Our Dossier

 

After months of paperchasing to obtain all the required documents, and with the assistance and contributions of a few of you....our dossier is complete!!! 

Last week Tim and I went on the final road trips necessary to complete our dossiers.  On Tuesday we made the quick 3 hour round trip to Harrisburg to have our I-800 A forms certified by the Secretary of State.  Literally, we waited just 4 minutes and got right back in the car to head home...we were home by 10:15am.  Then, on Thursday we made the BIG trip to Washington, D.C.  We left home at 3:30am and arrived at the U.S. Department of State at 6:50am...and even then we were 6th in line.  They opened the office at 7:30am and we were out of there with our documents authenticated by 7:44am.  So, off to the Chinese Embassy we went.  After a quick stop at Kinkos (the Chinese Embassy requires you to submit a photocopy of every page of each document you present for authentication...sorry trees!) we arrived at the Embassy by 8:15 and were 2nd in line.  The lobby opened at 8:30 and we took a seat and waited until the counters opened at 9:30.  This time we were having our documents authenticated with same day service, and since we each had only 1-2 documents to be authenticated we were hoping to be able to pick up our documents earlier than the scheduled pick up time of 2:30pm.  But no such luck, our pick up slips were stamped with a pick up time of 2:30-3:30pm.  Bummer!  So we headed off to see some DC sites...the White House, the monuments and the Smithsonian museums.  We returned to pick up our documents with their fresh seals from the Embassy at 2:15pm and we were back on the road home!  A long but very successful day!

Presenting....Our dossier:

16 documents

68 total pages

1.   Family photographs
2.   Adoption application letter
3.   Copy of passports
4.   Sean's birth certificate
5.   Shannon's birth certificate
6.   Marriage certificate
7.   Sean's employment letter
8.   Shannon's employment letter
9.   Financial statement
10. Sean's medical form
11. Shannon's medical form
12. Sean's criminal clearance
13. Shannon's criminal clearance
14. USCIS I-800 A approval  
15. Home study report
16. 3 reference letters

Each document has been:
~Notarized
~Certified by the PA Secretary of State
~Authenticated by the U.S. Department of State
~Authenticated by the Chinese Embassy

This is a HUGE step, so much time and effort went into compiling our dossier. 

Next step:
Our agency will review the dossier for completeness and accuracy, then send it to China (hopefully by the end of this week).  That date is when we will officially be known as DTC (dossier to China)...and a whole new world of acronyms will begin!