Paperwork (mostly) complete!

We're nearing the end of the paperchase!  We've gathered all the documents we can at this point for our dossier, and have also gathered all the homestudy documents to complete our file before we can start our homestudy interviews!  The 2 remaining pieces of the dossier are the homestudy report, and the I800A form for immigration, both of which need to wait till the homestudy is completed.

Some background on the paperwork:
- The homestudy agency is the local organization that approves us to adopt.  Their paperwork includes extensive personal histories; questionnaires about our home, finances, marriage, parenting...; medical forms filled out by our doctors (both for us and our current child); copies of tax returns, pay stubs, birth certificates, marriage certificate...; and a bunch of forms to initial and/or sign.  We also needed to get fingerprinted and the agency is getting police clearances from every state we've lived in since age 18 (it's a good thing neither of us has moved a lot since then!).  Once they have all the clearances, our social worker with do several interviews with us.  We also need to get 14 hours each of documented training.  We have 6 so far, are waiting to hear if a training we're going to in March will count, and then will likely complete the rest through online courses.

- The placing agency is the organization that actually places the child with us: they're the ones helping us put together our dossier, which is the file that will get submitted to the Chinese government agency that places children for adoption.  The paperwork needed for our dossier included medical forms and letters from our doctors (yes, we needed separate forms filled out for the homestudy and the dossier!), a summary of our income and savings, letters from our employers, new birth and marriage certificates, police clearance reports, and a letter to the Chinese government explaining who we are and why we want to adopt a Chinese child (adoption petition).  We also needed to renew our passports as they were both expiring and we need copies for the dossier.

Now that we've gathered all the documents, the next steps are:
- Wait for our homestudy social worker to gather the clearances and start scheduling the interviews.

- Start the "sealing" process for the dossier documents.  This is a 3-step process to verify the documents.  It involves:
1- Notarization: needed to have a notary verify our signatures on the documents we were signing (like the adoption petition) and verify the other documents were exact copies of the original (like the employment letters).  Thankfully there is a notary at my office so this was a relatively easy step and all our documents are now notarized!
2- Certification: we need to get all the documents to the secretary of state's office to certify the notary's seal.
3- Authentication: we then need to take all the documents to the Chinese consulate in Chicago to have them authenticate the secretary of state's certification.
Then we can send all the documents to our placing agency to have them translated and prepared for submission.

The whole process seems a bit overwhelming, but each step is manageable, so we're breaking it into pieces and just taking it 1 step at a time! 

At least we live in Illinois so there are just 3 steps: some states need the documents verified by the country clerk before the secretary of state will certify them.  And for the states dependent on the Chinese Embassy in DC, everything needs to be sent to the State Department after the secretary of state, before the Chinese Embassy will touch them!
Each document needs to follow the process for the state in which it originated.  Most are from Illinois, but since Gabriel was born in Washington State, he had to send his birth certificate back there for certification (yes, a "certified birth certificate" still needs to be certified by the secretary of state!).  Since I was born overseas, my birth certificate was issued by the State Department, so that saves a step!  Since it was issued by the federal government, it doesn't need to be certified by any state and can go straight to the Chinese embassy in DC - yeah! (although I did have to send them a notarized letter and $50 to request it so the 1st step was more involved)