Home Study, Fingerprinting, and Forms, Oh My...

Hi all,
We have come up for air after two very busy weeks! Yes, I am done with school, but more importantly we made it through the home study visit! It certainly wasn't what I expected- 3.5 hours of intensely personal questions from a case worker that we just met was no fun at all! First we were interviewed together, then separately, and at the end she took a fairly quick look around our house. Basically, she wanted to make sure we know what we are getting into. I think because we have no kids, there were plenty of tough questions for her to ask...how much time I will take off, what will we do if there is an attachment problem or physical problem, how will we incorporate Vietnamese culture into the child's life, who will do what around the house, what do we see ourselves doing with the kid, who will be our support system, etc. etc. Also, in Vietnam they are very interested in family, so we had to provide full names, jobs, and home city/states for all our closest relatives! Our case worker was absolutely thrilled that we only have one step sister and one brother between us, because that definitely made her home study report easier to write!

Today we went to the immigration office downtown to get fingerprinted for the FBI background check. We waited about 2 hours and it was relatively painless. It was easy to spot the couples that were adopting...they were the only folks that were happy to be there! Afterwards we had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in the Chinatown area...and discovered about 10 other Vietnamese restaurants we can try sometime in the future.

What is next? Well, we need to complete the dossier. These are the steps...

Step 1-gather all the documents, which are of course totally different than the application documents we submitted to the agency! Documents include...

• Passport size pictures
• More pictures of our house and of us
• A letter from our local police saying we don't have a record or outstanding warrants
• A letter from the immigration office stating we passed the FBI background check
• A certified (by Washington D.C.) marriage certificate
• An adoption application form (in English and Vietnamese)
• Commitment to send updates (in English and Vietnamese)
• Medical certificates
• Income certificates
• Power of Attorney for our agency, who will handle things for us in Vietnam
• Home Study Report
• Letter of Endorsement from our agency

Step 2-have the documents notarized

Step 3-have the documents approved by the state of Pennsylvania

Step 4-have the documents approved by the Vietnam Embassy in Washington D.C.

Step 5-submit the documents to our agency, who will submit them to the Department of International Adoption in Hanoi.

Step 6-wait for up to 12-14 months!

Well, that is all for now. I will let you know where we are in the process as we move along. I hope we can submit the complete dossier by mid-June.