China Adoption Revisited

3crazydogs · 07-04-2005, 04:43 PM

Hello everyone, I really enjoyed the other China Adoption thread, so informative. Thanks for keeping it on the board! We are finally starting our adoption process, and will be sending in our application next week and applying for our passports, and I am already stressing myself out over all the paperwork. I know that pretty much everything has to be notarized, does that mean you have to get a notary to go to all your appointments with you??? Also, when you file the I-600A do you file that in person and do they fingerprint you right then? I could probably come up with a million questions right now, my head is spinning.
I know once the agency accepts us they will send us an adoption manual, but can anyone give me a bit of an overview on the documents I will need for the dossier?
Is anyone here using Great Wall China Adoption? That is the agency that we have chosen to go with.
I just want to get the paperchase over with, I'm sure most of you can relate to that!

Lisa67 · 07-05-2005, 01:38 AM

Hi Jessica,

Congrats on your decision to adopt....and for choosing China. It's a wonderful program full of such beautiful children. The people you will meet along the way, both in the states and in China, are just wonderful. It's such a great experience!

The paperwork does seem quite overwhelming at first but if you are organized you'll do just fine. It goes much smoother than you probably think it will.

You don't need a notary to go to appointments with you. Whatever you need notarized you can sign in front of the notary and they will do their siggy and stamping.

When you file the I-600A is different in each state. For me, I sent it to the BCICS (that's in Boston) and waited for a letter back saying when we could get fingerprinted.

From what I know about the 2nd option: You can hand carry the paperwork into the office using the "InfoPass". There's sometimes the chance to be fingerprinted the same day but I don't know the chances of that happening. Our agency says if the BCICS is not busy they might be able to take you but it's all by chance depending on volume. So your best bet is to check with your state agency--GWCA or your SW might be able to help you with that. You can also check here: http://uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm and look at the "InfoPass" section. We did it the first way because it's what we did for our first adoption and what we knew how to do so for us it was easier, you know? But you may want to try the InfoPass way instead.

We didn't use GWCA but I do know a few families who have and they were very happy as far as I know.

Basically your dossier will consist of...

Application letter to China Center of Adoption Affairs (original)
Birth certificates (copy)
Marriage certificate (copy)
Divorce/Death decree (if applicable, copy)
Single Woman Statement (if applicable, original)
Criminal Record Checks (original, within 6 months)
Physical Examination forms (original, within 6 months)
Verification of employment (original, within 6 months)
Financial statement (original, within 6 months)
Home study (original)
USCIS Approval (Form I-171H or I797C, copy)
Colorful recent pictures of you, your family and your home!
Copy of the photo page of your passport.
Two passport photos for each applicant.

Some other things we need to provide that are held by the agency are:

Child Abuse/Neglect Registry clearance
Reference Letters (3)
Most recent tax returns - first two pages (3 years)
Autobiography

Hope that helps. As you have probably figured out by the other China Adoption thread, this subject is quite near & dear to my heart so if you have any other questions please feel free to ask!

Good luck!

PS--LOVE your name--that's my first DD's name too!

3crazydogs · 07-05-2005, 11:45 AM

Thank you so much for all that information! It seems much less complicated to me now. I am worried about the tax returns though. Ours were all destroyed when our washing machine flooded the storage area, so I don't have any of them. Maybe I would need to contact the IRS and see if I can get copies.

Thanks again!

3crazydogs · 07-05-2005, 12:27 PM

Another question: I'm just curious if your agency did a credit check?

~Traci~ · 07-05-2005, 04:42 PM

We're in the middle of the paperwork (just about everything in except for the HS stuff!). You can get copies of your taxes from the IRS or your accountant. I would ask your agency about the notary. I've heard some crazy stories about couples paying for a notary to go w/ them to their dr appts, etc. We didn't have to do that b/c our agency notorizes everything for us so we don't have to worry about getting anything notarized, authenticated, etc like some others have to do.

For the Dallas BCIS office you have to send in you application & all your paperwork (including homestudy report), then you get a letter in the mail w/ the appt date on it. I know that the Dallas office is running about 3 months behind

from what I've heard. Not sure if that's the appt part or the approval part but I've heard 3 months...

No credit check for us from either our HS agency or our adoption agency (we're using an agency in Boston so we need a seperate HS agency).

The paperwork process isn't so bad...we've had to do a few extra things b/c of my DH is a criminal

(j/k, he had a few speeding tix that turned in to warrants that got paid about 10 years ago so we've had to do a few extra things for that).

Good Luck!
Traci

3crazydogs · 07-12-2005, 04:56 PM

Traci,

Thanks for your help! There's nothing in the agency information that says they do a credit check, so I'm sure they don't. Hopefully! haha. I'm getting my application sent out tomorrow and applying for our passports this week, I'm so nervous!

Good luck to you too!

~Traci~ · 07-14-2005, 02:14 AM

Congrats Jessica!

As long as you make the $10,000 per year per member of the family (including your adopted child) there really shouldn't be an issue. I know that our references had to state whether they knew we were in financial trouble and stuff like that. Of course our neighbors don't know anything about our financials but our IL's had to write one too and just said that we don't have any problems with financials. We don't have the best credit but we don't have the worst credit (our scores are in the 600's out of a total of 800 which isn't completely horrible). We pay our bills every month, it's just the past bills from our early 20's that we're slowly paying off.

Let me know if you have any more questions and I'll try to help!

Good Luck!
Traci