The Paper Trial or Trail

The Edrington family started our journey of paperwork in the adoption process last May (2005). This consists of a home study, huge amounts of reading about China, their history, the types of difficulties adopted children face, attachment disorder reading and the list goes on. We had to complete our vision and reason for adopting, along with our own history of our family, children, extended family etc. Then there is the official documentation: official marriage certificate, birth certificates, letters of employment, letters of recommendation, complete physical and health report, optioning a passport, the approved homestudy etc. There is also the trip to the immigration office, with large fees, fingerprinting, paperwork, and then the wait for approval. There are 13 documents total that make up the "dossier", as it is called. These must be notarized, certified (with fees), and authenticated (with larger fees) and all put in the proper order with cover sheets, staples in the right place and then finally sent off to China. From start to the time the dossier is sent off to China takes about 4 months. When it is approved and logged into China's system, you receive a "log in" date. Our is October 27th, 2005.