We mailed off our Dominican dossier to KidsFirst adoption last week! Whoo hoo! This is a huge step in moving things forward. Applying for an international adoption requires about 6 months of document collection and the dossier is the compilation of all those documents that will get sent to the country you are adopting from which for us is the Dominican Republic. Although, having done this once before, we knew what we were in for, we had hoped that we could use some of our documents from the first adoption, but this was generally not the case. Since both India and the Dominican Republic are Hague convention countries, meaning they following the international guidelines for adoption and are accredited for doing so, the dossiers for both are quite similar. Here is a list of all the required documents that we had to submit.
The biggest piece that takes about 4 months is the home study. For this we had to do 10 hours of online adoption education training, get child abuse clearances in every state we had lived in since the age of 18, get background checks from local and state authorities, get 4 letters of reference, and provide documentation on our finances and family. Additionally, our social worker had to come visit and interview us 4 times and write up an approximately 20 page narrative about our family and home.
Once the home study is completed and approved, then you must submit it to the US government and complete an I-800 application to get approval to adopt. This takes about 6 weeks and includes having to get additional biometric tests done through the U.S. immigration office. While we were waiting, for this approval, each week I collected one or two things for the dossier. The three things that were different from the Indian dossier were that we had to get a psychological evaluation done be a clinical psychologist attesting to the fact that we were fit to be parents, community service letters from an organization in the community that we were involved in, and additional FBI background checks.
Finally, before everything can be sent off it must be notarized and apostilled. The notary checks that you or whoever is signing the various documents is who they say they are. The apostille is performed by the department of state in your state and basically checks all the notaries to make sure they are who they say they are and their notary status is valid.
Phew! I cannot say enough about how relieved I am to have completed all this and to get it sent off. Anjali was very excited to know that we were sending off a big package for her little brother. Like us, she can't wait to welcome him into our family.
The next step will be to get the dossier translated and then submitted to the Dominican authorities who handle adoption known as CONANI. From there we will be eligible for a referral for a child to adopt. Although, in my opinion this marks about only the halfway point in the adoption process, it is definitely a reason to pause and celebrate. One huge step closer to bringing our child home!
The biggest piece that takes about 4 months is the home study. For this we had to do 10 hours of online adoption education training, get child abuse clearances in every state we had lived in since the age of 18, get background checks from local and state authorities, get 4 letters of reference, and provide documentation on our finances and family. Additionally, our social worker had to come visit and interview us 4 times and write up an approximately 20 page narrative about our family and home.
Once the home study is completed and approved, then you must submit it to the US government and complete an I-800 application to get approval to adopt. This takes about 6 weeks and includes having to get additional biometric tests done through the U.S. immigration office. While we were waiting, for this approval, each week I collected one or two things for the dossier. The three things that were different from the Indian dossier were that we had to get a psychological evaluation done be a clinical psychologist attesting to the fact that we were fit to be parents, community service letters from an organization in the community that we were involved in, and additional FBI background checks.
Finally, before everything can be sent off it must be notarized and apostilled. The notary checks that you or whoever is signing the various documents is who they say they are. The apostille is performed by the department of state in your state and basically checks all the notaries to make sure they are who they say they are and their notary status is valid.
Phew! I cannot say enough about how relieved I am to have completed all this and to get it sent off. Anjali was very excited to know that we were sending off a big package for her little brother. Like us, she can't wait to welcome him into our family.
The next step will be to get the dossier translated and then submitted to the Dominican authorities who handle adoption known as CONANI. From there we will be eligible for a referral for a child to adopt. Although, in my opinion this marks about only the halfway point in the adoption process, it is definitely a reason to pause and celebrate. One huge step closer to bringing our child home!
