Orientation is tomorrow

We are going to orientation tomorrow. Mom and Dad are coming over to watch Emily.
Things seem to be falling into place. We have secured finances for the adoption -- yeah!!!!!

The paperchasing begins. So what exactly is a paperchase? The short answer is it's the gathering of all the documents China requires to be sent to them in order to adopt. This collection of documents is called your dossier and it's what you spend all your time doing for about the first four months in the process. You need birth certificates, your marriage license, paperwork from your doctor, police clearance letters, a completed homestudy, employment verification, financial statements, a letter to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs and form 171H from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is now part of the Deparment of Homeland Security. You need to be fingerprinted! - during this process and once you have a document you then need to have it notarized, then authenticated by the Secretary of State in the state it originated in and finally certified by the Chinese Consulate that represents that state.

Bill says I'm so organized that he has no doubt that I can handle doing this. We do luck out that my law firm has notaries on staff. So I won't have to pay for notary service!

Jen