The Paperchase

Oh the infamous "paperchase"! I had heard about this but had no idea how truly frustrating and lengthy this process really is. Since January we have been working very hard and we are about halfway through the process. Every document we get must first be notarized, then certified by the Secretary of State from where the document originated, and then sent to the Chinese Consulate to be authenticated. We sent off for our birth certificates from Kansas and Arkansas and our marriagie certificate from the Virgin Islands. Finally, we recieved those and now they are in the mail somewhere - in the process of getting State Certified. Cross you fingers that we actually recieve our documents from the Virgin Islands - as you know they are on "Island Time"!
Our friends all tell us stories of their pregnency, show US pics and pics of their tummies as they grow. Not the Fentons ...... we get fingerprinted! Not once but 2 times we will get fingerprinted. We made the trip downtown to get fingerprinted and applied for passports the first week in January. Since that time we have been busy writing financial statements, application letters, and getting physicals ( including HIV and hepatitis tests!). We also made a trip back to another police station to get police clearance letters. We also had to have letters from our employers. All of these documents had to be notarized!
In order to adopt a child internationally we must get approval by the US Dept of Homeland Security Citizenship and Immigration Services. for this we filed a form I-600A. We sent this off along with paperwork and a fat check the first of Febuary. Once we recieve our completed home study we will send it to them. From then we will wait to be given a fingerprint appt. The approval from the INS can take anywhere from 30days to 5 months!!!!!! However our social worker says it is more like 30 days - we pray for the 30 days!!!
In the meantime we have been working on our homestudy. This has been very frustrating for us, as our social worker has already dropped the ball!!!!! We met with her at our house for our first visit. She had to inspect our home for her report. As you can imagine I spent ALL day cleaning our house - I wanted to make sure it passed the white glove test! Of course she could have cared less! The 3 hour meeting went fine and we made appts to each have our one on one meeting with her. Jason took the day off clinicals and drove downtown to her office only to have her not show up! On top of that she didn't mail out our reference letters to our references! So I spent last week crying, I want all of this to get going...... everything depends on our homestudy! Alas, we had our appts last Friday and she has sent out our refernces. With a little luck we will have our homestudy in our hands by the end of next week!

So this is where we are now.... waiting! Once we recieve our homestudy we will send it to the INS and wait for fingerprint appts. Then we will have all of our AZ documents state certified, then authenticated. And then.............. they will be off to China!!!!!

We continue to pray for patience! We think of our baby girl everyday! We figure she has already been conceived. Right now on the other side of the world a young women is struggling with a very hard decision. I pray everyday she makes the right decision. We pray that she will find comfort in knowing that she can give her baby a better life!

Thank you following our journey with us!
Heidi and Jason