Wow! Today we received the certified documents back from the state. It usually takes about a week. I sent it to them last Thursday, they received it Friday morning, certified the documents and shipped it off that same day. It was here this morning at 9:30.
I shipped the documents to Washington DC to the Vietnamese Embassy to arrive tomorrow. There they will be authenticated. This usually takes about 3 weeks. With how quickly things have been going, I'm almost wondering if they'll be here before 3 weeks. We'll see.
I think someone is watching over us and knows our daughter is on the other side of the world waiting for us.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Our passports are here!
Our passports arrived yesterday at 7:50am. I could not believe it! That was fast. The woman I talked to Saturday at the passport office was so helpful. She must have requested that they be sent to us overnight.
Now that I had the passports I had to make a copy of the pages with our signatures and photos and have them notorized. I completed the rest of the documents that needed to be notorized and we took them to a notary. Then when I got home I had to fax our dossier to CAS, the adoption agency in North Carolina we are working with for the international part of the adoption. Someone there had to review it to make sure everything was correct before the next step. After she called to say everything was fine, I sent the dossier to the Secretary of State where it will be certified. We should have it back within a week. Then we send it to the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington DC. That process takes about 3 weeks. Then it goes to Vietnam.
Now that I had the passports I had to make a copy of the pages with our signatures and photos and have them notorized. I completed the rest of the documents that needed to be notorized and we took them to a notary. Then when I got home I had to fax our dossier to CAS, the adoption agency in North Carolina we are working with for the international part of the adoption. Someone there had to review it to make sure everything was correct before the next step. After she called to say everything was fine, I sent the dossier to the Secretary of State where it will be certified. We should have it back within a week. Then we send it to the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington DC. That process takes about 3 weeks. Then it goes to Vietnam.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Passport update
Our passports are completed and have been mailed to us! I am so excited! They should be here by Saturday 5/19. So I've been busy organizing our documents that need to be sent to the state.
Waiting for passports
We're still waiting for our passports. I check their website daily to see if our status has been updated, but it still says in process. The woman who I talked to at the passport office on Saturday said to check the website on Wednesday, so I'm hoping sometime today it will be updated to completed.
Once we receive our passports, we include a copy in the packet we send to the state where they verify everyone who notorized our documents. This process should only take about 1 week.
Part of our adoption is to complete 30 hours of education regarding international adoptions and culture of the country we are adopting from. So we've been reading books, watching videos and taking online courses. We're just about done.
There's a good possibility we could be going before September.
Once we receive our passports, we include a copy in the packet we send to the state where they verify everyone who notorized our documents. This process should only take about 1 week.
Part of our adoption is to complete 30 hours of education regarding international adoptions and culture of the country we are adopting from. So we've been reading books, watching videos and taking online courses. We're just about done.
There's a good possibility we could be going before September.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Happy Mother's Day!
Welcome to our adoption blog. We're getting closer all the time to bringing our daughter home. Here's what's happened so far. We officially started the process on February 28, 2007 with our application. It seems that Vietnam changed their application requirements effective March 1, so as of that date you could no longer specify gender. Which meant that since we want a daughter, our application needed to be sent in on February 28. So that started it all.
Then we had a series of 6 weekly meeting with a social worker from the adoption agency to complete the homestudy. Part of the 6 were with both Mark and I, one with each of us individually, a short session with the boys and a home visit. During this time we had documents to gather for the adoption agency in Madison. They gave us the name and phone number of another family in Janesville who is also adopting from Vietnam. They are further in the process than we are, in fact they are going to Vietnam on May 24. I have had numerous phone calls and emails with her. It has been good to talk to someone who has already been through what we are going through. She gave me lots of helpful hints to stay on top of things and make them go smoother.
At the beginning of the process we had to fill out a form I-600A, which is a petition to adopt an orphan, with USCIS, United States Citizenship & Immigration Services. We went to their Milwaukee office to be fingerprinted and once they received a copy of the completed homestudy from our social worker, they issue form I-171H, which gives us a favorable determination to adopt an orphan. We just received this form on Friday, May 11, which was a little earlier than expected. We were planning on having it by the end of May, so it was a pleasant surprise. Now we're waiting for our passports. It's been 2 months since we applied for them. I finally got through to someone there yesterday and after explaining our situation, she was going to send a fax to their New Orleans office (that is where our passports are) saying we need them by May 18. She was so helpful.
Referrals continue to come in quickly. I'm hoping that is still the case when we get to that point. Our best estimate is that we will be going to Vietnam in September. But it could be earlier if things continue to go smoothly.
Then we had a series of 6 weekly meeting with a social worker from the adoption agency to complete the homestudy. Part of the 6 were with both Mark and I, one with each of us individually, a short session with the boys and a home visit. During this time we had documents to gather for the adoption agency in Madison. They gave us the name and phone number of another family in Janesville who is also adopting from Vietnam. They are further in the process than we are, in fact they are going to Vietnam on May 24. I have had numerous phone calls and emails with her. It has been good to talk to someone who has already been through what we are going through. She gave me lots of helpful hints to stay on top of things and make them go smoother.
At the beginning of the process we had to fill out a form I-600A, which is a petition to adopt an orphan, with USCIS, United States Citizenship & Immigration Services. We went to their Milwaukee office to be fingerprinted and once they received a copy of the completed homestudy from our social worker, they issue form I-171H, which gives us a favorable determination to adopt an orphan. We just received this form on Friday, May 11, which was a little earlier than expected. We were planning on having it by the end of May, so it was a pleasant surprise. Now we're waiting for our passports. It's been 2 months since we applied for them. I finally got through to someone there yesterday and after explaining our situation, she was going to send a fax to their New Orleans office (that is where our passports are) saying we need them by May 18. She was so helpful.
Referrals continue to come in quickly. I'm hoping that is still the case when we get to that point. Our best estimate is that we will be going to Vietnam in September. But it could be earlier if things continue to go smoothly.
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