Steps to China

There were many steps we had to take before we could send our paperwork to China and travel to adopt Maytal. The steps involved many people and agencies. We had to communicate with our adoption agency, our homestudy agency, the social worker assigned to us, our doctors, the INS and other parts of the United States Government (State and Federal) and, most importantly, the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs.

We found that each step can have it's delays and/or particular problems. It's helped us to keep our minds on the reason for it all...our pumpkin Maytal.

This page roughly explains some of the steps necessary to adopt from China. If you are contemplating adopting from China yourself and need more detailed information, or if you are just more curious about the documents and paperwork (commonly called the "paper chase"), click on the link below to go to an informative, detailed site.

The Paper Chase

The Steps:

*Choose an adoption agency (Our choice: Brightside)

*Choose a homestudy agency (We chose the JCCA of New York.)

*Obtain INS approval (Got it! April 27, 2002)

*Complete background checks, medical exams, get references and complete the visits for the homestudy (Our homestudy is completed! See the homestudy page for details!)

*Compile the papers for the dossier, have them notarized and authenticated, create our photo pages and get everything approved by the adoption agency so they can send it all to China (Done! Officially logged in by the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs on June 5, 2002)

*Prepare while we wait for a referral and permission to travel! (We got our referral July 8, 2003, 13 months and 3 days after our paperwork was logged into China. Might have been sooner...but no one anticipated SARS! We have sent in our acceptance and we're now waiting on travel permission. We should be traveling in about 6-8 weeks!)

*Travel to adopt our baby and bring her home! (WE'RE HOME!!!!!)

More questions? You can always send us e-mail!