Have you had any trouble getting a document?

So..the paperwork trail is long and time consuming for an adoption. Some documents are relatively easy to get and some take months to get. Some are very simple and some seem a little bizarre in their request. For the most part, the entire process has been pretty smooth and easy and no matter what we have asked of people, no matter how unusual the request, people have been willing to help us.

We are now at the final document (for the moment) required by our placing agency for our dossier. It seemed to me to the be the easiest of all the paperwork to get. It was a simple 2 line letter written on our mortgage company's letterhead that said something to the effect that we were the "record owners" of the home we live in. Doesn't sound to hard. Much easier than all the lab work and medical exams or the 2 hour psych evaluation or the entire homestudy process. How hard would it be to get your bank to write out 2 lines and mail it to you? How hard could that be? Never will I estimate if something is easy or hard again.

I contact a Vice President of the bank that holds the loan for our home. It just so happens that we also have some personal accounts at this bank as well and we have spoken by phone before. So I explain our situation, send her the sample letter our placing agency required, gave her our loan number so she could verify our loan. Explain that the wording "we" "owner" "home address" needs to be included in the letter. That a copy of the title or mortage statement will not do. This is all stated in the directions of the sample letter I've sent her. I also mention that we are needing this letter in 3 weeks time as we are traveling to the east coast then. She tells me, "This should be no problem, I'll get back to you in a couple of days and we should have this for you." "Great," I say. Done. or so I think.

A few days later, she calls and gives me an update. The bank wants to know what the letter is for "exactly" as they are feeling a little unsure of using the word "we" and "owners" of our property because of the fact the bank has the first loan on the house and thus we don't technically own it outright. "Yes" I understand this hesitation. I explain again that since it is coming from our mortgage company it is assumed that we have a loan on the property, however we are on title as the owners, our property taxes are being addressed to us and not the bank and it is just a necessary requirement for an adoption in Russia. Different country, different rules, translation issues, etc.

So she agrees to relay this explanation and to see what they can come up with. A week later I receive the letter. Unfortunately, it does not say anywhere that we are the owners of our home instead that we are the "borrowers" of a loan of our home. I fax it over to my placing agency to see if this is good enough. "No" is the reply. The wording "owners" is very important and will be understood in Russia. So a little desperately as I'm now down to 2 weeks, I send an email to the person who wrote the letter. A very emotional and personal email about our situation, about all that we have gone through to get this far and how this one little letter will hold up our dossier and make it so we can't move forward to bring our little girl home. She calls within minutes and says, "Do not worry, we will do the letter again and send it to you." This was 2 weeks ago today. I emailed last Friday, to inquire about the status and remind her we are traveling next week and need to bring that document with us. No reply. I left a message today. No word. I'm a little nervous and if I don't hear tomorrow I will politely inquire again with the same Vice-President I intially spoke with.

Has anyone had a similar experience? Run into a problem at getting an important document? I'm wondering what else I can do other than drive down to the bank and plead in person. Which I may just do anyway if I don't hear from her soon.

The MMPI-2 Personality Inventory

Last week I had my appt with a psychologist to take my MMPI-2 psych evaluation as required by some regions in Russia. I've never had an appt with a psychologist before. She was very nice and actually specializes in adoption issues in kids. She agreed to give hubby and I the test, score it and do the write up of the results and get it back to us in time to bring it with us next week for our dossier.

The actual test was something else. What an experience that turned out to be. Generally this test is used for those screening new applicants or anyone interested in measuring how a person copes with worry/stress/anger.

It is a scantron type test with 571 True or False questions. It took me 2 hours to complete the test. For the most part the questions were bizarre. The first question asked, true or false "I read Mechanics magazine". There were also several dark questions that asked if voices were talking to me, if I wanted to kill myself and then the very next question would be..true or false.. "I would like the work of a forest ranger." Or.."if you were an artist would you want to paint flowers?" Does your stomach hurt most of the time, does your throat hurt most of the time. Okay. It was so bizarre that I couldn't believe this was going to be helpful to anyone about whether I could parent a foreign born child or not. And what could someone write about that person based on how they answered. I guess if you anwered True to all of the... "do you want to hurt yourself or others?" or True to all of the "you are angry and upset with the world most of the time" that would be a red flag but what about the other 350 questions about random stuff like being an artist and painting flowers?

Next week we get to meet with the psychologist and go over her summary of each of our test results. I can't wait to see what in the world she writes.

Dr. Appt today and the I-600A update

I have my doctor appt today to get my forms filled out and my TB test taken. Luckily we received our packet of forms for our dossier in time to be able to bring their medical forms with us so we didn't have to make 2 trips to the doctor. My husband and both boys already have their forms completed and hubby has his TB test already read and signed off so it's just me holding up our final packet of info to send off to our Homestudy agency. We had our labs done a few weeks back so we have those already to send in too. I'm hoping on Monday I can put the packet in the mail just as soon as I go back to the doctor and have my TB test read. I'm kicking myself for not getting that TB done earlier this week so I could have been done today and had it in the mail...bummer!!

I'm also ready today to certify mail my I-600A application off to the local USCIS office. I called my homestudy agency just to double check that I had everything ready to mail off in that I-600A application yesterday and they said the USCIS also requires proof of insurance that your adopted daughter will be covered when she is adopted and also another govt form I-134 Affidavidate of Support not an adoption form that basically says we can financially provide for her. She said that only our local USCIS office is requiring that extra form...just figures!!! Has anyone else had to do this? I looked all over the immigration website and can't find anything that mentions either of these two requirements. She said I could go ahead and send it in just know to begin getting those forms so when they call for them I'm ready. Ugh...the form collecting just never ends..more trips to various offices more forms to gather.

The interviews

We have met with our social worker twice now. She is so friendly and bubbly that she has made us feel very comfortable sharing ourselves. So far it has been a relatively painless process. I'm not sure what kind of questions I was expecting...being interviewed about yourself sounded intimidating but it hasn't been anything too deep or hard to answer. Tomorrow we have our last meeting with our social worker..our home visit. Time to tidy up this evening.

I have already received some forms from our placing agency for our dossier so I have started collecting those documents and making appointments again. So far all the forms have been straightforward and not that different from the ones we used in the homestudy. I'm hoping to send off our I-600A form this week..I have all the documents ready and hopefully the homestudy will follow it next week. I just need to goto the bank and get a money order. We also have our doctor's appointments this week and we already went and got our labs done a few weeks go and I've received my lab results already...I've passed...yeah! Hopefully hubby has too. It was my first cholesterol panel I've had done..so I was a bit curious what it would say but it was normal...thank goodness. We are moving and groving along. Hubby goes back to the classroom this week so this was our last big push to get all the inperson interviews done. We just have one big last test...the MMPI psychological evaluation. Basically it's personality inventory given to see if you can cope with life's normal stresses. Never had one of those done either...should be very interesting. I'm still trying to find a psychologist close to home that performs this...sometimes companies require new employees to have this done so it shouldn't be too hard to find. I think the only 2 things holding us up from going forward on our dossier is getting our passports back and hearing back from immigration on the status of our I600A.

Things are looking good. I spent all last night looking at the russian photolisting put out by MOE at all the babies born in 2007 in the regions our placing agency works wondering if one of the children already born this year could be our future daughter. It was quite exciting and feels really real...I'm feeling closer to her than I have ever felt. My oldest has been talking about Emily a lot. How she will be smaller than him and Bubba. He can't wait to play with her and take care of her. Bubba says she can sit by him at the table. BW has talked about how we will go on an airplane to bring her home and that they will stay with their grandparents. Wow...the anticipation is making my heart thump so loudly. I'm just so thrilled!!