Pictures, and Letters, and Forms, Oh My! (aka - Our Dossier)

Some of you out there reading this blog know exactly what I'm about to talk about intimately. You've been through the in depth and (let's just say it) ridiculous volume of paper work, the background checks, and various other forms of insanity. For those of you who haven't here's a glimpse of what is involved in compiling a dossier.

The dossier is the packet of papers that is sent to a foreign country to be you the person...on paper. Since you can't present yourself to the people who will match you up with your future child, they want to know everything about you from where you grew up, to what friends and family think of you to how many bathrooms your house has. So just as I promised when I wrote about our home study, here is what we've been doing for our dossier:

1. Photographs: 3 - 5x7's of our family - 2 poses, please; 4x6 pics of all extended family - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, dogs, hamsters, etc; 1 - 5x7 pic of the outside of our home; 4x6 pics of every room in our house - even the bathrooms!
2. An application for the Intercountry Adoption Board (ICAB) - the governing adoption body in the Philippines - Notarized
3. A Type of Child Acceptable to Family form for ICAB detailing the age, medical conditions, etc of the child we are requesting
4. A personal letter stating that we do intend to adopt and parent this child from the Philippines...probably because all this paperwork, forms filled out and hoops jumped through don't really communicate that message very well, really...
5. An ORIGINAL birth certificate for each applicant - this one was tricky. Neither of us had original copies, so when I went to get them for us, I found that Alabama, Mandy's home state, was no problem what so ever (you could say you're whomever and order their cert as long as you have all the right info...shocking...well, not really). California, however, wanted a sworn affidavit stating that you are who you say you are along with DNA testing and your shoe size...well, really just the affidavit, but their processing times and requirements were crazy. As you all know, however, our God is MUCH bigger than the state of California records department and He showed me a way to submit the paperwork where the processing time was less than a century and He brought the certificate to us in record time. Yay!!
6. One medical statement for each person living in the home - this one was easy because they let us "reuse" the one from our home study.
7. One physician letter for each applicant - this is just in case the thorough medical statement/physical report aren't clear enough.
8. One psychological evaluation per family. This one had me stumped, a little. The instructions to the psychiatrist (yes, it HAD to be an MD) said that we were only to have a single 1-hour interview, then in the next several paragraphs went on to detail the information they wanted included in the letter. The amount and detail of the information requested would easily have taken several weeks to fully discuss, but that is not the point either. They really want a piece of paper stating that we are mentally healthy, balanced and ready to parent an internationally adopted child. How can anyone know this in only one hour? But I digress...we "passed". Actually, I think we kind of bored the guy.
9. One original marriage license/certificate.
10. One police letter per family. This is a letter from the chief of police of our town stating that we have no "record" in our hometown. It is both interesting and baffling to me that we must have fingerprints for BOTH the state of Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation AND then still need a letter to this effect in our hometown. Isn't it scary that they don't share information and all these checks have to be run separately? Well, it bothered me.
11. One Priest, Minister or Rabbi recommendation letter per family. Yep, that's how it's worded in the OFFICIAL instructions.
12. One employer recommendation letter for each applicant. Steven's was easy, but just try to get a 3 year old to write you a letter of recommendation. I'm telling you it was NOT easy!
13. One friend letter of recommendation per family. This was a real relief as we only have one friend. :)
14. Optional letters. Thanks to all who gave us letters for our home study. They were promptly reused.
15. Guardian letter. "Letter should be written by the person or couple (couple preferred) named as guardian(s) of the child/ren in the event of the death or incapacity of the adoptive parents stating that the guardian(s) accept this responsibility. Guardians should not be the parents of the applicants; preferably, they should be the sibling of one of the applicants. Friends can be named if the applicants have no siblings." Wow. I mean, I get this and agree with it, it's just weird to plan for the care of a child we do not yet have in the event that we die. Luckily, this was already covered since we have Caleb and took care of it for him LONG ago.
16. One copy of pages 1-2 of your most recent 1040 US Income Tax returns. Ick.

So that's it. We did it all in about 5 weeks and had it turned in already before our home study was completed. Once the home study was done and turned in, our agency sent it all over to the Philippines on July 9th. So, we are officially waiting to hear about our approval. Keep praying!