May 2004 - Entry 2

"Paperchasing" is what this is called. How little did we know how appropriate that word was. As redundant as any other government paperwork is (taxes, etc.), this is far worse. We must have read over the list of paperwork we needed to gather a dozen times, each time scratching our heads further. Huh???? We needed to gather two sets of paperwork. One for immigration, proving to our government that we were good people and not criminals. One for the Chinese government...this one is called our "Dossier" and will introduce us to the Peoples Republic of China and prove to them that we "deserve" one of their orphans. I am sure that is not the politically correct way to describe it, but that sure is how it feels. This paperwork for China
must have all "official" copies, documented by a notary, certified by the secretary of state that the notary is genuine and "authenticated" by the Chinese Embassy or Consulate in the US. In other words, we need a notary to put their John Hancock on the paperwork saying "Yup...this is their paperwork". Then the sec. of state has to put their seal on it and say "Yup, that's the notary's seal". Then the Chinese Embassy (or consulate...depending on where it is) has to look over everything, put their seal on it and say "Yup, thats the notary's seal and the sec. of state's
seal". I'll tell you something, this is by far the DUMBEST system I have ever seen. Sorry. Just had to get that one out.By the end of May, we had gathered everything we needed except for my birth certificate. I was born in a DC State (surrounding Washington DC) so I had to go through a separate step.

After I received my birth certificate (henceforth referred to as BC) from Vital Statistics in Maryland, I had to send it back our to Maryland to have the sec. of state certify it. Then it had to be sent BACK east to Washington DC to the US Dept of State Authentication Office. Holy cow. You would think in this age of technology SOMEONE would have figured out a better way to this system. (Sigh) Once everything is gathered, we have to wait to have them authenticated (because authentication has expiration dates).

The HOME STUDY comes next. We met with our social worker, Myra. She is sweet. She
asked a whole lot of questions. It was very intimidating. We were paranoid, of course and the house was SPOTLESS! She talked to the children, asked them what they liked and what they thought of the adoption. Jake and Canaan responded with acceptable answers (in our books). Adam of course decided to put on the fourteen-year-old hat and say something stupid. Myra asked Adam if he liked school, he said yes. She asked him what he liked best about school and Adam opened his mouth and put his foot in. He said "It gets me out of the house and away from the family". We were MORTIFIED. My heart sunk to the pit of my stomach. This social worker was going to think we were horrible parents because our oldest son hates to be home!!!!!! Oh my god. I couldn't breathe. Rob lost all expression on his face. After Adam left the room, Myra informed us that she too had a fourteen-year-old and she understood.
WHEW!!!!!!

Oh, one other thing we got this month...we received our "invitation to be fingerprinted" from immigration. I pulled it out of the mail the night Adam had his graduation from middle school. I showed everyone at the graduation!!!! They thought I was psycho. Probably still do.