A few more steps done!
My husband's birth certificate has been authenticated by the State of Maine, and many more of our documents have been authenticated by the State of California. We were almost ready to go for our Washington DC authentications until we realized that our USCIS approval ALSO needed to be authenticated. So, why do it twice? So we'll wait on those documents to be authenticated until then.
The Maine birth certificate is in the mail to the New York China Embassy. It should take a month to get that authenticated there, so the website says. In the next few days, I'll get the application mailed out to CA so my mom can send the CA authenticated documents to the CA China Consulate.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
One major step: DONE!
We have officially received all of our required paperwork for our homestudy and dossier. I had no idea it would take this long but finally, the day arrived. We visited California last month, and that made it much easier. My husband's CA police clearance apparently was lost in the mail, so while we were there we went to a fingerprinting place and they fingerprinted him and electronically submitted his police clearance request. How easy! So much easier and cheaper than the ordeal we had to go through here. We also mailed our CA child abuse clearances while we were there (supposedly they were submitted twice by our former HS guy, I don't believe he submitted it the first time, and the second he didn't bother to check to see that a check was required.) So, all in all we have acquired:
For me:
* birth certificate from CA
* police clearance from CA, DC, VA and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and VA
* FBI clearance
For my husband:
* birth certificate from ME
* police clearance from CA, DC, FL and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and FL
* FBI Clearance
For us:
* 3 recommendation letters
* marriage certificate
And, we have completed AND notarized the following forms:
* medical clearances
* financial statement
* employment letters (for both of us, from my husbands company and one I wrote saying "I choose to stay home and raise my children")
* personal statement to China
Whew! Now all (sarcasm here) we have to do is get all our dossier documents authenticated at the Secretary of State (for us, one packet to Maine, one packet to CA and one packet to DC) THEN get those authenticated documents sent to the Chinese Consulates in NY, CA or DC (depending on their authentication location). Whew! We left NH last weekend and here's how that is going to happen:
* the ME packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to ME Sec of State. Then when they receive the results, they will forward the second packet to the NY Chinese Consulate.
* The CA packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to the CA Sec of State. The results of that will go to my parents in CA. From there, they will send the results to the Chinese Consulate in CA. Slight problem. All the documents are from Southern California, but the Sec. of State is in Northern California. There are 2 Chinese Consulates, one in So Cal one in No Cal. We have to use the "correct" one. Not sure which one to use since the docs are from So Cal but the authentications are from No Cal.
* The DC packet is going to be hand carried by my sis in law to the State Department in DC (she works near it). First, though she must wait for us to receive in the mail my husband's CA police clearance that we will get notarized here overseas. She will then wait for the results and, if we are lucky, will hand carry it to the Chinese Embassy in DC and wait for those results.
* Oh, then there's the I800A form. That's still in NH awaiting a copy of our homestudy to be attached to that. BUT, one piece of good news is that we had extra fingerprint forms done here and since we couldn't understand the directions on the form for overseas fingerprinting (there are no biometrics fingerprinting places here) I just left them with the form. I just contacted NBC Hague about what to do and they said to just include our fingerprint cards with the form. Yea! For once something worked easier and cheaper than if we were in the US. So once our HS woman releases our HS we're ready to submit this form!
Still about a million steps to go, but since our paperwork starts expiring in January, we need to get our dossier submitted to China no later than December. Actually, now we might move, so we really need to get it in before we go. Can't move in the middle of this process, that would be a disaster. We can move before we get our little girl though, believe me, we have looked into that.
For me:
* birth certificate from CA
* police clearance from CA, DC, VA and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and VA
* FBI clearance
For my husband:
* birth certificate from ME
* police clearance from CA, DC, FL and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and FL
* FBI Clearance
For us:
* 3 recommendation letters
* marriage certificate
And, we have completed AND notarized the following forms:
* medical clearances
* financial statement
* employment letters (for both of us, from my husbands company and one I wrote saying "I choose to stay home and raise my children")
* personal statement to China
Whew! Now all (sarcasm here) we have to do is get all our dossier documents authenticated at the Secretary of State (for us, one packet to Maine, one packet to CA and one packet to DC) THEN get those authenticated documents sent to the Chinese Consulates in NY, CA or DC (depending on their authentication location). Whew! We left NH last weekend and here's how that is going to happen:
* the ME packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to ME Sec of State. Then when they receive the results, they will forward the second packet to the NY Chinese Consulate.
* The CA packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to the CA Sec of State. The results of that will go to my parents in CA. From there, they will send the results to the Chinese Consulate in CA. Slight problem. All the documents are from Southern California, but the Sec. of State is in Northern California. There are 2 Chinese Consulates, one in So Cal one in No Cal. We have to use the "correct" one. Not sure which one to use since the docs are from So Cal but the authentications are from No Cal.
* The DC packet is going to be hand carried by my sis in law to the State Department in DC (she works near it). First, though she must wait for us to receive in the mail my husband's CA police clearance that we will get notarized here overseas. She will then wait for the results and, if we are lucky, will hand carry it to the Chinese Embassy in DC and wait for those results.
* Oh, then there's the I800A form. That's still in NH awaiting a copy of our homestudy to be attached to that. BUT, one piece of good news is that we had extra fingerprint forms done here and since we couldn't understand the directions on the form for overseas fingerprinting (there are no biometrics fingerprinting places here) I just left them with the form. I just contacted NBC Hague about what to do and they said to just include our fingerprint cards with the form. Yea! For once something worked easier and cheaper than if we were in the US. So once our HS woman releases our HS we're ready to submit this form!
Still about a million steps to go, but since our paperwork starts expiring in January, we need to get our dossier submitted to China no later than December. Actually, now we might move, so we really need to get it in before we go. Can't move in the middle of this process, that would be a disaster. We can move before we get our little girl though, believe me, we have looked into that.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Finally, interesting paperwork...
Today my project for the day was to get a statement from my vet that my cat is well, vaccinated and well taken care of. Bizarre, but whatever. I just got an e-mail saying we had to do this. So, I typed up a letter "from" the vet to our HS agent giving all the dates of our cat's vaccinations and the date and results of our most recent visit (April, I figure that's close enough that I don't need a new exam for him. Our medical tests were before that!).
We stopped by the vet and asked if they would be willing to sign this letter. We sat down to wait as they pulled our file, talked to the vet and waited for them to do whatever they needed to do. The receptionist offered to let my 3 year old hold a kitten that was in a cage in the lobby. She thought that sounded pretty good, so although I think we waited quite a while we were all fairly entertained by the adorable yellow kitten she had in her lap. My 18 month old enjoyed throwing the dog toy balls all over the floor. She found one she particularly liked and showed it to me and talked about almost the entire time (as much at 18mo olds talk).
Finally, the vet was ready to talk to me and I explained what we were doing and why we needed the letter. He commented that this seemed almost like a court document for a court case. I commented that I thought it was amusing that I was adopting and they required evidence that I cared for and vaccinated my CAT but nothing requires me to prove that I care for and vaccinate my KIDS! He made some comment about no one adopting my kids... After I got home I ran through the conversations in my head and I now think that the vet office thought I was getting this form signed so someone would adopt my CAT! I guess I had kind of forgotten that in the animal world, adoption means placing a dog or cat into a home. How funny, anyway, I have the letter and my cat although over 20lbs, is in good health and vaccinated.
We actually enjoyed getting this paperwork done. Can't go wrong with petting kittens and dogs while you wait! Should I admit I took the kids to get Krispy Kreme when we finished? Nah.
We're almost done. Looks like my husband's police clearance from CA was lost in the mail. Mine was received 2 months ago, and our checks were cashed on the same day. We'll be in CA next week, so I guess a visit to the police station for fingerprinting (and submitting this paperwork for the 3RD! time). Other than that, we are still waiting for our child abuse clearances that our first HS guy supposedly submitted in December. Then, supposedly he resubmitted them in April. He got CA rejected because he didn't bother to send the required checks (or ask us for them) and we are waiting to hear back if he got anything from DC or FL. Hopefully, that would make life easier.
We expected to be done by now, so we have been notarizing our documents as we go. Now, at $50 a page, that's not cheap. But when there is one notary in town, he can charge whatever he wants. Well, we'll be in CA next week and I hear it's only about $10 a page. If we'd known it would all take this long, we would have just notarized everything there. Oh well.
I wonder what it takes to be a notary and if I can be one overseas. Not a bad side job if you are the only one in town.
We stopped by the vet and asked if they would be willing to sign this letter. We sat down to wait as they pulled our file, talked to the vet and waited for them to do whatever they needed to do. The receptionist offered to let my 3 year old hold a kitten that was in a cage in the lobby. She thought that sounded pretty good, so although I think we waited quite a while we were all fairly entertained by the adorable yellow kitten she had in her lap. My 18 month old enjoyed throwing the dog toy balls all over the floor. She found one she particularly liked and showed it to me and talked about almost the entire time (as much at 18mo olds talk).
Finally, the vet was ready to talk to me and I explained what we were doing and why we needed the letter. He commented that this seemed almost like a court document for a court case. I commented that I thought it was amusing that I was adopting and they required evidence that I cared for and vaccinated my CAT but nothing requires me to prove that I care for and vaccinate my KIDS! He made some comment about no one adopting my kids... After I got home I ran through the conversations in my head and I now think that the vet office thought I was getting this form signed so someone would adopt my CAT! I guess I had kind of forgotten that in the animal world, adoption means placing a dog or cat into a home. How funny, anyway, I have the letter and my cat although over 20lbs, is in good health and vaccinated.
We actually enjoyed getting this paperwork done. Can't go wrong with petting kittens and dogs while you wait! Should I admit I took the kids to get Krispy Kreme when we finished? Nah.
We're almost done. Looks like my husband's police clearance from CA was lost in the mail. Mine was received 2 months ago, and our checks were cashed on the same day. We'll be in CA next week, so I guess a visit to the police station for fingerprinting (and submitting this paperwork for the 3RD! time). Other than that, we are still waiting for our child abuse clearances that our first HS guy supposedly submitted in December. Then, supposedly he resubmitted them in April. He got CA rejected because he didn't bother to send the required checks (or ask us for them) and we are waiting to hear back if he got anything from DC or FL. Hopefully, that would make life easier.
We expected to be done by now, so we have been notarizing our documents as we go. Now, at $50 a page, that's not cheap. But when there is one notary in town, he can charge whatever he wants. Well, we'll be in CA next week and I hear it's only about $10 a page. If we'd known it would all take this long, we would have just notarized everything there. Oh well.
I wonder what it takes to be a notary and if I can be one overseas. Not a bad side job if you are the only one in town.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Homestudy... almost there.
We've decided once and for all to dump our flaky HS guy. We found 2 more people through the sympathy of our adoption agency who helped us. I have no idea how I never came across at least one of them originally. I was under the impression that I had a choice of 2-- and one won't do Hague countries for the time being. As for our new people, one is in a nearby country, but her fees are so high that it is almost cheaper to fly someone from Europe. Actually, that's what we are going to do. We went with the one in Europe. Of course, she flies out of a tiny airport and doesn't want to stay over a Saturday night but that's the way it goes. She seems to have her act together and her reference gave her a stellar recommendation. I get the impression that she knows her stuff and if the information is available, she will know it. That's all we can ask.
I'll be honest, we almost threw in the towel on this whole thing. I still wonder sometimes, what in the world are we doing?
I'll be honest, we almost threw in the towel on this whole thing. I still wonder sometimes, what in the world are we doing?
Friday, April 17, 2009
Homestudy Saga Contines...
So, this is the weekend we had originally planned months ago to do the homestudy. It has come and will soon be gone, but with no homestudy. After the laborious attempts to book a ticket for this weekend we rescheduled for one month from this weekend. The prices were half and with more than a month's notice we could probably get it scheduled. As we learned previously, the HS guy had to book his own ticket. Great, he showed us the price and itinerary he found and we agreed on it. Or so we thought. We hadn't heard anything from him so we sent him a quick e-mail to let him know that we re-sent the child abuse clearances requests to him (all 3 that he supposedly submitted were never heard from, the 1 that we submitted was responded to... hmmm) and asking if he had booked his ticket. His response was a list of itineraries-- that resembled NOTHING like we had agreed on. Suddenly he wanted to only come on weekdays (fine, but why have we been planning since January for him to come on a weekend?) and the prices were triple the price of the ticket we had talked about and higher than the original weekend tickets (which is one of the reasons we changed our dates in the first place). Also, he had originally said he needed 3 days with us. Fine, but now he was planning to only come for 24 hours. Sure, we're happy not to pay for 3 nights in a hotel, but why suddenly will it take only 1 day? I painstakingly composed an e-mail (and checked by my husband, who has more tact than I) quoting e-mails from HIM that outlined what he was going to do and requesing that we would like to go with the original plan as stated in HIS e-mails (rather than switching to this itinerary that he pulled out of who knows where-- ok, I didn't say that).
Are we being unreasonable? First, he says he wants to come for 3 days, Thurs-Saturday. Great, Friday/Sat is our weekend. Then he says, hey, I'll go to a nearby country too on Saturday! Sure, we'd share on flight expenses with the other family, but why should we lose him on our only 100% free day when we started the plans in the first place. And, why will suddenly what was supposed to take 3 days take under 2 now? Ok, so he scraps the plan to travel to an other country and we try to buy the tickets. That was a no-go (see previous post) and he finds an itinerary that is a great time/price. We agree that due to the April difficulties we'll do this in May with the agreed price/itinerary. Suddenly he changes all of the above and we are starting from ground zero again. Every time we think we have an agreement, it turns out we don't. At this point, I'm not sure even if we could arrange a schedule for him to fly out here we would want him to come. We don't trust him, since he seems to forget everything we agree on. And, I don't think he's a great fan of us either since we don't get overly excited about his random changes of course. He's supposed to recommend us to China, not sure if he can do that right now.
He says he's willing to recommend other HS person to help up. I think we might have to do that. I'm hoping that my research was incomplete and that there actually are more people than I thought who can do this. We'll see.
Truly in God's hands. Nothing more we can do at this point.
Are we being unreasonable? First, he says he wants to come for 3 days, Thurs-Saturday. Great, Friday/Sat is our weekend. Then he says, hey, I'll go to a nearby country too on Saturday! Sure, we'd share on flight expenses with the other family, but why should we lose him on our only 100% free day when we started the plans in the first place. And, why will suddenly what was supposed to take 3 days take under 2 now? Ok, so he scraps the plan to travel to an other country and we try to buy the tickets. That was a no-go (see previous post) and he finds an itinerary that is a great time/price. We agree that due to the April difficulties we'll do this in May with the agreed price/itinerary. Suddenly he changes all of the above and we are starting from ground zero again. Every time we think we have an agreement, it turns out we don't. At this point, I'm not sure even if we could arrange a schedule for him to fly out here we would want him to come. We don't trust him, since he seems to forget everything we agree on. And, I don't think he's a great fan of us either since we don't get overly excited about his random changes of course. He's supposed to recommend us to China, not sure if he can do that right now.
He says he's willing to recommend other HS person to help up. I think we might have to do that. I'm hoping that my research was incomplete and that there actually are more people than I thought who can do this. We'll see.
Truly in God's hands. Nothing more we can do at this point.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Adventures in Homestudies...
Whenever I read up on adoption, the homestudy always seems like such a basic part of the process. All you need to do is get a local homestudy agency/social worker to come by your house for a few hours of meetings and then they write up your homestudy for submission with your dossier. Well, with the new Hague laws, the homestudy providor must be affiliated with an approved agency. Well, there is no concept of adoption under Sharia (Islamic) law. So, hence, there are no agency-affiliated social workers here. Apparently some people who live here used to be qualified, but the new laws took away their qualifications. Ugh, bummer.
So, our choices have come down to 2. Yes, two people in the entire world. Both of them live in Germany. We chose one because he was the most helpful at the beginning helping us try to figure out if we were qualified at all to even adopt because we are overseas. Seems like the conclusion we all came to was "probably". Yes, we are still not 100% sure we can even do this. But since "probably yes" is about as certain as you get in this part of the world anyway, we are comfortable moving forward with the plans that we believe God has for our family.
If I was a social worker, that would be my job. These two men travel the world doing homestudies for people. Awesome.
Of course, easier said than done. We have to fly this guy out here and put him up in a hotel. We finally nailed down a date with him which took forever to do. Then as we were trying to book tickets, he said "oh, how about I also go to a nearby country and you can share costs." Sure, sounded good, but then everyone (except us) decided he would not be here on Saturday. Hmmm, that's our main day off work so that was the day we wanted to do MOST of the work. I got a bit huffy and in the end, the other family canceled. Actually they just completed an adoption and wanted to start an other one. They aren't really in a hurry since they are still getting settled with our first. So, we were ready to buy his ticket here. We went online, clicked on the flights/prices we wanted and entered the credit card to purchase it... denied! What!??! Apparently my credit card moved me from Citibank to Bank of America (I have one of those U Promise credit cards, LOVE IT, 1% of everything I spend goes to my kids' college funds!). The UPromise website assured me that this would not affect me and my card would work as normal. Well, apparenly Bank of America did not agree, canceled my card (and I assume everyone else's) and issued me a new one. Slight problem. I DONT LIVE IN THE USA! My statements go there, but I do everything online so how would I know that my card was cancelled 4 months before the expiration date printed on it? Called them, nothing they could do. So, tried a second credit card. DENIED! What?! Apparently that transaction got flagged by the fraud department since I was buying plane tickets from Europe to the Middle East. Got that cleared up. So, 2 1/2 hours later we got the credit card to work. Up pops a new window with a brand new addition to the terms and conditions (yes, I did read them originally): "One of the travelers must be the holder of the credit card used to purchase this plane ticket, if you accept this policy click OK, if not, click on BACK and enter a new credit card." What! ? At this point it was 11PM here and we called the US branch of Etihad airlines (I never call the local branches here, the US call centers are MUCH better... tells you how bad they are here, doesn't it?). Nope, nothing we could do. The traveler must present the credit card used to purchase the ticket in order to board the plane. Might have been helpful if they had told us this 3 hours ago!
So, long story long... Still no plane tickets. We emailed our HS guy and asked him to buy this plane ticket. There were only 2 more seats on the flight we wanted. Surprise, surprise. He spent the entire AM on the task (so he says) and couldn't get them. Price went up, itinerary gone. Good news, maybe. If we wait until may the airline price is 1/2. Is it worth it? Maybe.
So, our choices have come down to 2. Yes, two people in the entire world. Both of them live in Germany. We chose one because he was the most helpful at the beginning helping us try to figure out if we were qualified at all to even adopt because we are overseas. Seems like the conclusion we all came to was "probably". Yes, we are still not 100% sure we can even do this. But since "probably yes" is about as certain as you get in this part of the world anyway, we are comfortable moving forward with the plans that we believe God has for our family.
If I was a social worker, that would be my job. These two men travel the world doing homestudies for people. Awesome.
Of course, easier said than done. We have to fly this guy out here and put him up in a hotel. We finally nailed down a date with him which took forever to do. Then as we were trying to book tickets, he said "oh, how about I also go to a nearby country and you can share costs." Sure, sounded good, but then everyone (except us) decided he would not be here on Saturday. Hmmm, that's our main day off work so that was the day we wanted to do MOST of the work. I got a bit huffy and in the end, the other family canceled. Actually they just completed an adoption and wanted to start an other one. They aren't really in a hurry since they are still getting settled with our first. So, we were ready to buy his ticket here. We went online, clicked on the flights/prices we wanted and entered the credit card to purchase it... denied! What!??! Apparently my credit card moved me from Citibank to Bank of America (I have one of those U Promise credit cards, LOVE IT, 1% of everything I spend goes to my kids' college funds!). The UPromise website assured me that this would not affect me and my card would work as normal. Well, apparenly Bank of America did not agree, canceled my card (and I assume everyone else's) and issued me a new one. Slight problem. I DONT LIVE IN THE USA! My statements go there, but I do everything online so how would I know that my card was cancelled 4 months before the expiration date printed on it? Called them, nothing they could do. So, tried a second credit card. DENIED! What?! Apparently that transaction got flagged by the fraud department since I was buying plane tickets from Europe to the Middle East. Got that cleared up. So, 2 1/2 hours later we got the credit card to work. Up pops a new window with a brand new addition to the terms and conditions (yes, I did read them originally): "One of the travelers must be the holder of the credit card used to purchase this plane ticket, if you accept this policy click OK, if not, click on BACK and enter a new credit card." What! ? At this point it was 11PM here and we called the US branch of Etihad airlines (I never call the local branches here, the US call centers are MUCH better... tells you how bad they are here, doesn't it?). Nope, nothing we could do. The traveler must present the credit card used to purchase the ticket in order to board the plane. Might have been helpful if they had told us this 3 hours ago!
So, long story long... Still no plane tickets. We emailed our HS guy and asked him to buy this plane ticket. There were only 2 more seats on the flight we wanted. Surprise, surprise. He spent the entire AM on the task (so he says) and couldn't get them. Price went up, itinerary gone. Good news, maybe. If we wait until may the airline price is 1/2. Is it worth it? Maybe.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Police Clearances...
We're getting there. We got our FBI clearance. You would think such a major clearance would have some extensive explanation attached or something. No, they just stamp "no record" on the back of the application... nice. Anyway, with FBI clearance in hand, we headed down to the US embassy to get a notarized letter from them saying we had no record in the US. Gotta love bureaucracy. While we were there, we got our medical certificates notarized (silly cover letter method, we write a note that says "The attached is true to the best of my knowledge" then the notary stamps it). My question is, do doctors in the US generally have a notary just sitting around to notarize their signature? Or, do adoption applicants just bring their own notary? Our instructions make it sound like it's normal to just get your doctor's signature notarized when he/she signs it. Well, our only notary in the country is in the embassy so we'll be doing lots of cover letters.
So, how to get clearance from our country of residence? We asked the notary at the embassy and he suggested that we just get my husband's company "mandoup" (a fancy word for "gopher") to do it for us. Perfect! Apparently in the last couple years, after we moved here, they decided to enforce a law already on the books for years that requires all foreigners to get police clearance before they start a job. So, this guy does this process every day! Yea! He submitted the paperwork and has already received back our FBI paperwork. Now, we are just waiting for our final clearance. Almost done!
Sure, FBI was easy, but California didn't like our fingerprints. We apparently used the wrong card stock. Yeah, so because our paper was wrong (not the form, just the paper it was printed on) we had to go to the embassy get an other fingerprint request letter (and pay 2 more notary fees!) get our fingerprints done again and send them off to CA. We actually forgot about the paperwork for about 2 weeks. oops.. it was done just not mailed off. I broke our copy machine/printer so we can't just run off copies so I guess I forgot to ask my husband to copy them at work and since I always copied them he never thought to suggest it. Oh well, an other 4 weeks for CA but since I don't expect our homestudy will be done in less than 2 months I'm sure it will be fine.
We gave our homestudy guy the paperwork to submit for our child abuse clearances at the end of December. Still have not heard anything. I have no idea how long it should take to get child abuse clearance. I keep asking if he has submitted it, but no response. I sure hope he has. Perhaps I'll e-mail him again about that today.
Speaking of child abuse clearances, we're still at a loss as to what to do with local child abuse clearances. There is no tracking of child abuse cases in this country. But, we need child abuse clearace. What to do? Here's my idea: My husband and I write a letter saying something like "Child abuse cases are not tracked in this country, if there were any record of child abuse, it would be found in the police clearance." Then we pay our notary guy to notarize it. Sound official enough? What do you think?
So, how to get clearance from our country of residence? We asked the notary at the embassy and he suggested that we just get my husband's company "mandoup" (a fancy word for "gopher") to do it for us. Perfect! Apparently in the last couple years, after we moved here, they decided to enforce a law already on the books for years that requires all foreigners to get police clearance before they start a job. So, this guy does this process every day! Yea! He submitted the paperwork and has already received back our FBI paperwork. Now, we are just waiting for our final clearance. Almost done!
Sure, FBI was easy, but California didn't like our fingerprints. We apparently used the wrong card stock. Yeah, so because our paper was wrong (not the form, just the paper it was printed on) we had to go to the embassy get an other fingerprint request letter (and pay 2 more notary fees!) get our fingerprints done again and send them off to CA. We actually forgot about the paperwork for about 2 weeks. oops.. it was done just not mailed off. I broke our copy machine/printer so we can't just run off copies so I guess I forgot to ask my husband to copy them at work and since I always copied them he never thought to suggest it. Oh well, an other 4 weeks for CA but since I don't expect our homestudy will be done in less than 2 months I'm sure it will be fine.
We gave our homestudy guy the paperwork to submit for our child abuse clearances at the end of December. Still have not heard anything. I have no idea how long it should take to get child abuse clearance. I keep asking if he has submitted it, but no response. I sure hope he has. Perhaps I'll e-mail him again about that today.
Speaking of child abuse clearances, we're still at a loss as to what to do with local child abuse clearances. There is no tracking of child abuse cases in this country. But, we need child abuse clearace. What to do? Here's my idea: My husband and I write a letter saying something like "Child abuse cases are not tracked in this country, if there were any record of child abuse, it would be found in the police clearance." Then we pay our notary guy to notarize it. Sound official enough? What do you think?
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