In my last adoption story post I talked about the home study process and all of the steps that went into it. Now I wanted to talk a little bit about the final stages that Barbara and I took to finish everything that was required on our end to submit our dossier to the Russian Government.
dos⋅si⋅er [dos-ee-ey, -ee-er, daw-see-ey, -see-er; Fr. daw-syey].
A collection or file of documents on the same subject, esp. a complete file containing detailed information about a person or topic.
Our dossier is in essence our story. It contains a letter of intent, our home study, pictures of our family, medical checkups, local, state, and federal law enforcement checks, finger prints of all who live in the home, an autobiography of Barbara and myself, letters from our employers, financial history statement, proof of home ownership, and a few other documents. Let’s just say that we had over 15 different documents that made up our entire dossier. Once Barbara and I put these documents together each and every one of them needed to go through a rigorous certification process before they could be sent to Russia. First, they needed to be notarized, then certified, and finally apostilled.
a⋅pos⋅stille [uh-pos-til].
Is a method of certifying a document for use in another country pursuant to the 1961 Hague Convention. With this certification by apostille, a document is entitled to recognition in the country of intended use, and no certification or legalization by the embassy or consulate of the foreign country where the document is to be used is required. With our international package, we include an apostilled copy of the certificate of incorporation for use in your desired country.
Now, every state in this great country of ours is different, so keep in mind that you may have to do something different than what Barbara and I did. But for good old New York state first we needed to find a notary and notarize each document. Luckily our bank offers notary services for free, so that wasn’t too bad.
no⋅ta⋅rize [noh-tuh-rahyz]
Yup – that’s a great description of the process adoptive parents go thru to compile their dossiers.
Makes me tired & anxious just thinking about it! I am very glad that ours is DONE (for now).