The Dossier has been sent!

Today, after completeing the enormous amount of paperwork, we have mailed in our dossier! It is very hard to say goodbye to something that we have put so much time and effort into getting completed. To hand this over to someone other than ourselves, it is very nerve-racking! there are so many documents, pictures, and copies that it is hard to part with.

It is time to say goodbye to the Dossier!

It will arrive at Commonwealth Adoptions in Tatiana's hands Monday afternoon! Tatiana will check all the documents to make sure everything is correct and then it will be sent to translation. This can take anywhere from 10 to 12 days. It is then sent to the Kazakhstan Embassy in Washington D.C. which can take 2 to 6 weeks. then this large packet will be sent to a Commwealth associate in Astana, Kazakhstan who will take the dossier to the Ministry of Foriegn Affiars of Kazakhstan to get the documents' apostiles legalized. After legalization it is registered into the database at the Ministry of Education and we wait for our LOI!

Our case worker Tatiana, Bless her heart, have given us a time frame of four months! Four months! Wow, that will come quick! We still have to get things ready here at home, pack, and save more money!

One Sheet of paperwork left!

So as of today we only need one more sheet of paperwork. And who would have guessed it but it is the most important one! All we are now waiting on is our revised I-171H (Petition to adopt an Orphan) from the US Immigration Office.

Once we have this we can get all the documents taken care of! And then we are in the official waiting period.

Tomorrow we are supposed to be getting the furniture for the babys room! We will post pictures as soon as the room has some more to it! We have purchased the bedding set and are currently awaiting its delivery. We also have some decorations that we have collected throughout the past few months. So all in all we are very excited to get the room together! Oh, and many thanks to Bethany for helping me paint the room! It is so bright and cheery!

The Hold Up

So we are working on getting our Dossier paperwork together. I have been asked by a few to explain what exactly a Dossier is. Well, this is all the paperwork that has everything about us in it. There are a few documents that tend to take a while. We need approval from USCIS (united States Immigration) to adopt a child, but wait! We had done that and recieved approval but hten we changed coutries so we needed to file an addendum, which is what we are now waiting for. We need FBI fingerprints to make sure that neither of us has a criminal record. Those should be on their way soon as I had called an checked on the progress on Thursday and was told that they were underway. Then we only need about 30 more documents. At least two copies of each.

The documents that are needed are the following: medical form (one for each of us), bank letter, mortgage letter, agencies and social workers letters and licenses, Homestudy, certified marriage license, certified divorce decree, employment letter, passport copies, letter of Intent, Letter of Commitment, Monitoring Commitment Letter, Post Adoption reports Commitment Letter, Consulate Registration Commitment Letter, Financial Statement, and Power of Attorney.

Once we have these forms filled out, we then need to have them notarized. However, as we found out with the Russian paperwork, there are stipulations around these notaries! The notaries has to live and work in the county they are notarized in and their commission cannot expire for at least one year. Yeah, so that is not easy to find! We have found two people that are eligible for this. I can only hope that our schedules will connect!

After notarization...
We then have to travel to the capital of Michigan to get one copy of each apostilled. This is where you recieve the gold seal of approval that the notary is who they say they are and that they are licensed. Ugh...
However, once again we have something beyond the norm. Since Tony's previous marriage was in Ohio, he had to go to Toledo to get the Certified Divorce Decree. He then, as of this morning, had to send it to Colombus to be apostilled. Thank goodness that he could mail it!

Once all the documents are apostilled, we have to make several copies. So in total we are looking at probably over 200 documents! The documents are then sent to our agency to be translated, then they will send it to Kazakhstan to be viewed by three different government agencies (I belive). After we get final approval, we will get an LOI (Letter of Invitation) to travel. We then get our visas and tickets. Then we travel.

Wow, so thats is where we are right now. We are trying to get this done, which is turning out to take longer than desired! If it was up to us we would have had this done, but since we are relying on others, we are on their schedule.

So please, put us in your prayers. Thanks!

The journey so far!

We welcome you to our web page that we have designed in order to keep our family and friends aware of our status in our adoption process! This web page will be designed to keep up to date information as we proceed through the long steps! We will also include any fundraising that we will be hosting including the dates, places, and times! We encourage you to share this website with others who may be interested!

Let us begin by telling our story:We met 5 and a half years ago while working for Best Buy together. We began dating in June of 2001 and we were married June 18th of 2004. Tony continues to work for Best Buy as a Human Resources Manager and Maegan works as a nanny for triplets. Maegan has an Associates Degree in Early Childhood Development and is currently working on achieving her Bachelor's. We both have great relationships with the children in our lives, whether they be nieces, nephews, children we watch, or our friends' children.

For the past two years we have been trying to conceive our own children but have been unsuccessful. Maegan has tried medication but it was ineffective. So in November of 2006 we decided that we would adopt from Russia. We went to Child and Parent Services and talked with Cathy who was very helpful and we started the process. In December of 2006 we completed our homestudy and are now awaiting reaccreditation for our international agency Commonwealth International Adoptions. We have been very blessed with family and friends who support our decision and who are just as eager as we are. We are planning to adopt a little girl between the ages of 6 months and 18 months! We are looking forward to the day when our home is noisy!


What has been done so far?

• Nov 2006: Decided to adopt with the help of Child and Parent Services
• Dec 2006: Chosen to adopt from Russia via Commonwealth International Adoption with Tatiana Timokhina-George. Also, Homestudy completed!
• Jan 2007: Commonwealth Online Adoption Courses completed. Passports recieved!
• Feb 2007: Preliminary Dossier paperwork sent in to Commonwealth. Paperwork resubmitted due to notarization problems.
• March 13 2007: USCIS fingerprinting
• March 28 2007: Decided to change countries to Kazakhstan.
• March 30 2007: Begin Dossier paperwork for Kaz.

We will continue to update this blog as things progress. We have been told that once we have turned in all the paperwork we will then wait of a Letter Of Invitation. Once we recieve this, I am not quite sure! It is a learning process. We are well aware however about the travel. It is an extensive trip to Kazakhstan. We will be living there for two months and when we return home we will have our daughter!

Please email us with any questions. Feel free to leave comments any time on this blog. We thank you for your support!