[Lissa]

To help others who are about to start their paperchase and who are deep into the paperchase, what were the pitfalls you found on the way to being DTC so others can be on the look out for problems?

Our biggest "drag" was getting DH birth certificate in Texas. We got mine easily, but TX was chock full of icky redtape badness. It took us 8 weeks to get his BC!

[chinagirl2006]

Getting our I-171H was the hardest part of our paperchase...at the time it took forever! The county we married in couldn't find our marriage certificate, so that was alot of fun. I was starting to think we weren't married! Its the darn apostrophe in our name that messed it up. Some documents use it & some don't & some use a space instead of the apostrophe. Hopefully that won't affect the adoption later!

[specialk4b]

First it was getting my birth certificate. I was adopted and my adoptive birth certificate wasn't filed with the state until over a year after my birth. They couldn't find it because they were looking in the wrong year!

But the real hang-up was our 797. It took 10-1/2 weeks. Once we got it we walked it through the county/state and used a courier to rush it through the Houston consulate.

[Nichole98]

Besides being stuck in CJIS's computer system for a month we had a really easy paperchase. Our birth certificate's and marriage license arrived a week after we applied for them. We also recieved our I 171-h six days after our homestudy was sent to USCIS in Baltimore. My dh really pushed me to use a dossier service. I wanted to do it all myself but gave into to him. I was so glad that I did because our paperchase was a piece of cake for me!

[Andi72]

I think our biggest hurdle, was other people. Make sure they know what they are doing. This caused us a 3 week delay in our DTC. My husband was born in Maine, the town clerk swore to us that his BC was authenticated, and did not need to go to the state capitol. We sent everything off, we got a call, his BC needed to go to the state capitol to get authenticated. It made me soooo mad, I am still fuming over the whole thing.

[kimmie11]

I just lost my really long-winded post to this thread, probably a good thing! He!He! So I have decided to start another one. If there is one suggestion I could make it would be that you really have to be your own advocate. During the chase you will come across some really great knowlegable people but you will also come across those who don't have a clue. Educate yourself on the rules for notarizing, certifying, and authenticating documents in your individual state. It will save you time and a helluva lot of aggravation and frustration. I also had my agency review documents prior to getting them notarized. It really helped to have a set of fresh eyes read them ahead of time. I also lost some time with references. Although I told my friends ahead of time, although they filled them out on time, you just can't trust the USPS to get each every document where it needs to go. I had the following problems:
1. a notary who got married and failed to register her name change with the county clerk
2. a county clerk that refused to notarize a copy of the I171H (the most important document!) even when I provided the original, my dossier guide, and even after speaking to my agency.
3. Check to be sure your documents have the SOS state seal before forwarding to the Chinese Consulate ( I actually had one document missing a seal)
4. Make sure that you have the proper county clerk authenticating a notary ( I live on Long Island and had to have the notary's signature authenticated prior to getting the SOS to certify each document)

Good Luck and Best wishes to those of you who are in the chase and just beginning
Kim

[esnyder]

Physical. The first thing you should do is make an appointment for your physical. Your doctor will probably scew it up, so you have to account for the time that you go back and make him fix everything. Also, if you were married outside of the US or had any legal name change, that also is priority. Try to think of what you would imagine will take the longest and do it first. Good Luck. Erik

[Mak368]

Our USCIS office. First it was waiting to get the fingerprint appointment, then waiting for the actual appointment and then waiting for the I-171H. All in all I would say that put us about 3 months behind. I'm glad that part is behind us!

Michelle
LID 9/25/2006

[ttcasey]

To us I would have to say it was the physical appts. We were not ready yet (1 yr requirement per our health insurance) so we were going to have to wait another month for the physicals. We did get all the blood tests completed so when we went into our physicals all the blood test results were back. Also, our social worker wanted to meet our kids (teenagers) so I had to take them out of school. Most schools frown on taking them out so I had to write to the teachers and explain why they needed to be out of school for a morning. Because we just said they had to meet with a social worker, the teachers asked if they could do anything. I then told them that we were adopting. I really didn't want the word out until we had a LID. oh well....

Trish
LID 08/17/06

[skingspan]

Worst part for us was getting the doctor to fill out our medical forms properly and finding a notary that was available on Saturdays or after work hours so that we could both be there to sign. We found that our bank had one but when you are rushing through the paperchase and you call a few notarys and thet say they can't do it or are on vacation it can get a bit stressful

[jbzanie]

Our dr's forms. They just don't under the word PRINT LEGIBLY! My husband has insurance with Kaiser. His dr is at one of those facilities. Talk about trouble. Just trying to get an appointment. We had him switch to what they call a neighborhood dr which was my dr so that we could get the physical done in a timely manner. When he had it done, the dr scribbled the results. When I had my physical, I had to get his redone and mine was carefully checked for writing legibly!

The USCIS wait was horrible. I have mentioned it before but we waited 8 weeks. I know some folks in Atlanta waiting 13-15 weeks now. USCIS messed up our fingerprint appointments (only sent one and not the other -- we had to get a senator's office to help with that one).

The process itself wasn't bad. In fact, I kind of liked it. I think this would be a great side business if I had time.

[oleson1]

Ours was kind of crazy -- DH had a DUI when he was 20. He admitted it on all of our paperwork, but when they did the criminial records check, it didn't show. They needed us to PROVE that it happened, so we had to go to the county that it happened and get a certified copy of the arrest and the court records. All the paperwork put us an additional 6 weeks behind just to prove that we were honest in the first place!

[Trace7]

Our biggest hurdles:

*Getting background docs that were required, and this was during the government shutdown in MN
*Dh's birth certficate had been altered during an adult adoption in 1999 (his stepDad adopted him), so we had trouble getting it
*DH's birth certificate was lost by UPS on the way back from authentication, but it was found (thankfully) a few weeks later
*The I-171H took 8 weeks

[sakelley]

Our paperchase went pretty smoothly. The only issue we had was the dates on our employer letters and the notary dates did not match. We had to have both of them re-done.

[TaraL]

Waiting on the I171H. 4 LONG months!!! It was terrible. The woman who did took care of the them in Philly retired and, in true government fashion, it took forever to hire someone new. Ugh!

But now I look back and thank God that we did wait that long as we wouldn't have Olivia right now so it happened for a reason. That didn't make it any easier though when we were waiting. I waited almost as long for our I171H as we did for our referral which we got in only 6 mos past LID.