Authentication Process

The authentication process is the last step before we send our documents to China. In TN it kind of sucks because we have additional steps, but the basic flow of it is for us to package up our:

Adoption Petition(Hey, We want to adopt!)
Birth and Marriage Certificates
Employment Verifications
Financial Status Report
Physical Exams
Police Clearance Report
I-171H(The thing from the US Gov saying we can adopt)
Child Services Home Study

Then we need to get all these items notarized, and since we happen to have some things done in Fayette county where we live, and most other things in Shelby county, where we work, this is even worse. I have to get the things notarized in Shelby county certified by the Shelby county clerk, and then the same for the Fayette county side. After everything has been certified by county clerks, then we package it all together and send it to the Tennessee Secretary of State, to certify that the county clerks are indeed.....county clerks. There are obviously alot of notary/county clerk impersonators I was unaware of.

After the Sec of State certifies that, we send all of that paperwork to the US Department of State. I wish I had paid attention in that school trip we took to Nashville and I might actually know what some of these people do. The Dep of State certifies the state sealed docs are legit as the final check before we send it to:

The Chinese Consulate in D.C. for the final signature. This is the critical step. Up until now, nobody is actually looking at what is on the paperwork, just looking for the previous person's stamp. At the embassy they will be going over each document to check and make sure we have in fact met all the requirements for the adoption. This is where we may run into issues. We didn't update our bloodwork on our physicals to be less than 6 months old. Mainly because I hate needles, but also because insurance wouldn't pay for it, and the AIDS/Hep tests are kind of expensive. The physical itself has an updated date on it, and our adoption agency says that they have seen it go both ways where A: The embassy sends it back and says "Get this updated" or B: "Everything looks great, way to go Americans!" That is our main concern, but there are also all the other docs that could potentially be 'too old' or have typos, or missing a stamp, or even a wrinkled or smudged document. If anything is sent back, we will have to get it corrected, and then go through all the certification process again for that particular document, and try to make sure that nothing else is going to expire in that same time.

Right now we have all the Fayette county docs notarized, but the stupid county clerk lady left "early" yesterday so we didn't get the certification from her. I now don't like her, and if that is a job that you get elected into, I will not vote for her, take THAT. We need to find a Shelby county person to notarize our other docs and then one of us will go to see the Shelby county clerk person. After that I'll just be FedEx shipping everything around, least we get an awesome discount. We have begun the nickle and dime you to death section of the process now as well. After the notary portion, every document stamp is about $5 bucks, not a big deal, but we have 13 docs, and 5 stops, not to mention the FedEx bill, :)

We have never done anything this complicated in our lives. School, college, wedding, a bio-baby, nothing has prepared us for the amount and level of work this involves.