The Paperwork Begins

It's nice to work with people who are so organized.

Beth sent us a list that separates all of our paperwork and docs needed into three groups. Each obviously build upon the next and gets us closer to the goal at hand, but everything in these 3 groups are all a part of the Gladney application. And each group has anywhere from 6-10 items that we need to get done a check off. None of this includes what we need to gather and send to immigration or what steps we need to take for our dossier.

So here's the first group of docs:

1. Application - 8 pages of what you would think would be on an application. Everything from citizenship, schooling and family.

2. Statement of International Adoption Risks - Mainly signing a form acknowledging that Gladney has no control whatsoever over the adoption rules and laws of other countries and that the specific child you have pictured in your mind is not guaranteed.

3. Acceptance of Adoption Risks - Another form to sign regarding the above.

4. Child Preference Form - We select gender, age, ethnicity...anything we want basically. But the more specific you are, the longer it may take for a referral.

5. Gladney Agreement - The "Contract". Thirteen pages of legalities we need to read over, sign and have notarized.

6. Financial Agreement - Gladney put together a statement of sorts with projections and estimates of the total fees paid and when and where the money goes. Once we turn this in, it's like locking the prices down with Gladney.

7. Check for program fee deposit and pre-payment of our homestudy fee.

8. CIS (Immigration) Release of Information form - Gives CIS permission to share the information we send to them with Gladney.

9. Directions to our home - For the homestudy which won't be scheduled until we've turned EVERYTHING in; including the paperwork in the next two sections.

That's it for Group 1. I'd say the biggest items on this list would be getting the contract notarized and waiting for our funds to get in next week to send a check. Once those are down, we can send this first round of paperwork.

If I wanted to, I could make this a little too overwhelming for myself and John. But technically, there's no rush to get everything in during the first 24-48 hours. Yes, we will have to be time sensitive with some areas such as scheduling doctor's appointments and figuring out if we're using KBS Dossiers or not. But for the most part we can take it in stride and work on one thing at a time.