Defining Paper Pregnant or the Paper Chase

When I first started stalking reading adoption blogs I quickly learned that to adopt a baby  you had to compile something called the Dossier. I have seen lots of post about how it is hard to get together all the paper work. I have also even seen pictures of families turning in their dossier. I was THRILLED to get to start our dossier! Until I got the email with all the guidelines. There was probably at least a weekend full of dread at the pages, and pages, and pages, of pages explaining what to get, how to get it, and what to do after you get it. I was overwhelmed, but eventually I sat down actually read all the guidelines and started my To Do list. THENNN I got the Home Study paper work. Now this is something I hadn't really heard much about. I knew I had to have one, but I thought that was just the interviews. I didn't know the Home Study paperwork is actually the bulk of the dossier! So once again I got overwhelmed, then I got organized and NOW we are really close to having our Home Study paper work ready to submit!! We will submit this packet of paper work then we will have four interviews. Here are the documents we have to have to turn in our Home Study:

Home Study Application- about 30 pages
Home Study Questionnaires- 5 pages of single spaced questions, we had to separately fill out.
Criminal Background Check
Photo copies of our DL and SS cards
Guardianship Form
Residential History Form
Medical Exam Forms
Home Ownership Proof
Birth Certificate Copies- Less than 5 years old
Marriage License Copies- Less than 5 years old
Health Insurance Coverage Proof
Pet Vaccination Proof
1040 Tax Form
Financial Statement
Floor plan showing all dimensions and purposes of all rooms
Employment Verification Letters- each parent has to submit one
Reading Agreement- We each have to read a total of 7 books.
Three reference forms.

All that doesn't SEEM to be a whole lot, I know. However, all of those forms have lots of questions to be answered that are hard to track down. We had a hard time finding out specific details of some of those forms and that is what takes awhile. Also, Ryan is super busy with work, the cellar, and seminary, so I have been collecting all these documents. If you know us well, you probably know that Ryan takes care of ALL our important stuff. So, it has been a little hard for me to track down copies and proof and that kind of stuff!
We also have a tons of forms that just had to be signed and I didn't list. Now some of those forms also have to be notarized. Again, not a big deal, right? Well anyone who notarizes our forms have to have a license that doesn't expire until 2014.  Thankfully everyone I have talked to or made an appointment with have been in this 2014 window, so yahhh!! We actually haven't had any snags yet! God is really making this pretty smooth for us and I am soooo grateful!!

All we have left for our home study is:
Employment Verification Forms- We started working on those.
Financial Statement- Hopefully we will finish this today!
Our Medical Exam- Should be this week.

And that is iiiiiiiiiiiit!!! Woohoooooo!!!!! My goal is for the end of this week to have all of those underway!

So that is the Home Study paperwork...

Once we send all this in, then we will have 4 interviews and keep working on our Dossier paperwork...That is a post for another day!!!