It’s French for a Boatload of Documents

And so what is affectionately termed The Paper Chase began.

A complete dossier was the goal. It’s hard to fully tell the journey-within-the-journey; many of the details have been forgotten, some have been purposely purged from memory. It wasn’t bad, just harder than anticipated.

The first thing to tell you is how to pronounce the darn word; it seemed it wasn’t until we were done paperwork that we got it down pat. It is not “DAH-see-err.” Nor is it some troubled transliteration from Baltimore traipsing out, “Hey, hon’, it’s Doe-SEE-Doe, dat’s right.” Rather, it is “dos-ee-AY.”

An authenticated dossier would be the file our family would send to the China Center for Adoption Affairs. This complete package of documents would formally “start” the process with China; up and until that time, China would not know we existed.

AGCI said it would take between four and five months to complete this phase. If it was to take longer than six months, they would recommend halting the adoption process until a future time. Families need to be focused during this phase, irregardless of the myriad diversions in our lives. We took it as reasonable code that we must be serious.

There were no less than 35 individual documents needed in the generation of the dossier, not to mention various copies. Yes, that is correct. Now, don’t get me wrong, some were very straight forward to obtain; nonetheless, it was a lot to manage. My boss and friend Kevin would later joke, “It’s a good thing you have a PMP – it really helped!” The Project Management Professional is a certification I hold, and it just means I can be relentlessly pushy and half-way organized when I need to be (this can be verified by asking anyone on the other end of my emails, phone calls, and letters during this process.).

A gray portable file organizer would hold everything. The folders within were labeled, prepped to eventually receive the major and minor papers to come. From the moment the first document was placed in it Rose and I wished it was fire-proof, rather than hard plastic. We just felt so vulnerable, as though preparing to run the gauntlet. Everything could be replaced, yes, at the cost of time and emotion.

The core of the dossier is the home study. This is a report developed and finalized by a licensed social worker, containing tremendous detail on us as individuals and a family – our history, parenting abilities, adoption motivation, finances, health, even guardian plans. The key to the content would be an agency evaluation stating we were fit to adopt.

This agency would not be AGCI since they were not licensed in the State of Maryland to perform home studies. So we combed through a list of recommended agencies provided by them, and after a modest vetting process we contracted with Frank Adoption out of Frederick, MD.

Though Frank had its own process for us to follow, it wasn’t too far off from AGCI. The main problem we saw that of timing. They would not schedule a social worker to meet with us until all paperwork was into them, including our completed medical evaluations; which meant at least five to six weeks before home visits since our family doctor couldn’t get us on the calendar until the end of November.

Time was still used wisely, and efficiently. We went into hunter and gatherer mode for everything needed: birth certificates for us and the children; our marriage certificate; four letters of references; police reports; child abuse clearances; a statement of net worth; federal tax return; employment letters; fire inspection approval; health inspection; heck, even our motor vehicle administration records.

It is not so minor of a point to say that nearly all of these articles, plus others not listed, needed to go through a rigorous authentication process. It was not for the faint hearted, as nearly each document would have to be signed and notarized. And this was just for the home study – it got even crazier later on.

Fortunately for us we had wonderful notaries, and they made things a lot easier. There were four in all, yet Sam and Katie took the lion share of things, notarizing all but two documents between them. Both ladies were always so kind and generous with their time. It seems they understood their vital roll within the larger aim of adoption, and for that we are forever grateful.