"Paper Pregnant"...the chase of Documents.

8/27 Shelia, our wonderful inspiring neighbor was walking with "Kara" (her beautiful Chinese daughter) this morning, and at the very same moment James and I said to each other,... "We should adopt a daughter from China". We had talked before about adoption, and have some wonderful friends that have already adopted from China. But for some reason this day and at this moment "seeing Sheila and Kara" it all clicked in our hearts and head, that our family was to adopt. We came home talked it over with Jacob (who truly can not wait for his sister from China) and as a family, we said "Yes"! We would like to adopt a child, a daughter from China. We immediately found CCAI (our adoption Agency) that day.

9/12/07 official approval for adoption from CCAI
9/20/07 went to the information meeting @ the church regarding our agency and adoption
10/13/07 orientation @CCAI (our adoption agency)
10/18/07 1st home study visit at our home... one of several. (social services)
10/29/07 home study complete (Thank you, Jan)

The month of NOVEMBER, 2007...
We have been on some wild paper chases:
We needed to compile a packet of numerous legal documents for the adoption process and they each needed to be Notarized by a county notary,Certified by the Secretary of the State (from which the documents came from), and then Authenticated by the Regional Chinese Consulate office.

To start with, Our 3 personal family references from very loving and supportive friends were very timely. Thank you so much.

Next we searched courts for many legal documents: some I listed are... my l/n/c {legal name change}, our m/c {marriage certificate}, our b/c {birth certificates}, d/c {divorce decree}, the divorce decree we were not able to find in the correct state in which it happened... which of course was funny & a little scary when they sent the "State Letter" stating they had no legal record of the divorce (yikes) LOL, it was eventually found in another states vault... Kansas!!!, (duh). James b/c was from Calif., & it seemed to take forever to be notarized, (must be a busy LA office). We also had to create and sign many different petitions. Each of us including Jacob had doctors visits, for physicals (including shots). We had to show tax records and income statements... and they all had to be notarized by Brenda (Thank you). We have had many photo opportunities out with friends and family... this was a lot of fun actually. We had to capture our face and activities for China. Thank you, I am so glad you'all, are not camera shy. :)

On to the Secretary of State certification process:
We traveled to Denver and we went to the wrong building for the Secretary of State (too many official buildings), we must have walked 20 blocks instead of re parking, to get to the correct place... (it was great exercise)LOL & Jake was with us walking each step too. We did meet a very friendly,energetic, enthusiastic guy with beautiful "twins" from Russia (he was so excited to share his family pictures with us), while we all waited in the Official State Capital Office, for our documents and his... to be state certified.

Next we sent overnight, our bundle of document to the regional Chinese Consulates office... and OOps, I sent our marriage certificate to the wrong Chinese Consulate, (of course I freaked out when it came back unofficial). This was especially disturbing because we were still searching for the divorce decree... Turns out I sent the m/c to the wrong regional office. (It was a simple mistake, but scary none the less.)

Now FYI, when you send money to the Consulate you need a money order. LOL The post Office referred me to King Soopers to purchase a M.O. (money order). It was a Saturday afternoon and I was in line at the grocery store for the M.O., and the clerk said, "Oh, you need cash for this kind of stuff." OH NO!!, the bank was already closed and I needed a $125.00 for the documents to go the Consulate for Authentication. I had to mail the packet before 2pm to make the next-day-air cut off. I was too far away to return to work and cash a check. So, I went home & "complained" to James... and of course he had a solution... he said "Let me see how many Susan B. and Sacajawea dollar coins I have in my change jar?"... He had exactly $125 dollar coins!!! You should have seen the clerks face when I returned and he had to count them all. To this day the King Soopers clerk that had to count all those coins still "laughs and says Hi", every time I come into buy groceries.

Yeah, all document are now back. (happy dance!)

We have received our invite to be fingerprinted by the USCIS, ( United States Immigration & FBI homeland Security divisions). We took the wrong exit off I-25 for the Immigration appointment.( OOps, I must have been on map patrol that day) LOL . We eventually found our destination and it ended up being a nice drive for James and I together.
11/28 USCIS fingerprinting

12/07 We applied for the waiting child program (for a child with "SN" {special needs}) this step needs the Approval of both the Social Service Agency and our Adoption Agency. (Thanks Jan)

12/9 Today I noted "this blogger's" first timeline of events.

12/10 Now we are awaiting our approval and "Official Document" for our fingerprints we gave and our background check to be approved... this form is called I171-H.
This is a very important Document and it has to follow the same path as the other documents, Notarized, Certified, and Authenticated.
Once we get this paper... it finalizes our Paper chase... (Yippy)