We had a big accomplishment this week. We finished part 1 of 3 for our Nepal Dossier!
A dossier is a “country application” that consists of all the documents we need in order to adopt a child. Ours comes in the 3 basic parts: Certified Documents, Notarized Documents, and Non-notarized Documents. To a lot of families adopting internationally, the dossier is overwhelming. But if any of you know me, you know that I’m super-detailed, organized and have Administration as one of my top Spiritual Gifts. So, the dossier is not a big deal for me. In fact, if I really sat down to do it, I believe I could have it all done in a month! But I have more to do in life than work on adoption paperwork! And we have a ton of time since our dossier will not even be sent to Nepal until December or January.
Our home study also needs some of the same documents needed for the dossier. So, as we check items off 1 list, we’ve been able to cross it off the second list. Most of the things we crossed off both lists fell under the Notarized Documents section of our dossier, so I completed those first. I believe this was the longest, most detailed, crazy part of our application itself. Here’s a list of what we needed to provide:
* 2 Certificates of Financial Status (income, savings, investments, debts, etc.)
* 2 Medical Certificates for each Adopting Parent (we had physicals and were tested for communicable diseases like TB, HIV, etc.)
* 2 Commitment to Post-Placement Letters (stating we’ll report annually on how our adopted daughter is doing)
* 2 Employment Verification Letters (for Jay, but I included 2 so they know about my part-time wedding coordinating)
* 2 Non-Employment Verification Letters (for me since I’m a stay-at-home mom)
* 2 Specific Powers of Attorney to our Agency (granting them the right to act our behalf on the legalities of the adoption)
* 2 Powers of Attorney from Jay and me and vice versa (granting Jay the right to make adoption decisions on my behalf, and vice versa)
Things that we need to include in the list above but are just waiting on are:
* 3 International Adoption Home Studies (our Social Worker should have this done within the month, I expect)
* 2 State Police Clearance Letters for each Adopting Parent (we ordered these and are just awaiting their arrival)
Thank goodness we have a good friend who is a Notary! All the documents above needed her stamp and signature. We’ve kept her busy!
We will send this first packet of dossier documents to our agency on Tuesday. They will review them all and let us know if anything needs to be altered in any way. Please pray that they are all accepted! The only hiccup we could possibly see is the “attestation clause” on our notarized documents. Some documents our agency gave us had such a clause for our Notary. Others did not. We have heard that the state of Nebraska will require attestation clauses, but our agency is in Pennsylvania and they do not require them. We’ll see! At the very least, it will be an easy change to make and we’ll just have to reprint and have things re-signed. But it would be so nice to have things done and done correctly the very first time!
