Once you have everything gathered/filled out you need to take them to get notarized. We had almost all of our documents ready and took them in at one time. The fewer notaries you have the better, but don't stress too much about it. There are a couple of things that you need to get notarized copies of and for those we took in the originals and had the notary make the copy. We actually had quite a few questions throughout the process and called Ellie 4 or 5 times while we were sitting there with the notary. :^)
As we got things notarized we faxed them to Ellie for the "Okay." Once she had reviewed them she told us they were ready for the next step. At this point she also takes each document she's okay-ed and sends them off to her translator since everything has to be in Ukrainian.
Once everything is ready and notarized, you take it to the State Capitol building to get it apostilled. Never heard of that? Neither had I. I've been told that it's basically a notary for international documents. What they do is check the notary you have on each document and then attach their official paper to it. It costs $15 per document, unless you're in a hurry. Then it's $40/document to have it the next business day and $65/document to have it within 2 hours. That's a little pricey when you have 22 documents to get done (there are some you need 2 or 3 copies of.) We dropped off ours on Monday night and had the Wednesday morning so unless you REALLY need them right away I'd stick with the $15/document. Keep in mind government offices are closed on Fridays.
Once you have everything back from the capitol you have to make 2 copies of everything, one for Ellie and one for your records. Then it's time to Fed Ex everything off. Normally you'll send it to Ellie and then she'll keep her copy and send the rest off to Ukraine. In our case, since we were trying to get our stuff there (minus that darn USCIS paper) in a hurry, we bypassed her and sent it straight to Ukraine. Once we get our I-171H we'll get a notarized copy of that, take it to get apostilled, copy it, and then send Ellie our copies of everything.
The problem is that you can't really start working on this early. The USCIS paper is good for 18 months, but the dossier is only good for 6 months. That means you have to be fairly close to going over there before you can start on everything. Check with Ellie before you start on it. That being said, here is the list. Just know that it only gives you an idea of what you need to do. Most of these documents you'll get from her.
- Homestudy
- I-171H form
- Proof of income
- No criminal records
- Marriage licence (You need the licence, not the certificate like the checklist says. This we got from the county in which we originally got our licence. You need 2 copies. Only cost $5/each.)
- Medical statement forms (If you're in a hurry and it's a few days before you can get in to the dr. then go ahead and get your blood drawn ahead of time so the results are back by the time you go in for the physical. You need an HIV test and a syphilis test. We made sure the dr. had a notary there as well as had them fax the paper to Ellie to make sure it was filled out correctly before we left the office.)
- Letter of obligation form
- Petition for adoption form and addition/specific child form if you're wanting to specify a particular child.
- Power of attorney forms
- Assessor's paper (again, we got this from the county)
- Copies of our passports
- Permission for Interpol clearance
- Post-placement agreement (notarized only, not apostilled)
Hopefully you will get your USCIS form sooner than we did. Ours took about 3 months. Even when they have the paperwork in SLC it still takes forever. I wouldn't Fed Ex your paperwork (cost about $100) you can send it Priority Mail for about $12 and it will get there in a few days, especially if it just going to Kiev. Also to add to your list, if you are LDS and have a marriage certificate from the temple, it can not to be notorized. Ellie told us that it was OK but at the last minute we had to drive to Provo and get the actual Marriage Certificate from the courthouse that you mentioned. Also make sure that they give you a no criminal records form without an expiration date. I believe that they have begun to do this routinely but we ran into problems with this 9 months ago. We also were able to put 2 copies of passports on one page instead of having to pay to apostille all the separate pages and it worked fine.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are right. We actually got our I-171H paper today (does happy dance.) We FedEx-ed it and yes, it cost about $130. We needed it there though so it's okay. Good to know Priority works great too.
ReplyDeleteThe paperwork from Ellie says a marriage "certificate" which is what we got from the temple, but though asking around we found we actually needed the marriage "licence."
We got our fingerprint thing from McKay that was the correct one. We faxed it to Ellie to make sure though. Like you said, it was the one withOUT the expiration on it.
Very true with the passports as well. Ellie told us to do it that way.
Thanks so much for your comments! I'd forgotten about those little things!
Wow! It's all so complicated, isn't it? Thank you so much, though, for taking the time to detail these things out. It really helps and hopefully, we will be doing all of this soon!
ReplyDeleteYou are most welcome. It's been very complicated, but very worth it. Provided this ends how we hope. :^) Well, I suppose it will have been worth it anyway, but I really hope it ends how we'd like it to.
ReplyDeleteI hope all the tips help you! When are you looking to start?
We've had our homestudy completed since April 2010. (The girl we were going to adopt was adopted into the Foster care in Ukraine.) We just need to send everything to USCIS and get a SDA appointment before next April...
ReplyDeleteSad! Did you host last year too then? I'm sure you probably mentioned it at one of our meetings, so I appologize for asking you again! I hope things go well for you!!
ReplyDelete