Anytime I ship adoption paperwork I think of the Tom Hanks movie, Cast Away. In one of the first sequences of the movie he is in a processing plant in Moscow urging the employees to meet their deadlines. One line that stands out to me is when he grabs a package and tells the guy next to him, "This could be adoption paperwork!"
What exactly is the big deal with a dossier? Why is it such precious cargo? Most dossiers involve documents from numerous agencies including the federal government, state government and local governments. It also includes documents from physicians and social workers. All of these documents are signed, notarized and state apostilled (or certified.) And then most of them must go through authentication at an embassy. The time involved in producing a dossier is incredible and the cost is also incredible. Between the home study cost, the immigration clearances, the notary fees, apostille fees and embassy authentication fees, medical examination costs, and other fees, it can easily cost thousands of dollars to produce a dossier.
Our dossier contains:
- Application to adopt
- Father questionnaire
- Mother questionnaire
- Marriage certificate (2)
- Father's Medical clearance (2)
- Mother's Medical clearance (2)
- Copy of Father's passport (2)
- Copy of Mother's passport (2)
- Parent Registration commitment (2)
- Parent Monitoring commitment (2)
- Parent commitment for Education and Medical care (2)
- Homestudy (2)
- Pictures of our home with statement of authenticity (2)
- Home study agency license (2)
- Letter of obligation from our home study agency (2)
- Power of attorney for our representative in country (2)
- Adoption agency obligation letter (2)
- Adoption agency recommendation letter (2)
- Letter from Father's employer (2)
- Letter from Mother's employer (2)
- Statement from Real Estate agent verifying our housing (2)
- FBI criminal clearance for Father (2)
- FBI criminal clearance for Mother (2)
- USCIS clearance letter (2)
- Statement of our finances (2)
That is 43 documents that all have to be notarized, apostilled and embassy authenticated. Many notaries charge $6-10 per document, state's often charge upwards of $25 per document for apostilles and embassy authentication can run as much as $100 per document.
We are blessed that our notary does not charge us for her services, the Secretary of State of the great state of Texas has a $100 out of pocket max on adoption apostilles/certifications, and since our documents are apostilled, they do not have to go through the embassy for authentication. Incredibly blessed.
But the work of producing another dossier, to coordinate all of the different pieces and to get people to re-do a document for you (doctors, real estate agents, social workers, Federal Bureau of Investigation, USCIS) can be a pain and can involve extra money....
And the extra time it takes to reassemble a dossier is heartbreaking to any parent who just wants to get their child home.
I just hope there were no dossiers on Tom Hanks' plane, and I am so thankful that our dossier made it over the ocean safe and sound!
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