Part of the adoption process includes sending a dossier, a packet of information all about our family, our finances, our psychological state, our criminal background and more, to China as they determine if we're fit to parent our newest little one.
Each piece of the 17-document report must be notarized and then "state-certified" in the state that the document originated. So, we had to order new, certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificates from Indiana only to put them back in the mail for Indiana's Secretary of State to stamp a seal of authentication.
Then, we had to ask our home study agency to sign an agreement from our placement agency and have that notarized. It was mailed to us and then we had to put it back in the mail, bound for Nevada as the home study agency is located in there and needs that state's authentication.
The other 13 documents originated in Utah, so I dropped them off at the Lt. Gov's office on Monday and then got a great phone call a few days later letting me know the documents were ready! On Friday, Lachlan and I made the trip up to the State House pick up those precious pages that get us a little closer to Little Brother.
And while Indiana is awesome and doesn't charge for this service, Nevada charges $20 per document and Utah charges $15 per document. So, that was a $215 process (good thing I coupon in order to get my reams of paper for free!).
I'm pretty sure need to plant a few trees to offset both the document paper used as well as the checks I've been writing ;)
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