Dossier Completion, Take 2
Posted by KimNov 13
It was with great rejoicing that I sent our adoption dossier off to El Salvador at the end of July. After 10 months of paperchasing, home inspections, and fingerprinting at the state, national and then international levels, I was happy to have the whole thing in someone else’s hands for a while.
Check. Done.
Oh, but False.
Somehow, in the midst of looking over files in August or September, OPA (the agency currently reviewing our file) decided that an apostilled copy of a health report would be best accompanied by an apostilled photocopy of that doctor’s license.
Of course it would. So I got photocopies from our general practitioner’s and pediatrician’s offices. Had them notarized as authentic photocopies. Asked our notary again to get her stamp certified at her county courthouse (a paper stapled on top of the notarized document with it’s own raised stamp indicating that the notary’s seal is real). And I found myself in the van driving to Annapolis yesterday for the all-important culminating Apostille. The sticker that goes over the county stamp that goes over the notary’s seal that authenticates the document smothering under all that weight.
Twins in tow for all of this, as usual.
Only THIS time, I have a blog. So wanna see it? this sacred Apostille? Of course you do:
Tada! And I got two! Woo. Cost me $5 each. Plus the $32.23 to overnight them to our agency, so our director can take them along to E.S. when she goes this weekend. I’m hoping, now, to go the remaining 6 months until our homestudy expires without seeing (or needing to find public parking anywhere near) this building:
But I think I’ve learned my lesson. Expectations officially loosened. Our dossier is complete for now and again El Salvador’s “problem.” I would love it if it would stay down there for a while. Oh, and maybe get approved while it’s at it.
But that might be dreaming.
2 comments
Comment by Aimee on November 14, 2009 at 9:01 am
Oh my goodness! At least you were able to take care of it quickly!! I am not looking forward to the paperchase.
Why does El Salv’s paperchase take so long? I think we did GTs in 3 months but I have seen a lot of ES timelines with very long paperchases. We aren’t to that point so I haven’t seen the reqs.
Also – I would love to hear how long you are anticipating the entire process to take…I know there are no gaurantees in ES, just curiouse what you are thinking.
Sorry for all the questions…just excited to have found someone else doing it!!
Feel free to email me at aimeerwatson@gmail.com
Comment by Kim on November 14, 2009 at 11:05 am
Well “10 months” includes the homestudy process, and our homestudy agency (here in MD) required us to have all the homestudy docs in before our first visit. And E.S. wants “fresh” (within the last 6 months) birth certificates, etc), so we had to get those two times – once for the HS, then again for the dossier – when we had done them simultaneously for Guatemala, last time). E.S. has a psych testing/ IQ testing requirement for the dossier, too, so it took a couple months to find a psychologist who would do the tests without seeing us as ongoing clients, book the testing appointments, then book the follow up appointment to go over the results and pick up the reports she wrote.
Also, now that the Hague is in full effect, you have to file and I-800 (not a 600), and all I-800’s go to one repository and the homestudy report must be included with the app (not sent in later), so you have to wait till the complete end of the HS process to file with USCIS, and it takes longer (3 months in our case) to get your 797. Which is of course required for the dossier.
So basically, since we had to run everything one after another, rather than concurrently, it took 10 months.
And now that I’ve written all that, I think I have another post coming someday soon!