An I-800A is the US Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) form used to initate the adoption process for Hague countries. It usually takes 2-3 months for this to be processed. It costs $720 to file the I-800A and $170 ($85 per person) for a biometrics processing fee. We will now be waiting on an invitation to be fingerprinted at the USCIS office...seems like in an adoption you are always waiting!
A dossier is a file containing detailed records on a particular person or subject. Our dossier documents have already been notarized. Next they will be certified at the state level and then authenticated by the Chinese Consulate or Embassy. Since we are adoption Noah from China our dossier included:
Letter of Application (notarized)
Home Study (completed but changes being made this week)
Photographs of home and community
Certified copies of our birth certificates
Certified copy of our marriage license
Employment letters (notarized)
Financial statement (notarized)
Medical records-physicals (notarized)
Police clearance letter (notarized)
Reference letters from 3 different people-we included 4 (notarized)
Color copies of our passports
New passport photos
If you have been following our journey to adopt Noah you might recognize some of these documents, many were a part of the home study which was completed by a local agency in Georgia, One World Adoption Services. After we receive the I-800A approval letter our dossier documents will be sent to the Secretary of State for certification.
I look at Noah's pictures constantly and hope that he knows we are his family that loves him and are working very hard to adopt him (I'm sure he doesn't know this yet...he's only 2 1/2). But we would really appreciate your prayers for the documents to be reviewed, submitted, certified and authenticated as quickly as possible. Please continue to keep Noah in mind as this process is so lengthy and ultimately he is waiting in an orphanage.
Noah looking at a picture book we sent him thru a courier service called Ladybugs N Love
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