Thursday, January 8, 2009

Apostilles arrived!

Today I received the notarized and apostilled birth and marriage certificates from California. For those who don't know, an apostille is a statement attached to a document verifing that the notary is a licensed and is official in that state. All of our documents going to Liberia will need a notary stamp as well as an apostille.

Our documents come from all over the country and half way around the world. Thankfully I was informed to start ordering these documents early. I sent Andrew's to England before Thanksgiving. I then had to send two of our children's certificates to Washington State, four to California as well as my birth certificate, our marriage certificate and Andrew's naturalization certificate to California.

Today I received the last of the certificates from outside Georgia. I will now need to get all the paperwork we have...physicals, financial documents, employment verification, and reference letters notarized and taken to Atlanta to be apostilled.

We are waiting for an appointment with the Immigration Services to get our fingerprints taken. After that we should receive the approval of our I600a, petition to adopt internationally. This and our other documents will be sent on to Liberia in what is called a dossier.

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