Dossier

We are currently working on getting together our dossier.  This is a collection of documents that we need to send to Colombia to get their approval and enter the waiting list.  

So far, this is what we need to collect:

Home Study - Received, needs Apostille

FBI Clearance for each adoptive parent. - Sent today to FBI!!  Yes!! It may take a couple of weeks to have it back.

Birth certificate of each adoptive parent (long form) - Getting Nancy's Apostille in LA; Talley's gets Apostille in Austin.

Marriage certificate (long form) - Needs to get Apostille.

Employment letter for each adoptive parent (if applicable). Waiting for HR to give them to us to have them notarized and Apostille.

Physician letter for each adoptive parent - Should arrive on the mail next week, then needs to gets Apostille.

Psychological assessment of the couple or single adoptive parent - Waiting for psychologist to finish the report, notarized and Apostille. .

Name affidavit - explaining that I'm the same person with maiden and married last name. Needs notary and Apostille.

We are waiting to have all the documents together and notarized to go to the Secretary of State and authenticate the notary signature (that is Apostille). So right now, there is nothing else that we can do about the dossier, we are waiting in everybody else to get back to us.

In another hand, I (Nancy) found that we are able to get our fingerprints done for FREE in our office!!!  And the Administrative Assistance will notarized all our documents there too...FREE!  That saves us trips to the bank and money!!!!

Wow... today is a good day :-)

I800A

I800a form is on its way to Chicago!!!
Talley reviewed the form yesterday, we re-read our home study to make sure we were really approve to have a child. All the documents were attached.

After considering several times how to send the document out, I though about doing it via USPS. They have never lost one of my packages, and they are usually on time with delivery. So right when I was turning to the street where the postal office is it at, I though that I don't want to take the risk with this important document, so I went to the UPS distribution center (very close to the postal office). There this beautiful lady took my package and told me that it will be there on Monday!. I felt so good sending this out that I went to Starbucks to get a White Chocolate Mocha to celebrate. When I arrive home I realized that I didn't put the money order on the envelope to USCIS!! OMG! I was freaking out. Without the money order, they will not do ANYTHING and things may get delayed just for that. So I called their customer service to ask them not to ship the package, and the lady told me to go back to the office that should not be any problem. I got there, explained to the lady what happened, and she without any problem got my package back, opened, got a new envelope, printed a new sticker, put the documents inside with the money order. No problems no delays!!!

I'm sure that if I tried to do the same with USPS it would be impossible because I usually use their kiosk and nobody should be able to help me. God is in our side in this journey, and he made me change my mind about the courier right in time!

I LOVE UPS! I will be there very often with adoption documents!

What is next?

Ok, great, we got approved!!! That is a HUGE milestone, but it is one of many steps in our path.

What are we doing now?
We are completing all the documents needed to send to Colombia. The psychologist report should be ready this week. Employment letters need to be re-written, doctor report needs to be redone And there are still more papers to get. But it will not take us too long. This collection of documents is called dossier.

Also, we are filling our I800A form, that is basically asking permission to the goverment of US to bring an orphan to the country. It usually takes 90 days to get the approval. Luckily, this document doesn't hold the process at all.

We are approved!

From Our little Spiller

We voted

I just realized that I was very excited this morning when I posted here, that I totally forgot about the election!

For our child who will eventually read this blog: I want to let you know that your parents participated in this historic elections. We went last week to vote. Your dad and I went to the Goodwill close to our house and casted our vote for Obama. You should be very proud of us, because we were thinking about the future that we want you to have in this country. I hope we made the right decision ;-)

I am not a criminal!

I am not a criminal! At least not in Venezuela (or Texas). And I have a document in my hands that says so. Well, I don’t have the original any more because it was delivered this morning to our home study agency. But I have pretty copies that remind me that I have clearance in my own country!
I was glowing this morning when I delivered the background check to the agency, a HUGE smile was in my face, ear to ear. I’m still glowing, and it will last for a long time :-)

Disclaimer: Talley and I have FBI clearance in most of the states of US thanks to our line of work. We get a background check at work very often!!!