The adoption process has been called a "Paperwork Pregnancy." In my case, it's going to be a pretty good parallel, since they expect my whole process to take 7-9 months. I'm hoping that means I'll have Sergey home sometime around late summer or early Fall.
The first trimester is the home study and its associated paperwork. My social worker just got back the last piece of paper she needed in order to proceed with the interviews, so this is about to kick into high gear. I'm almost through the first trimester. Here's an idea of what we had to get for that:
- Four legal copies of my birth certificate
- Four legal copies of my divorce decree
- A Xerox copy of my son Rick's birth certificate
- A Fire Department inspection of my home
- A Health Department inspection of my home
- Four notarized letters of recommendation from non-relatives
- A notarized legal guardianship form
- Four notarized confirmations of employment details
- A child abuse clearance form (both me and Rick)
- A financial statement
- A financial responsibility statement (different from financial statement)
- A sex offender clearance form (both me and Rick)
- Fingerprinting by the police and reporting of any past crimes (both me and Rick)
- A copy of my official driving record from MVA
It's getting the reports of inspections or clearances back that seems to take up the bulk of the time. Getting the other necessary documents goes pretty quickly; mostly ordered and paid for on-line, and then they show up in your mailbox in a few days.
One thing that has struck me during this process is how absolutely blessed I am in my choice of friends. I asked four people to write letters on my behalf. The social worker gave me specific guidelines with questions that had to be addressed in these letters. What is remarkable to me is that all four people said yes, and the letters were simply incredible. Either my friends love me enough to tell really big whoppers so I can adopt this child, or they all truly hold me in a level of esteem that I had never guessed would show. Every single one of them wrote a beautiful letter. I had no idea I was so wonderful to them! :) One of the questions they had to address was about what they saw as my weaknesses, and a couple of them actually said that because I get involved in so many things, they think I have trouble saying NO.
I wonder why they'd say that?
Anyway, once the home study is finished and sent to WACAP, that'll be the end of the first trimester. Almost there!
Then will start the second trimester. That one will deal primarily with pulling together more documents and refining the authentication of the ones I have for a dossier that gets sent to Russia. The Russian authorities have to check over everything in the dossier and decide whether I am fit to be a parent to one of their finest, and if/when they give their approval, I'll be given very short notice to travel over to the orphange for a short trip. During this trip, I need to convince Sergey that he wants to be adopted, since children over 10 must consent to the adoption in court. I'll be going with pictures of our home, his room, our pets, the cars, ourselves, my parents and their house, our church, the Maryland School for the Deaf where he will be attending school, and anything else I can think of that would help to get him interested in coming to America. (The Deaf School actually let me borrow a videotape that I can take to show him. I'm hoping he will be enthralled by the art rooms, the indoor swimming pool, etc. I got a tour of the place the other day, and it was fabulous.) This trip only lasts about a week and marks the end of the second trimester.
The third trimester starts with a long wait, because I have to return here and wait for a court date. I'm told it's usually about 6-8 weeks, but sometimes faster, sometimes slower, depending on the region and how many adoptions are going on and how clogged the courts are. Once I get the court date, I go over again for that. We'll show up in court, he'll (hopefully!) consent to the adoption, the judge will be super-impressed that we were meant for each other, and then there is a 10-day waiting period where we can do pretty much nothing. This allows me to change my mind. Yeah, right! I understand that sometimes it can be waived if the judge feels there is a good reason, so I'm going to try to play the card of Sergey being a special needs child and needing to get evaluations done before being able to start school, etc. Once the 10 days is either over or is waived, we can start the serious business. We have to go to the various consulates for medical exams, visas, passports, etc. I have no clue yet just how much paperwork is involved with this one, but it must be pretty extensive, since the second trip usually lasts 2-1/2 to 3 weeks. Once all of that is complete, we get on a plane and come home.
At any rate, my first trimester is nearly through. A couple of interviews with the social worker, and then she'll write up the the report and send it off to WACAP, where the dossier portion will start.
Tonight's my first formal interview with her. She's coming to my (messy) house after work. I wanted it perfectly clean, obviously, but it's been a busy week (as usual) and that just didn't happen, so she will be seeing us as we really live. At least she'll know we aren't just "putting on the dog" for her!
Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment