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The Adoption Process |
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The Beginning
The Homestudy
The Dossier
I-171
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Many people have asked us what the adoption
process is like. Here’s a bit of an overview.
Think and pray!
We didn’t share our adoption journey with many.
We preferred to quietly discuss it within our immediate family.
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The Beginning!
Last summer I finally completed an adoption
application. Initially we were looking at China. We attended a two-day
workshop in November in Omaha. We had a great time in Omaha. Uncle Berwyn
and Aunt Hilda took us out for pizza with their grandsons, Kent and Ross!
We learned much about adoption, bonding and paperwork.
Sometime between
November and January, we decided to switch to Ethiopia. We had followed
Steve’s uncle and aunt and their work in a South African orphanage.
www.ronandlynn.com. South Africa is not open to U.S. adoptions at
this time. We liked the idea of adopting from Africa because of the great
need there at this time. We know a family from Orange City who had adopted
from Ethiopia and called them for ideas and recommendations.
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The Homestudy
We began our homestudy with Lutheran Social
Services in January. We had a great social worker. Although the homestudy
process was a little scary, we were helped through it with the care of our
social worker. She came to our home two times. She was able to visit with
everyone except Joe. We had to gather material such as criminal record
checks and references. We put together a packet of information on our
family with pictures and our family story.
Iowa Lutheran Social Services is a partner agency
to Children’s Home and Family Society from Minneapolis. Since they have an
Ethiopian program, we ended up choosing them for the actual adoption.
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The Dossier
Once the homestudy was complete and sent with an
application to Children’s Home, we were ready to gather the material for
the dossier. The dossier is a collection of legal documents that have to
be signed and notarized. Laura had the job of gathering material, while
Steve made arrangements for notarizing them. We had to gather birth
certificates our marriage license another round of criminal record checks
as well as bank records etc. Laura found this section of the journey
difficult. It was hard to keep all of the items together, copied, in the
right place and organized. Steve stepped in quite a bit on this part!
There are a few things unique to the Ethiopian
dossier. We had to do a local criminal record check. We had Sioux County
do one, but we also needed to check the records in Boyden. We had to ask
the city administrator to write a letter stating that she had searched the
Boyden archives and didn’t find any criminal activity for Steven or Laura
or Paul or Joe. Because Paul and Joe are over 18, they had to be included
in all criminal record checks!
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I-171
Homeland Security must check the federal
criminal record as well. The homestudy and other documents must be sent
to the state Homeland Security Administration. We had some trouble with
this piece. Paul and Joe didn’t sign a document stating that they had
never been rejected as parents on the basis of a valid homestudy. (We
had already signed such as statement.) Since Paul and Joe were being
fingerprinted as well, they needed to sign such a statement too. It made
us laugh, since if they had done a homestudy on their own, we would hope
they would be rejected, since they are both single and somewhat low on
cash!
Eventually, we each received an appointment
with Homeland Security in Sioux Falls. We were each fingerprinted. Later
we went out for lunch at Chiles. It was a fun afternoon and we received
our I-171 clearance about a week later.
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