Our Adoption Process

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. Ancient Chinese Belief
There is alot of paperwork involved in adopting a child! We had to prepare a packet of information which is called a dossier, these are all of the documents needed to send to China for review. In addition to immigration papers, we had to apply for passports, complete a homestudy, had physicals, and were fingerprinted. We had to have letters of reference from friends/neighbors and teachers. Then every document has to be notorized. We then took everything to the Office of the Great Seal in Lansing to be sealed with our state seal. After our papers were sealed we went straight to Kinkos in East Lansing and Fed Ex'd everything to a courier service in Chicago who specializes in Chinese adoptions and she took our papers to the Chinese Counselate in Chicago. We literally kissed all of our papers good bye! That was the last time we would see them! A red seal was put on each document and when they were finished our courier sent our dossier to our adoption agency in Jenison and we just made the May deadline! We learned that 13 other families had also made the May deadline. We were very relieved to have that part of the process behind us,although we didn't really encounter any problems, it would get frustrating waiting on people to approve certain documents, which would either hold or speed up the process. We would like to thank everyone who had a part in this stage with us, your letters were wonderful and we appreciate your promptness! Someday we will share our dossier with Myah and it will be a great keepsake for our family.