Sunday, August 27, 2006

On Our Way

We FINALLY received our home study packet yesterday. Yeah! I quickly flipped through it as soon as I got in my hot little hands and it didn't reveal any surprises, thankfully. Z-Man's parents left this afternoon and he left just after them for a business trip, so I finally had some time to really go through it all tonight after the girls where in bed.

Here is the Checklist

~Background Check fingerprinting cards x 2
~Child abuse clearance check x 2
~Health Report x 2
~Financial Statement
~Verification of Employment x 2
~References; 5 non related and 2 related
~Biographies x 2

and copies of
~Birth certificates for all family members
~Marriage certificate
~2 years Tax returns


Nothing listed here has to be notarized or anything! I'm kinda shocked that this is all they need for this step and I'm starting to wonder if we are going to spend a lot of time redoing these things later and more formally for the dossier. Like the medical form that doesn’t need to be notarized and just basically says yup, I think so-and-so is healthy, sane, and will most likely live a long time. I'm guessing that this won't cover the medical form that has to be included in the dossier. I'd just hate to have to do the stupid doctor thing twice!!

For those of you who have been through the home study process, is this similar to your home study paperwork?




5 comments:

Maggie said...

I only had to get three references (none from relatives) so that's a bit different. But I think your requirement is better. I never understood why they didn't want a letter from family as well. It seems like they'd want a letter showing support from at least one family member.

Other than that, everything looks pretty status quo to me. :-)

Anonymous said...

It seems we did end up getting a lot of things re-done. But it really did not take long at all. I think the biggest thing was for our homestudy everything was addressed to our homestudy agency (at the top of the paper) so we had to get ones addressed 'to whom it may concern' for the dossier, and then get everything notarized. It was sort of a pain, but it really didn't take that long...

Dawn said...

Sounds pretty similar to ours for Kaz. We did have to get both friends and family to write letters. You're on your way!

Anonymous said...

Yep you are going to have to do that stupid doctor thing twice. So frustrating. See if your agency will send you the doctor approval form you will need for your dossier, that way you will only have to go to the doctor once. BUT you will need a notary to witness your doctor's signature for the dossier form.

When I got around to the dossier stage I just sent the form to my doctor asking her to sign it and get it notarized, which fortunately she did, so it is not essential to have the dossier form right now. I just thought when I was going through the dossier phase is that it sure would have been nice to know about the dossier requirements and get them done at the same time.

Anonymous said...

The other thing besides the doctor form that was a repeat for the dossier was the reference letters. They had to be addressed a certain way and sent directly to the agency. I just took the references I had (my friends had sent me copies of what they had sent) and re-did the specific to whom it may concern stuff and sent them back to my friends with stamped, addresseed envelopes. That way they didn't have to redo everthing themselves. All they had to do was sign and pop it in the mail.

My advice is get your "ask" out for your references right away, because people are busy and want to do a good job. That way while they are working on your references you can be getting the other paperwork done and you will not be held up.