Completed CCAI's Online Training

CCAI notified us today that we have successfully completed our 12 hours of online training.  Hague adoptions require adoptive parents to take on-line training classes.   They had training on international adoption, history/culture of China, bonding with adoptive children, etc. We received our certificate from them.  We have to have this in order to get final approval by China to adopt.  This will become part of our dossier that gets sent to China.

Fourth Homestudy Meeting

YEAH!!!! we complete our last meeting with Rebecca.  Very short meeting - less than 10 minutes.  She said she had all the information she needed to complete our homestudy.  She said it shouldn't take too long to get it written and back to us for review.  Hope she is right!

Third Meeting with Social Worker

Today we had our third meeting with Rebecca.  She was only here about 45 minutes.  Today she did individual interviews with each of us - criminal background checks, etc.

Second Meeting with Social Worker

Today we had our second meeting with our social worker Rebecca.  Seems to be a nice lady and we get along very well.  She spent alot of time today asking questions about our personal histories and families.  She asked about our parents and siblings.  How we were disciplined, relationship with parents and siblings, etc...  She spent about an hour with us today.  Two down, two to go!

First Homestudy Meeting

We had our first of four meetings with our social worker (Rebecca) today.  She spent about 1.5 hours at our house.  I was quite interesting - she checked out our house to verify that we had smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detector, hot and cold running water, a bedroom for our new child, etc.  Went over our forms we filled out for CASI and asked alot of questions.  Seemed to go real well.  We set up the remaining three meetings - July 15, 18, and 20.

Pictures at Wahlgreens for Dossier

Today we went to Wahlgreens to get passport size pictures taken for our dossier.  We had to get  6 copies - 3 for dossier and 3 for visas later in the process.

Robin's Birth Certificate Sent to North Carolina for "Authentication"

Today we sent Robin's birth certificate off to the North Carolina's Secretary of State for Authentication.  It's amazing what you have to go with our paperwork.  Our mounds of paperwork has to be notarized, then "authenicated" by the Secretary of State (NC for some, ID for others).  We then have to send them to the Department of State in Washington D. C. for review and approval.  It then goes to the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. for their stamp of approval!  Of course, each one of these reviews/approvals costs $.  In D.C., we also have to pay for a courier to hand carry our paperwork around - more $$.  I thought the INL had a lot of red tape, but immigration has us beat hands down!!!!