One of the beautiful things about adoption is the opportunity to help save a life but in the process I am pretty sure we wiped out an entire forest worth trees with how much paperwork we needed to complete our home study and dossier. While I only kid about wiping out an entire forest, the amount of paperwork to complete an adoption is astronomical, and we aren't even done yet! When we started calling around and speaking to different agencies, many of them referred to the paperwork portion as a "paper pregnancy." In a way, that reference was spot on because instead of my wife's stomach growing, the mounds of paperwork on my table grew by the day. It took us about 3 months to complete all of the paper work for our home study and dossier, and that was working in high gear, non-stop. We were lucky that we had a family member who was a notary and if I was giving advice to someone who is about to start the home study/dossier portion of the adoption, I would recommend finding a notary and keep them on retainer as we were literally making runs at 10:30 and 11:00 at night getting our paperwork notarized. A few posts ago I talked about how it didn't matter which agency you select first; adoption or home study, and while that's true, you will have to complete the home study before you complete the dossier because the home study report will actually become a part of your dossier. I have to say that if you can find a local adoption agency that you feel comfortable and confident with, and they also provide Home Study Services, you will likely end up saving yourself some time and possibly even money if you have the chance to go that route. While much of the paperwork that we collected for our home study was reused in our dossier, the adoption agency had us refill out (and notarize) some of the same information but using their own forms with their own agency headings....So you can see where the "two birds, one stone" theory can come into play if you have the opportunity to use an agency that can also provide Home Study Services. That doesn't by any means, mean that the paperwork portion of this process is going to be easier, but it does have potential to save you some time in the long run. I feel it's important to note a few things that we learned when gathering all of the documents that could really help someone get a jump start on the paperwork part if they were deciding to adopt. While every agency has different forms or layouts of the documents they will require, you can get a jump start by ordering original birth certificates for you, your spouse, and any children that live with you currently. Copies of your birth certificates will not fly when creating your dossier, and you will need to order new, originals from Vital Statistics. While you are gathering birth certificates, you will also need to get new, original marriage certificates and even divorce certificates (if necessary). Each certificate can cost between $5 and $10 per document depending on the state in which you live, but it's good to get a jump start on ordering those documents as they can take a little time to get mailed to you. Again, while every agency requires different documents, birth, marriage, and divorce certificates are a must and will be required by any agency that you decide to go with. Please note that if you are reading this for educational purposes and considering adoption, there is a big difference in Vital Statistics and Vital Chek. I'm no professional on this matter, but from what I can tell, Vital Statistics is a state database record, where VitalChek is more of an outside company that can pull documents from anywhere. While they might be able to do the same thing, you will have to obtain birth, marriage, and divorce certificates from the state in which those things took place, and Vital Statistics is state regulated. Below is the link where we obtained our certificates for the state of Florida considering we were all born, divorced, and married in the state of Florida. If you live in a state where you weren't born, or married, you will need to locate that states website or location to obtain the correct Vital Statistics.
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/planning_eval/vital_statistics/
I could go on and on about the documents that you will need to gather and the documents that we gathered, but like I stated earlier, each agency will require something a little different and you will be presented with a list and format of those documents once you select an agency. Getting all of those documents filled out and notarized is the first part of completing the paperwork for the adoption. The next part (and most critical in my opinion) is getting those documents State Certified. We were not aware of this at the beginning of our adoption process and it wasn't until we had a phone conversation with our agency that explained to us the difference in getting documents notarized and state certified. To get a document "state certified", you have to send your notarized document/s to the Department of State along with a cover sheet about which country you are getting the documents certified for. Oh yeah, and don't forget the check you have to send along to the State for their services. Each document we sent to the State was a $10 fee to get state certified. We had 34 documents to send to the state and I'm not very mathematically inclined, but that's $340 just for state certified documents! A little side story regarding "state certified" documents that might help clear a few things up to those wondering. While just about every document was notarized here in the State of Florida, we do our banking with USAA who doesn't actually have a banking branch here in Florida. They are located in Texas and a few of the documents we had to gather for our dossier were good standing letters from our financial institute and account status'. Because our bank is located in Texas, I had to call them and have them mail me these notarized letters. Remember, these documents were notarized in Texas where our bank is located, so we couldn't send them to the Florida Department of State to get state certified. Instead we had to FedEx a separate envelope to the Texas Department of State for "State Certification." Confused yet? We were! The point of the story is that documents have to be state certified in the state in which they are notarized. If you are getting a birth certificate from Florida but you live in Alaska, you are going to have to mail your Florida birth certificates to the Florida Department of State in order to get it "State Certified."
The paperwork can get overwhelming quickly, and for us it was vital to stay organized. Mary made a nice binder that was tabbed and labeled with the order in which documents were supposed to go, Once we got our list from the Home Study Agency, we started filling out, printing, notarizing, and filing in order to keep organized. Once we completed the Home Study, we did the exact same thing for our Adoption Agency and the dossier, in that we printed out their list of requirements, and started filing away papers in an organized manner. After we received all of the notarized documents, I uploaded them to Google Drive so I could access a PDF version of the document from anywhere. We then complied all notarized documents and sent them off to the Department of State for certification. After about 5 days, we got all of our documents back from the state and they were officially State Certified! The completion of all of those documents is called the dossier, which I refer to often. It's basically a book of notarized and state certified documents that contains our life story and will get sent to the government in Ethiopia. While it took months to complete and hours beyond hours of effort, we have successfully submitted our "paper pregnancy" to our Adoption Agency and are now on a waiting list that takes between two and six months! While I won't be watching my wife's stomach grow over the next few months, I'm happy to say that there's a little boy or girl half way around the world waiting to come home, and we can't wait to meet you.
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/planning_eval/vital_statistics/
I could go on and on about the documents that you will need to gather and the documents that we gathered, but like I stated earlier, each agency will require something a little different and you will be presented with a list and format of those documents once you select an agency. Getting all of those documents filled out and notarized is the first part of completing the paperwork for the adoption. The next part (and most critical in my opinion) is getting those documents State Certified. We were not aware of this at the beginning of our adoption process and it wasn't until we had a phone conversation with our agency that explained to us the difference in getting documents notarized and state certified. To get a document "state certified", you have to send your notarized document/s to the Department of State along with a cover sheet about which country you are getting the documents certified for. Oh yeah, and don't forget the check you have to send along to the State for their services. Each document we sent to the State was a $10 fee to get state certified. We had 34 documents to send to the state and I'm not very mathematically inclined, but that's $340 just for state certified documents! A little side story regarding "state certified" documents that might help clear a few things up to those wondering. While just about every document was notarized here in the State of Florida, we do our banking with USAA who doesn't actually have a banking branch here in Florida. They are located in Texas and a few of the documents we had to gather for our dossier were good standing letters from our financial institute and account status'. Because our bank is located in Texas, I had to call them and have them mail me these notarized letters. Remember, these documents were notarized in Texas where our bank is located, so we couldn't send them to the Florida Department of State to get state certified. Instead we had to FedEx a separate envelope to the Texas Department of State for "State Certification." Confused yet? We were! The point of the story is that documents have to be state certified in the state in which they are notarized. If you are getting a birth certificate from Florida but you live in Alaska, you are going to have to mail your Florida birth certificates to the Florida Department of State in order to get it "State Certified."
The paperwork can get overwhelming quickly, and for us it was vital to stay organized. Mary made a nice binder that was tabbed and labeled with the order in which documents were supposed to go, Once we got our list from the Home Study Agency, we started filling out, printing, notarizing, and filing in order to keep organized. Once we completed the Home Study, we did the exact same thing for our Adoption Agency and the dossier, in that we printed out their list of requirements, and started filing away papers in an organized manner. After we received all of the notarized documents, I uploaded them to Google Drive so I could access a PDF version of the document from anywhere. We then complied all notarized documents and sent them off to the Department of State for certification. After about 5 days, we got all of our documents back from the state and they were officially State Certified! The completion of all of those documents is called the dossier, which I refer to often. It's basically a book of notarized and state certified documents that contains our life story and will get sent to the government in Ethiopia. While it took months to complete and hours beyond hours of effort, we have successfully submitted our "paper pregnancy" to our Adoption Agency and are now on a waiting list that takes between two and six months! While I won't be watching my wife's stomach grow over the next few months, I'm happy to say that there's a little boy or girl half way around the world waiting to come home, and we can't wait to meet you.