The Marathon of Paperwork

I think you could say that adoption paperwork is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Here is what we have left to complete:

• Green card/permanent resident card: This is something that we really should have by now. After calling many times, I was f.i.n.a.l.l.y. able to talk to a live person about this at USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services). The agent I spoke to said that at the slowest times of the year, it should only take 2 months to receive the green card. (we've been waiting almost 5 months) He put in some type of special request and said that we should have Beau's green card by December 29th. If it has not arrived by then, he gave me a number to call the USCIS headquarters in Washington, D.C. to see what they can do to help. Our paperwork has always taken the "slow route" at USCIS, so I'm not really surprised that this is taking so long. As a last resort, I can always contact our GA Senator, Johnny Isakson, if we do not have Beau's card in early 2012.


• Birth Certificate: This was applied for the day of finalization. Hopefully we will have it within a month. We ordered 10 official copies.


• Passport: Once Beau's green card arrives, we will apply for his passport. Although we are not planning to travel out of the country any time soon, lots of adoptive moms recommend getting the passport because it makes getting the social security card easier.


• Social Security Card: After we receive Beau's passport, we will apply for his social security card. We could have already gotten this, but it would have been in Beau's Korean name and so we would have to make an extra trip to have the name changed. We opted to wait and get the social security card in Beau's new name.


• Post-placement visits: Our agency recently increased the required number of post-placement visits from 3 to 4. We have completed the first 2, so we have 2 more visits. One takes place at 6 months home and the last visit is at 12 months home. Basically our social worker will just come to our home and write a report about sweet Beau!


• Certificate of Citizenship: Finally, we will apply for Beau's certificate of citizenship. This document is not absolutely mandatory, but we plan to get it for Beau just so there are never any problems as he grows up and needs to prove his citizenship. He is already a citizen today, based on our finalization earlier this week, so getting this extra document is really just to make sure we cover all of our bases. It is somewhat expensive at $550, but it is worth it.

So...we still have a bit of paperwork to take care of, but we would do it a million times over to have baby Beau home!

Fellow adoptive moms, please correct me if I have left out anything or explained anything incorrectly. :)

This was a very boring post, so I will leave you with a few pictures! Sorry they are blurry.