just asked her to mail them to us. Not a problem at all; we received them in the mail two days later.
*Audra’s soapbox* - if you don’t like to deal with people, don’t work a job where you have to *deal* with people. Simple enough to me! *Off soapbox*
So where do we go from here? We will file the I-800A in the next day or two. I am not sure how long it takes to get this document back. We mail our stuff to Texas; they do their part, then they mail it to an office in Missouri. From Missouri, they give us a specific time and place to get fingerprinted. The official documents will be sent to us from the Missouri office. This document is needed for our Dossier; however Dillon has instructed us to mail in our dossier before this document is received because it could take a while. They will get started working on the dossier as soon as our documents and money are received...before the I-800A is received. Our dossier fee is $1,900 and we have our second program management fee of $3,500 due now. We knew the $1,900 was coming due, but were surprised by the management fee so it is time to raise funds!!! If you can donate ANY amount ($5-5,000), please do so through the Paypal button at the top right. No amount is too small. You are also welcome to send us a check. (If you need our address, we will gladly provide you with it; however I do not want to publish it on a public blog.) Once we send in our dossier and payments, we will then be open to receive a referral for a child. This could happen quickly, but we need some help raising the money!
So where do we go from here? We will file the I-800A in the next day or two. I am not sure how long it takes to get this document back. We mail our stuff to Texas; they do their part, then they mail it to an office in Missouri. From Missouri, they give us a specific time and place to get fingerprinted. The official documents will be sent to us from the Missouri office. This document is needed for our Dossier; however Dillon has instructed us to mail in our dossier before this document is received because it could take a while. They will get started working on the dossier as soon as our documents and money are received...before the I-800A is received. Our dossier fee is $1,900 and we have our second program management fee of $3,500 due now. We knew the $1,900 was coming due, but were surprised by the management fee so it is time to raise funds!!! If you can donate ANY amount ($5-5,000), please do so through the Paypal button at the top right. No amount is too small. You are also welcome to send us a check. (If you need our address, we will gladly provide you with it; however I do not want to publish it on a public blog.) Once we send in our dossier and payments, we will then be open to receive a referral for a child. This could happen quickly, but we need some help raising the money!
Wow! Jess! You have a beautiful wife and daughter! Congratulations on the adoption. China is a REAL commitment. We are adopting from Eastern Europe. If you want to catch up on some of Michelle's blog, it is
ReplyDeletepursuingadunbantlife@blogspot.com I think.....or something like that.
Be blessed!
Sam