On August 11, 2004, Jon and I drove to Grand Rapids to attend an informational
meeting with a represtentative with Great Wall China Adoptions. http://www.gwcadopt.org This meeting was to get acquainted with the Chinese adoption process,
find out the requirements and costs.
The rep, Chris, was very helpful. She explained everything that
we needed to do to get started with the adoption process and introduced us to a social worker, Char, that we ended up
using to do our homestudy.
After the meeting with Chris and Char, we began to collect the many,
many documents needed for the process. We needed birth certificates, medical reports, police clearances, fingerprint
clearances, financial information, letters of reference, employment verification letters and insurance verifications.
All of which needed to be notarized and state certified, in triplicate.
After we were approved by the adoption agency- Great Wall China Adoptions,
we had to meet with Char, the social worker, so that she could complete our homestudy. We needed to have all the documents ready
to give to her so that she could make her determination of approval for the US government.
We also filed an Application to Adopt, otherwise known as an I-600A,
with the United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. This process takes a few months, so we were
able to work with Char on the homestudy at the same time. Once our Homestudy was approved, it was notarized
and sent to the USBCIS so that they could finish up their paperwork and send out their Approval to Adopt, the infamous I-171.
We received our I-171 on March 22, 2005. Now we had to assemble
the documents into what is called a 'DOSSIER'. This dossier must be taken to the State
Capital and each document is stamped with the State of Michigan Great Seal.
The dossier is sent to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to be reviewed
and given the Chinese Authentication Seal. Since Jon did not trust these priceless documents out of his hands,
he boarded the AMTRAK train on the morning of Friday, April 1st to go to the Consulate in Chicago and returned
one week later on Friday, April 8th to pick them up.
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| Amtrak Station in Durand, MI |
Now it was time to send the Dossier to our agency, GWCA. So bright
and early Monday, April 11th Jon had to let go of the papers and send them off to Austin, Texas where they would be further
reviewed, bound into a formal dossier and sent to China! Our Dossier was sent on Friday, April 15th!
After being received and translated into chinese, our Dossier was officially logged into the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs,
aka the CCAA, on April 27, 2005.
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| C.C.A.A. Office |
Our Dossier will have the translation verified, it will be reviewed and
then it will be sent to the Matching Room where we will be matched with the child of our dreams!! The wait from LID
(log in date) to Referral has been running between 6 - 7 months. So we do not anticipate hearing any news until October
or November at the earliest.
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