[his,mine&ours]

I think there are quite a few of us. DH and I have just sent most of our documents for apostilling (can it be a verb?).
Here's where we are:
-I have 4 more to gather, but 23 of our documents are at the Sec of State. I carefully guard the 2 have already been apostilled!!!
-We will be assigned to the Lenigrad Region. Our agency deosn't send to region until 171 is received.
-We have requested either gender, 18 months or younger.

Love to see who else is in this stage of the paperwork!

[doozer22boys]

I am! Just got all the documents gathered at our agency as of Tuesday. That was the biggest relief to give my pile over to them. THe medical forms were a nightmare. They kept doing things wrong on them--the notary would sign where the doctor was supposed to sign, they'd date it with 2 different dates, etc.. The apostilling was relatively easy. Expensive (for the expedited version) but worth it. We already have accepted a referral for an 18 month old little girl and we're traveling to meet her (and possibly her 3 year old sister as well) on December 11th. So I had to work quick. Our region requires the dossier to be there for at least 10 days after translating. And we also have to get a syphilis test done every 30 days until we travel (our first one will expire in a few weeks--augh!) We have to see 8 medical specialists on trip #1 as well to evaluate our health. I'm nervous about that.

Anyway, I can relate to what you're going through. It's alot of papers to do at once. I thought the paperwork was hard until I got to that point and realized all the previous stuff was nothing! We got our travel visas in the mail today too. Those weren't too hard--just took some time.

Good luck to yoU!

[Camille123]

We have ALMOST all of our dossier paperwork gathered. It's the doctor's stuff that is the hold up for us too. Hope to have all of it by next week except the 171H. I'm lucky to have a good friend that will notarize all our stuff. She will do that for us next Wed. and then I'll hand deliver to our adoption manager who is local. He will handle getting the apostille's for us and then send it off to the region. I think but am not sure that it can go to the region without 171H. I need to check on that.
The paperwork has been crazy But if you break it down into smaller pieces it wasn't as bad. Now that we're nearly finished and I look back at all we've done to this point I think Wow! I've really done it. Of course now the waiting begins. And this is nothing I have control over and I'm not too good with that. Sounds like I'm a control freak

[Camille123]

Congrats on your referral Doozer. I hope you meet your future child(ren) in December. Safe travels.

[happyhome]

We are at preliminary dossier stage, where we have to get a lot of info notarized and apostilled, homestudy complete, etc. I know there is so much more coming, but I can't wait to have it done. By next week we should be assigned a region and officially waiting for a referral as we complete the rest of the paperwork (additional doctor's forms, employment verifications, etc.)
Did anyone else have to do this in steps, or is it just my agency? What is involved in the "official" dossier as opposed to the preliminary dossier?
Congrats on being so close Doozer!

[Camille123]

Hi Emily. The preliminary dossier is Russia specific where you will gather documents needed no matter which region you adopt from. But each region has their own set of requirements and once you are assigned a region you will have additional documents to pull together.
Since we already know which region we are adopting from we did not have to do a prelim dossier and jumped right away into the region requirements but this way you have a jump on the paperwork while you're waiting for a region.

[Movingon]

Well, I have already completed our dossier........once. I am now in the processing of re-doing it all as the first one will expire in Feb. just 10 days after my DH returns from Kuwait. Our finger prints will also expire at the end of Feb. The only document that will not expire is the I-171H which will last us until July 06. We are # 1 on the waiting list for a baby girl 18 months or younger, but since my DH had to go to Kuwait, we are stuck in limbo until he returns on the 8th of Feb. I know this may sound strange, but I did not find all the PW that hard to do, I was actually terrified at first because I was reading lots of people posting that it was hard and all, but once I started and followed the directions and check list from our agency it was easy and I breezed through it. The only thing I didn't like was waiting on things to be returned to me. I am over half way on most things, the only thing I will have to do is have everything noterized and apostilled once DH returns in.....89 days, but whose counting.