What does it take?

I have had several people ask what goes into adopting a child internationally.
And it goes a little something like this...

* Find a reputable agency that handles the type of adoption that you want to start. DO RESEARCH!
* Once signing with an agency you will have to have a homestudy. A homestudy consists of several things. You will have a social worker visit multiple times and you will talk about... well YOU! How you grew up, how you were disciplined, how you will discipline your child, whats important to you... that kind of thing. We filled out a 15 page autobiography about ourselves and some really DEEP questions.
* You will begin to prepare your dossier that will travel far and wide before it makes it to China! The documents you will gather will be:

A family information form
An application letter
Birth Certificate of husband and wife
Marriage Certificate
Employment Letter for both- how long we have been there as well as pay per year
Certificate of Financial Status- a break down of our finances WOW
A complete physical for both - hearing, vision, blood tests, HIV test, ...
Police Clearance for both
Homestudy
Photographs- of our family, our house, inside and out

These all need to be:
notarized: stamped
secretary of state: stamped
Dept of State: stamped
Chinese Embassy: stamped

There are several other steps that I left out like the child abuse clearances for each state that we have lived in since we were 18 and the immigration paperwork and fingerprints.

PHEW! There is ALOT that goes into adopting a child, whether you adopt internationally or domestic. All for the best interest of the child! Once all of our papers have been stamped, I will take a picture and post it. They look sooo official! It is so worth it, no matter how time consuming and utterly confusing it is! The end result is Samuel and that is worth it to me!!