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You’d think since we’ve adopted before that we wouldn’t be daunted by our second paper chase, right? Wrong.
Korea’s process is drastically different than most other international programs because the family does not adopt in-country. Instead the trip is pretty much to just gain custody of the child. I guess, the U.S. agency actually gains custody even though the child is placed with the family. In any event, the family officially adopts in a U.S. court and after a minimum of 6 months. All this to say there is no dossier in Korean adoptions.
Ethiopia is more like what I understand the process to be in countries such as China and Russia. The family must submit a dossier to the country and that country’s court makes the final decision about whether to place a child with that family. For reasons you can probably imagine, all (or most) documents in a dossier have to notarized on a local level and then certified at a state level and again on a national level by the State Department. That means we even have to find a notary to go with us to witness our physician signing off on our medical form. Since we have 4 adults in the house, this can get pretty tricky and time consuming!
Until a couple weeks ago I had no idea you could hire mobile notaries…Google it. For documents that don’t require a mobile notary, check your bank. Ours notarizes documents for customers free of charge. Also, our agency recommends that the notary’s commission does not expire for at least 2 years at time of notarization.