Paperwork...Paperwork....Paperwork

I consider myself to be very organized (some may say anal - except when it comes to housework.....I need to analyze that at some point in time), I like to make lists, and I don't mind doing paperwork type stuff. (I love to check things off of a list) This adoption process stretched me to my limits.

There is paperwork for the homestudy and paperwork for the dossier. Some of the documents can be used for both.

For our homestudy we needed to have:

• Birth Certificate - both of us
• Marriage License
• Copies of our medical insurance cards
• Complete directions to our home
• Copy of the first two pages of our most recent 1040 federal tax form
• Photo Release Forms
• Child Abuse/Neglect Index Form (allows a background check on us)
• Kentucky State Police Conviction Report Form (allows a background check on us)
• Administrative Office of the Courts Form (more background checks!)
• A Recent Family photograph
• Formal Application
• Adoptive Parents questionnaire
• Potential Adoptive Father questionnaire
• Potential Adoptive Mother questionnaire
• References

Most of the stuff wasn't too bad. The questionnaires were almost brutal (not really - but almost). We had to list all of our income, assets, and monthly expenses. (love to see that on paper!!) Here are some of the questions we had to answer: (and no - I'm not going to list our answers!!)

• How would you describe your housekeeping standards (do they mean mine or Jay's? :)
• Define your knowledge of child growth, development and/or your need to learn more in these areas
• Define what is an effective parent vs an ineffective parent
• Define and differentiate between discipline and punishment (one of my personal favorites)
• Description of parents' personalities (be specific) and your relationship with them growing up and now.
• Describe your marriage. What do you admire most about your spouse? What, if anything, would you change.

Here are the items we had to have for our dossier. All of these items had to be notarized, county clerk certified, Secretary of State certified and Guatemalan Consulate authenticated. It's a HUGE process, and any little error on a document means the entire document has to be redone. It's very stressful!

• Certified Birth Certificates
• Certified Marriage Certificate
• Medical Reports (which includes a full physical, and tests for TB, Hep B, STDs and HIV)
• Employment Verification
• Two Witness Statements (these had to be people who knew us well enough to say that we would be good parents - but they couldn't know us too well!!)
• Name Affidavit (a form that lists every possible way that our names could show up. Jay's was easy - mine was a HUGE list)
• Police Clearance
• Three Reference Letters
• IRS Tax Filing
• Copies of our Passport
• Final Homestudy

It was a very happy day when I had it done.