notarizations, authentications, and apostilles...oh my!

We had a lot of stuff go down this week.

First, we received the last of our documents, which included the I-171H, the blessing of the US government.

Thursday night we had the last of our documents notarized. Friday morning Steve headed to the Clerk of Courts office to have them authenticated. Friday afternoon, we left for Columbus to make a visit to the Secretary of States office to get everything apostilled. A grand total of 40 documents made the trip, which represented the past 6 months of work, and the criteria for which Samuel and Rowan will be selected. Its hard to imagine that 28.5 (or 30.5 for Steve) years can be boiled down to 40 pieces of paper.

Anyway, we had fun on our road trip. It was probably the most fun 4 hours in a car I've ever had. Don't worry, we took pictures.

Steve, the fearless ship commander.

All 40, along for the ride.

Our tasty, and highly nutritious steakhouse burgers from BK.


The Royal Inn. This has nothing to do with our adoption. We stopped to get gas, and noticed the hotel. A friend of ours once spend about 3 horrible hours in this location. If you know him, ask him the story. It's well worth it.

Mag says 15 minutes left in the journey. Now that does not include making laps around the city to find parking.

Downtown C-bus from I-71. The land of milk and honey.

Me, folding dollar bills to insert in the payment slot. We discovered there is no parking in downtown Columbus, so we found a rouge lot about 6 blocks away. On Friday, it was about 1 degree. As we shivered inserting the bills and walking to the building, we kept reminding ourselves that it was much colder in Russia.

We got fancy visitor badges.

All told, the visit was about an hour. They took our documents behind a closed door, and the waiting began. We knew things were going well when we heard the repetitive "cachunk" of the stapler as the apostille was attached to our documents.

No photos from the return trip. Sorry. And don't worry, I won't show you what every document looks like.

Update

We had a flurry of adoption activity this week, the most significant being the completion of our dossier. We will be sending that early this week. Other news and events to come.

lesson learned

I learned a new lesson this week. Be aware of elections to local officials, i.e. Clerk of Courts and Secretary of States.

I went to the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts office on January 5th to have some documents authenticated. Little did I know, the newly elected CoC had just been sworn in (literally within the hour), and the county documents did not yet have her name on them.

It should only take a few days to have all the new info complete. At least now I know where the courthouse is.

Adoptions terms

I have discovered that when I post, I do a large amount of explaining of terms, and thought it would be a good idea to post definitions to some of the terms most frequently used.

Without further ado...


Home study - the assessment and preparation process a prospective adoptive family undergoes to determine whether they should adopt and what type of child would best fit the family. This is also referred to as preadoptive counseling. The home study is conducted by a social worker, and generally included interviews with the adoptive parent, education and training related to adoption and childcare, and collection of paperwork similar to the dossier.

CIS - United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a bureau in the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It performs many of the functions formerly carried out by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service(INS), which was part of the Department of Justice. The stated priorities of the USCIS are to promote national security, to eliminate case backlogs, and to improve customer services.

Dossier – a collection of paperwork about a person. In adoptions, this will include birth certificates, financial/employment information, completed home study, obligations required by the country of adoption. Each country has different requirement, and each dossier is different. Each document in a dossier must be original, notarized and apostilled.

Apostille - legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. Documents which have been notarized by a notary public, and certain other documents, and then certified with a conformant apostille are accepted for legal use in all the nations that have signed the Hague Convention. Each document must receive this certification from the state of origin before it is acceptable for international use.

Hague Convention - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Convention. This is one place to fully read about the Hague Conventions. In short, it’s a set of regulations for international practices. International adoptions are regulated under Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. One of the key components of this regulation is to protect the right of children, and prevent abduction, sale, and human trafficking of children internationally. To say that a country is a “Hague Country” means that the country subscribes to the regulations set forth by the Convention in regards to international adoption and child protection. Not all countries subscribe to the Convention.

I-600A – the formal application to USCIS for the intention to adopt foreign born orphans and make them US citizen. This form is used when the child/children being adopted are unknown, in the case of most international adoptions. A similar form is the I-800A. This form is used for international adoptions from a Hague Country.

I-171H – the official document from CIS stating the approval of the I-600A, and by proxy, the approval of the adoption of foreign born orphans to become US citizens. This information is also sent to the US Embassy/Consulate of the adoption country. The original letter must be hand carried and presented to officials in country.


Another good reference is http://www.adoption.com/. There is an encyclopedia of terms for both domestic and international adoption, as well as resources and information for birth mothers and adoptive parents.

We Passed!

About 3 weeks ago we submitted our I-600A. This is the application filed with the federal government stating our intentions to adopt foreign born orphans, and make them US citizens. One of the things required for approval is fingerprinting.

USCIS (US Customs and Immigration Services) does the approving and fingerprinting. The fun part about that is they tell us when and where to show up, which gets interesting when you travel a lot.

While I didn't exactly show up at the required time, Steve and I both passed our fingerprinting. The cool part about all fingerprinting being electronic is the results are made available while the prints are taken. 5 minutes and that's it.

Anyway, the agent who approves the I-600A was there the day I went, and reviewed our application on the spot. He said we should get our I-171H (the official document from USCIS stating all the specifics of how many children, from what country, etc.) in the next 2 weeks!

Here is why all of this is amazing...the I-171H is kind of the "lynch pin" in the documentation. While there are 25 other documents required to be sent to Russia, the set of documents is not complete until the I-171H is approved, and in our hands. The average time to process this document is 60 days. I was on the website for the Cincinnati USCIS office last week, and the average time to process the I-600A was 60-90 days. As of today, it's been 28 days. 28 DAYS! Praise the Lord!

this came in the mail on Tuesday. this is the official receipt from the submission of our I-600A. it looks no different than the receipt for the Coke i bought at 7Eleven last week, however it is an official government document, as noted by the asterisks at the bottom.

I-600A

it has been mailed...although, i just realized the version of the form we sent was expired, so maybe we will get to send it again. while trey, the dog, did not need to sign, he felt the need to add his paw print as well.

so one might ask, what does the federal government require in to form of paperwork? well, for starters, the application form. luckily, for adoptions from russia, the 2 page version is still acceptable, as opposed to the newly instituted 16 page form that other countries require.

second, a copy of birth certificates, marriage licensed, and the completed home study.

lastly, the most fun part of the whole packet. normally, i don't like to remember checks like this, but in all honesty, this is one of the smaller ones i will write in coming months.

and now, like any good process that involves the government, we wait.