Adoption Stories: Citizenship Has Its Privileges
This post won’t be so much advice (not all of them are advice, just my personal experience of the adoption process) but a bit of a rant.
Since we adopted internationally, a lot of the work we had to do involved the INS - now USCIS. There are parts where we have to prepare paperwork to bring an orphan into the country and have her become a citizen, and parts have to do with our family going out of the country.
I don’t remember specifically which part of the process this was, but it was long before we traveled. We needed to visit the USCIS office to get lots of identification - fingerprints, thumbprints, palm prints, etc. done.
Now, I tend to reveal my politics a bit on this blog. I don’t like the idea of giving benefits to illegal aliens who aren’t paying into the tax base. But this is different. Folks who are illegal aliens and intend to stay that way generally don’t visit the USCIS offices. They tend to stay beneath the radar.
I have a great deal of respect for a person who can’t sufficiently provide for or care for their own family in their own country, so they decide to go to another country. I have a lot of respect for those who work to save up to move their families here if they choose to play by the rules - to get the right permits, to begin the process of becoming citizens. Part of the great diversity of our country is the folks who came over on boats and went through all the hoops necessary to become citizens.
When we arrived at the USCIS offices for our appointment, the office was filled with many, many, many people who would be waiting in line for most of the day for a piece of paperwork to fill out to become legal. We were also warned to get to the offices as soon as they opened because we would be in queue for several hours. K had to go with us as well (she was 4 at the time), and so we came well prepared to spend several hours at the USCIS offices.
We never sat down in the waiting room. We checked in at the front desk, explained what we were there for, and were immediately whisked past all the hundreds of waiting people straight to the task for which we came. We were given some sort of priority, either because our task was different from what everybody else was there for, or we were different from the folks who were there.
That frustrated me. Somehow we were chosen to be more important than people who were trying to make a legitimate living for their family. I’m glad we didn’t have to sit on queue for several hours. I just feel bad for those who chose to play by the rules who did have to sit on queue for several hours.
Adoption Stories: Don’t Change Anything
I had promised long ago that I would start posting some stories from the adoption, more from a man’s perspective.
Guys. If you’re going to adopt (I really do recommend it), the first tip I can give you is don’t change anything. For at least two years prior to the adoption, don’t change a thing, including:
- Don’t buy a house
- Don’t buy a car
- Don’t buy a boat
- Don’t have another child (although this often happens during the adoption process)
- Don’t get a raise
- Don’t change jobs
- Don’t get a new credit card
- Don’t paint your house
- Don’t get arrested
- Don’t get a traffic ticket
- Don’t pick up a second job
- Don’t refinance your house
- Don’t pay off a credit card
- Don’t change cell phone providers
- Don’t get a cavity
- Don’t get sick (unless you’re already sick, in which case you should stay that way until the adoption is finalized)
I’m almost tempted to say not to even buy a lawnmower. Your job for the two years prior to the adoption, aside from being supportive to your wife (and meeting her at whatever notary she’s at today) is to not change a thing.
You can change your shorts, but that’s about it.
Why is this? During the adoption process, you fill out 12 inches (yes - Mrs. At Home has a notebook of our copies of the stuff, and it’s 6 inches thick) of paperwork including information about your credit profile, home, criminal history, employment, salary, and dental history. You fill this information out long before the adoption.
And then something will change.
And then you’ll get a new piece of paper asking for the same information that you have already provided on a different piece of paper, except the form’s name will be different (one will be something like “Dental History” and then the new one will be called “History of Dentistry”). If any of the responses on the new form are different from the way they were 2 years prior, you’ll have to fill out a third form (something like “Explanation of Discrepancy Between Form Dental History and Form History of Dentistry”. This won’t happen until after all your other paperwork has been notarized and your notarizations have been notarized. So you’ll have to get the form “Explanation of Discrepancy Between Form Dental History and Form History of Dentistry” notarized, and then you’ll have to go to the courthouse of whatever county that notary lives in and have the notarization notarized. This will have to be FedExed to Washington D.C. Post-Haste Dispatch (which will cost you another bunch of money).
So I promise you - you should not change anything during the adoption process.
