Once we felt called to adoption, we got excited! We sent off our application to the Russia program at our agency, on August 1, 2006. In the thrill of the moment, I put together a collage of our first documents before it was sent off. Included in the initial paperwork was the application fee, several photos of us and our house, written information about our finances, health, goals, marriage etc. It took us about two weeks to get it filled out. On August 15th, 2006 we received our acceptance from our agency and from that moment on, we worked diligently setting up appointments with a social worker for our home study, doctor's appointments, getting a notary, and securing our official records from the Minnesota and Iowa State Vital Statistics. We also had to have clearance from the State patrol that we had no criminal records. Once the home study was complete it took about a month for the social worker to write her report and review it with us.
Finally, after the home study we were able to apply to Immigration services for an advance petition to adopt an orphan from abroad. In some states this part of the process can take six months. For us here in Iowa it was a total of 2 weeks. Getting fingerprinted was pretty weird- nothing like you would imagine- it's very hi-tec! Once we had clearance that we were approved by the government to adopt abroad, we worked another month and a half finishing up our paperwork- also known as a dossier.
At that point our Dossier had 43 separate documents, each with its own notary page, and another page attatched called an apostille from the State of Iowa authenticating our Notary's signature. Finally our Dossier was sent to our agency on Valentines Day 2007. We celebrated the gift of love that day by eating heart shaped pancakes- its our tradition!
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