The kids and I did a happy dance. See that big gold seal on the first one? That is the apostille and it is the goal for 30-some more documents. Yes, that is 3o-some more to go, but it sure feels good to have the first three completed.
Don't know what an apostille is? Here's a definition from wikipedia:
Apostille is also a French word which means a certification. It is commonly used in English to refer to the legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. Documents which have been notarized by a notary public, and certain other documents, and then certified with a conformant apostille are accepted for legal use in all the nations that have signed the Hague Convention.
It is a new process for adoptions between countries that are parties to the Hague Convention (which both Armenia and America are). It actually simplifies the document authentication process quite a bit compared to the process between non-Hague countries; however, because it is new everyone is dealing with a learning curve (adoption agencies, homestudy social workers, USCIS offices, etc.).
We also recieved our draft of our homestudy (it was a banner mail day around here)! Wow - we sound so good on paper. :) Seriously, our social worker did such a wonderful job crafting a glimpse of our family life, marriage, and personalities. And truly, she did make us sound like super star parents! All I can say is, we love each other, love our kids and do our best.
So, we are officially approved to adopt 1-2 children ages newborn to 4 years old from Armenia. Of course, these are just the absolute outside parameters, we are still looking for one baby under a year (or a toddler).
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