[Kiana]

We have not yet made the decision whether or not to adopt, but I know that when we do, we'll want to get our dossier to China in as short a time as possible. So with that in mind, which documents can I send away for now so that we don't have a long wait if we start the process. By the way I'm in Canada. Don't know if that makes a big difference or not.
Anyone else plan ahead like this? And if so, did you find it speeded up the home study process?

[bethnil]

Most of the documents that you need will have a date stamped on them of when you requested them. It seems to vary a bit by agency what the CCAA will accept-mine states that they must be less than 9 months old by the time you are DTC. You are taking a chance that they may expire. We requested copies of our MC and BC.

A few things that I hadn't anticipated were-getting our cats vaccinated (they are totally inside cats), getting a statement from our health insurance company stating they would cover adopted children, and all of the many times we were fingerprinted. I can't believe all of these state and government agencies aren't cross-connected!!!!! I understand why we need everything. It just surprised me.

Good Luck!
Beth

[terryb]

I think that some of the required documents are different between Canada and the US. I too am in Canada and I've used the birth certificate that I've had since I was born and we used the marriage certificate we were given when we were married 10 years ago. We brought them to the agency where they were notarized there and then we brought them home. There was no copy for the agency to keep.

We did not plan ahead for this...it happened that we had these on hand and did not need to order. Same thing for our passport which are current.

So we needed: Birth certificate for each of us, marriage certificates, and up to date passports. Another thing you could work on is your photos. Your agency should give you a list of what you need and it seems to vary from agency to agency as to how many and what they should include (family only, home, out doing things etc.). We had very few pics of hubby and me together so that needed to work on.

You could also think about who you'd want to be your references and talk to them about it. We had four people as references and one person was pretty slow...the homestudy was pretty much written before the letter was submitted.

You might also check with your agency as to the order of things. Our agency allowed us to gather documents while doing the homestudy; another agency in the province requires all the documents (including reference letters) before they start the homestudy.


Good luck!