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Three main
areas for you in the beginning
of your Chinese adoption process |
Selecting your adoption
agency and your dossier
You
MUST use a licensed,
not-for-profit agency for a
China adoption. Adoption through
a lawyer or facilitator
(unlicensed adoption provider),
or independent adoption, is not
allowed. You may use a placement
agency located anywhere in the
U.S., as long as your homestudy
is done by an agency in your
state.
Your agency will give you a list
of documents, besides the
171-H/797-C that must go into
your dossier. Among the
requested documents will be your
birth and marriage certificates,
any divorce decrees, a medical
form completed by your doctor, a
letter from your employer
verifying employment and salary,
a financial statement showing
your assets and liabilities,
your homestudy report, a letter
to the Chinese government
explaining why you want a
Chinese child, and so on.
Once you have all the documents
in hand, you will have them
notarized, certified, and
authenticated, per the agency's
instructions. The process
is a little tricky, and must be
done exactly right. In
Kentucky each dossier document
needs to be notarized, county
certified, state certified,
certified in Washington DC at
the State Department, then
sealed by the Chinese Embassy.
Your adoption agency will help
you know what is needed for your
area.
Once your dossier is complete
and has been through the
validation process, your agency
will send it to the CCAA, China
Center for Adoption Affairs in
Beijing, an arm of the Chinese
government, along with the
dossiers of other families who
become paper-ready at the same
time. The date on which your
dossier is sent becomes your "DTC"
(dossier to China), an
abbreviation you will see
frequently.
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Your
homestudy
First, you have a homestudy.
China requires you to use a
licensed, not-for-profit agency
for it. You cannot use an
independent social worker. If
you have a homestudy done for
domestic adoption or adoption
from another country, it will
need to be changed significantly
to address the requirements of
China or (if it is for domestic
adoption) the requirements of
the USCIS. China wants the
social workers to take lots of
time, both to determine a
family's eligibility and to
prepare the family for the
challenges of raising an
internationally adopted child.
After your documents for your
homestudy are turned in and
you've had the needed interviews
and visits with your social
worker, the home study will be
written up.
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Submit I-600A to CIS
You will also need to file the
the I-600A form with the USCIS
office serving your area. You
can download this form from the
USCIS website. Basically, the
I-600A helps the USCIS to
determine whether you are
eligible to bring an orphan to
the U.S. It doesn't want to see
someone bring a child to the
U.S. for illegal or immoral
purposes, or to go onto public
assistance.
The I-600A has to be filed with
a number of documents, including
your homestudy report. Most
USCIS offices want the report
filed at the same time as the
I-600A. However, there are some
offices that let you submit the
I-600A without the report, if
you are still in the midst of
your homestudy, and to send it
along later.
Once
the USCIS receives your I-600A
and homestudy report, it will
send you an appointment for
fingerprinting for an FBI
criminal records check. You will
have to go to the facility
indicated by the USCIS. You can
no longer get the fingerprinting
done at a local police station
or private company. If you were
fingerprinted by the police for
your homestudy, as some states
require, these prints will NOT
suffice.
Once the USCIS reviews your
I-600A with the homestudy report
and other attachments, and
reviews the results of the FBI
criminal records check, it is
likely to determine that you are
eligible to bring an orphan to
the U.S. In this case, it will
send you one of two forms -- the
171-H or the 797-C. (Some USCIS
offices use the 171-H, and
others have switched to the
newer 797-C.) This form tells
you that you are approved.
When the USCIS sends you the
171-H or 797-C, it will also
send a cable to the U.S.
Consulate at Guangzhou, telling
it of your approval. As a
result, when you ultimately
adopt a Chinese child and go to
the Consulate to get a visa for
him/her, the Consulate will be
able to focus primarily on your
child's eligibility to enter the
U.S.
The 171-H or 797-C will
ultimately become part of your
"dossier", required by China. A
dossier is merely a collection
of documents about you. These
documents must be notarized,
certified, and authenticated in
a complex way, which your agency
will explain to you.
Your adoption agency can guide
you through this process.
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At some point about two weeks after DTC,
China will officially log your dossier
into its system. Your "LID" (log-in
date) will determine when you will get a
referral. China processes dossiers in
chronological order, and all of the
people who were logged in before you
must get their referrals before you can
be matched.
Once your dossier is logged in, you get
to wait and prepare for your child to
come home. One very good thing to do
during your wait is to get to know the
other families whose dossiers were sent
to China with yours. In most cases, you
will all get referrals at the same time,
and then travel together to complete
your adoptions. When you are in a
foreign country, parenting a brand new
child, it's good to know that you are
among friends.
When your dossier is at the head of the
line, the CCAA will review your dossier
for completeness and in order to
determine that you meet the country's
requirements for adoptive parents. Then,
it will match you with a child.
Basically, what happens during matching
is that, just as there is a queue
composed of agency groups of parent
dossiers, there is also a queue composed
of orphanage groups of child dossiers.
These dossiers are also processed in
chronological order. You and the other
people in your group will generally be
matched with the children in the next
available orphanage group of child
dossiers.
The CCAA considers any child under age
two to be an infant, and puts all
infants in an orphanage group into the
same pool for matching. Whether your
homestudy and your letter to China
requested an infant or a young toddler,
you could potentially be referred a
child who is anywhere from 6 months to
24 months old. A lot will depend on the
ages of the children in the orphanage
group to be matched with your agency
group. When the CCAA does the
matching, it may take into consideration
the age of child you requested, as well
as your age, your interests, the child's
interests and temperament, your
appearance, your child's appearance, and
so on. The good news is that the CCAA
does an excellent job of matching, and
most families will tell you that they
"have the child they were meant to get."
Once your dossier group has been
matched, the CCAA will send information
on each referral to your agency and they
will pass this information on to you
right away. The information sent to you
will usually include the name of your
child, his/her location in China, a
brief medical report, a brief report on
things like his/her interests and
development, and one or two small
photos. You will have a few days to
review the information and consider
whether to accept the referral. Some
choose to send the medical report to
their pediatrician and/or to an adoption
medicine specialist for review, just to
make sure that there are no obvious
medical issues that they cannot handle.
Most parents wind up accepting their
referrals. However, some people do feel
obliged to decline their referrals. If
you decline a referral for a good reason
-- usually because an adoption medicine
specialist finds that the CCAA made a
mistake and failed to note that a child
had obvious special needs -- you will
get a new referral immediately. However,
if you decline a referral because the
child "isn't cute", the picture "doesn't
resonate" with you, the child is "too
dark", or the child is a few months
older or younger than you requested, you
will generally NOT get another referral.
The CCAA believes that it is finding
homes for children in need -- not
providing "designer babies" for
families.
When you accept your referral, you will
sign an acceptance form and return it to
your agency, who will send it on to
China.
At this point, both China and your
agency will begin making preparations
for your travel. China will contact the
province where the child is living, to
determine that the child is still
healthy enough to be adopted. It will
also check that there will be no big
trade shows or conventions that will
fill up the hotels at the time you
travel, that the provincial officials
who do the finalization will be in town,
etc.
And your agency will begin working with
your group on travel plans, although it
can't make them "set in stone" until
your group receives formal authorization
to travel. As an example, the U.S.
Consulate in Guangzhou will not issue
visa appointments to travel groups until
it sees the official authorization to
travel that the CCAA sends out.
About one to two months after you get
your referral, you will receive formal
authorization to travel. Your agency
will quickly finalize travel plans,
including making your Consulate
appointment.
Agencies vary in how they handle travel.
In most cases, however, the agencies
will make all your in-China travel
arrangements, such as flights between
your child's city and Guangzhou, your
hotel reservations, etc., but will allow
YOU to get TO China however you wish.
The agency may have access to discounts
on airfares, so be sure to ask.
You will generally travel very quickly
once you get authorization to do so. The
China trip is generally 10 to 14 days,
although it appears that people whose
children are living in Guangzhou may
soon face about a week extra in China,
as the Guangzhou officials feel that
they need extra time to process
paperwork. You will travel with your
group, you will stay in some of the best
hotels in China, and you will have a
guide-translator who will help make your
trip as smooth as possible. Some
people choose to take a few days to
"rest up" in a gateway city such as Hong
Kong or Beijing, before going in to
their child's province. Jet lag is very
real, and more than missing a night or
two of sleep.
At some point, you will go to your
child's province. In general, families
stay in their child's city if it has
good accommodations; otherwise, they
stay in the provincial capital. If you
haven't actually traveled with your
group members, you will meet them there
on a date set by your agency.
Meeting Your Child (Gotcha Day)
Your group will generally meet your
children the day you arrive or, if it is
a weekend or holiday, the following day.
In some cases, if the orphanage isn't
far away, your guide will take your
group there for the meeting. In other
cases, the children will be brought to a
room in your hotel or to a government
office, where you will meet them.
Your child will be placed into your arms
by a nanny. Once your child is placed
into your arms, you will have him/her
with you for the rest of your stay in
China! The nanny may or may not tell you
about your child's diet, sleep habits,
etc. You will probably give some small
gifts to the caregivers, present the
mandatory orphanage contribution, and
leave with your child. It will all seem
very sudden!
Your group will then finalize your
adoptions, usually the day you meet your
children or the next business day. The
process is not a judicial one; you don't
go to court. You will generally go with
your guide to a government office, where
a group of officials will interview each
family briefly, in the hearing of
everyone else. Basically, the interview
is a formality, since the CCAA already
approved you, but the officials like to
be sure that everyone in your group will
be a good parent.
Once the interview is over, you will
usually be asked to promise that you
will never abandon your child. Then, you
will sign some paperwork, which your
guide will explain to you.
You will have to wait 5-7 days for your
child's official paperwork -- birth
certificate, adoption decree,
abandonment certificate, and Chinese
passport -- to be prepared. During this
time, your group will generally tour
your child's city, together with your
guide and your children. You will also
spend time bonding with your child and
getting him/her on a decent sleep/nap
schedule.
The Chinese people LOVE Americans and
generally support international
adoption. Be prepared for people to
smile when they see you with your baby,
give you a "thumbs up" sign, and/or say
"Lucky Baby!" You are unlikely to
encounter hostility, even if you go out
without your guide. You may encounter
little old ladies who tell you that your
child isn't dressed warmly enough, since
Chinese people traditionally have
believed that babies should be bundled
up, even in hot weather. Carry a blanket
to toss over your child's legs, and
smile at these people whom China parents
affectionately call the "clothing
police". They mean well, and simply
figure that you are a first time parent
who hasn't a clue about caring for a
baby.
Once you receive your child's paperwork,
your group will leave your child's
province and go to Guangzhou, in
Guangdong province. While many, many
adoption travelers stay at the famous
White Swan Hotel -- so many that it is
often nicknamed the White Stork -- you
may well be booked at another one, such
as the Marriott China Hotel or the
Victory.
In Guangzhou, you will get your child's
visa photo taken. You will also go with
your group to a clinic designated by the
Consulate, to have a very cursory visa
medical examination of your child. This
exam is designed to determine whether
your child has any major special needs
that for which you are not approved in
your homestudy report -- such as
deafness -- and whether he/she has any
serious contagious diseases that might
pose a risk to U.S. citizens if he/she
was allowed to come into the country.
Once you have the visa medical report
and the visa photos, you will go to your
Consulate appointment, usually a day or
so after you arrive in Guangzhou.
(Remember that Americans MUST use the
Consulate in Guangzhou for the
children's visas. They cannot obtain
adoption visas at the U.S. Embassy in
Beijing or at any other U.S. Consulate
in China.)
At the Consulate, you will present the
paperwork on your child that you got in
his/her province, plus the medical
report and other documents such as the
I-600 (companion piece to the I-600A
filed earlier).
If everything is in order, you will be
told to come back the next day after
three p.m., to pick up your child's
visa. Once you have done so, you are
ready to leave China for the U.S. with
your child.
The trip home is interesting. After all,
it involves going halfway around the
world with a child who is likely to be
scared, sick, etc. You will soon settle
in to parenthood.
While there will still be some things
you must do once you are home, such as
getting your child a Social Security
number and, possibly, readopting
him/her, the hardest part of the process
is over. Now, you will just have to look
forward to all the milestones your child
will achieve.
Sound overwhelming?
Your adoption agency will help you each
step of the way! One good thing
about the adoption process taking a long
time, is that you have plenty of time to
take care of the details one at a time. |
