In adoption circles the day you submit a completed dossier to your agency is one of the monumental hurdles of the adoption and a huge relief to the adoptive parents. Today was our day! Yeah. Off our dossier went to Lisa at Building Arizona Families to see if we have all of our “I’s” dotted and our “T’s” crossed. Now we wait. I’m going to include what goes into a dossier for those of you that might be considering adoption and are interested. One key point is every country is different and also agencies working within a country can be different in what they require. Our dossier contains three original, notarized copies of each of the following:
1) Letter to the Board of Toukoul. This introduces our family and addresses how we will raise our children. This letter is very important because it tells all about us, our family, our home, etc, but it also talks about what we are looking for in our adoptive child regarding sex and age.
2) Family Registration Form: 3 pages of questions regarding us, our home, religion, education, employment, house description, child’s room, play area and more.
3) Financial Information: One page, fill-in multiple blanks with what we own and owe so that our net worth can be determined.
4) Letter from Financial Establishment: One page letter from our bank stating our bank account balances, if our account is in good standing and whether or not the banker believes we are respectable, responsible and honest people.
5) Criminal Clearance: In order to get the criminal clearance letters from the Sheriff’s department we had to go to the safety center and be fingerprinted and a background check had to be done. Once those came back the Sheriff wrote separate letters for each of us stating that there are no warrants or criminal processes outstanding against us.
6) Letters of Reference: These are from our near, and dear friends, and family members.
7) Letter from Employer: This covers that we’re employed, the possibility of us continuing employment and our salaries.
8) Medical Form: That sounds simple enough but it isn’t. Not only did we have physicals, we also had blood work done to test for the regular things but also for syphilis, HIV Aids, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and Treponema pallidum haeagglutination assay (I don’t know what the last one is, and I’m glad I don’t have it). Then the doctor had to verify all of the results in order to make a written statement.
9) Marriage Certificate: Standard
10) Birth Certificate(s): Ethiopia differs from Guatemala in the fact that they require 3, original state certified birth certificates on everyone in the household, not just Eric and I. Well, Eric was born in Illinois–not too hard to get. I was born in England–harder to get. Luke was born here in Dubuque–piece of cake. Anna was born in Guatemala–easier than I thought since we made a wise decision in readopting her stateside after bringing her home from Guatemala and so she has a birth certificate that can be ordered from the secretary of state.
11) Introduction Letter: Similar to the Letter to the Board of Toukoul but this one goes to the Ethiopian Government. I felt a lot of pressure with these letters because I wanted to give as much information as possible that would help the government feel comfortable in allowing us to adopt a child from their country, but didn’t want to sound like I was tooting our horn too much.
12) Home Study Report: Sounds simple enough. Well, there’s a lot that goes into a home study. We met with our social worker a few times at her office and she made a visit here to the house to check out the house and meet Luke and Anna. She gathered an application, references, did another criminal background check along with child abuse checks, gave us a 500+ question personality inventory which was then sent to a psychologist for review and determination as to if we should adopt.
13) Home Study Agency License: Standard
14) Post Placement Agreement: Agreement entered into between us and our home study agency agreeing to complete post adoption visits and reports at three months, six months and a year. Then we will be responsible to submit reports annually until our child turns 18. This is something that Ethiopia requires and I think is pretty cool. They want to know how the children are doing after they leave Ethiopia. We have been told in strong words that we have to do this and the future of adoptions with Ethiopia depends on us letting them know how our child is doing. Our agency feels so strongly about this that we have to pay $1000 and it is then reimbursed back to us as we submit the required reports.
15) Deed to Home: Yep, they want to see if we actually own our home like we say we do.
16) Power of Attorney: This gives our placing agency (Dove International) power to carry out all legal efforts on our behalf in Ethiopia.
17) Passport Photos: 2 photos of Eric and I.
18) Family Photos: Three sets of five family photos
I love paperwork and don’t mind the paper chase, but I have to say I’m glad our part of it is almost done. It’s a necessary evil which we understand.