Our home study
has been completed and sent to our agency’s Albania team for approval, which we
will hopefully receive within in the next week and a half. Rob and I are so
happy and relieved to have this portion of the journey behind us, and now we
are looking ahead to our dossier. Dossier is a term that refers to a set
of appropriately authenticated and translated legal documents which are used in
international adoption cases to process the adoption of a child in its own
country by the adoptive parents. Each
country has different requirements for the dossier, and Albania is no
different. Our agency has the list of
documents required for Albania’s dossier on their website so Rob and I know
what is needed. I am happy to report that
the list of documents needed for the Albania dossier is somewhat smaller than
the list on the Bulgaria dossier that was required for our son’s adoption.
People often
ask me about the difference between the home study and the dossier, and I try
to put my answer in the easiest of terms.
The home study can be thought of as the United States’ requirements for
the adoption, and the dossier is the Albanian requirements for the adoption. This is actually one of the easiest questions
in regard to our adoption for me to answer, but I must admit that people’s eyes
usually glaze over when I start talking about it, particularly if I mention
that all the documents included in the dossier must be certified, notarized and
apostilled. Most people know what it
means to have a document certified and notarized, but there are not many
people, unless you have gone through an international adoption, who know what it means
to have a document apostilled. An apostille is basically another measure of
certifying the authenticity of a document, and this type of certification is
usually done on the state level at the secretary of state’s office. For this Albanian dossier, Rob and I will
have to collect several documents like certified copies of our birth
certificates and our marriage license and then we will have to have them
apostilled at the secretary of state’s office for further proof to Albania that
these documents are authentic.
What are
some other questions that I have been asked in regard to this adoption? Well,
believe it or not, one that comes up frequently is, “Where is Albania?” Albania
is a country in Southeastern Europe that is bordered by Montenegro to
the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, Macedonia to the east, and Greece to
the south and southeast.
“What language do
they speak in Albania?” is usually the next question that I get. Albanian is the language that is spoken in
Albania and also parts of Kosovo and the southern Balkans. Julia and I are currently learning Albanian
using a Youtube channel and an Albanian language app on my
tablet. I think Rob is hoping that I am going to be his translator as he has
not been studying the language as much as Julia and I have. As Julia and I progress in our studies of the
language, we plan to move on to the Pimsleur course, because sadly there is no
Rosetta stone for Albanian. We
definitely want to be as prepared as possible in the language department
because we want to communicate with Lucy and others at the orphanage. But,
we also want to be able to grocery shop and go out to dinner or hail a
cab. All of these things will require at
least a beginner’s knowledge of the language.
In addition, we have learned from other families that have gone to Albania
that it is difficult sometime to find people who speak English and our
translator will not be with us most of the time. This is a complete change from Bulgaria. On our first trip to Bulgaria, our translator
was with us every day, and on our second trip to Bulgaria, we were mostly in
Sofia, the capitol city, where we could easily find someone that could speak
English. I am actually looking forward
to testing out my language skills and immersing myself in the Albanian
culture. I want to soak it all up for
myself and for Lucy. I want to help her
keep her culture alive and an important part of who she is.
The next question that I usually hear is “How long do you
have to be there [Albania]?” This one is a little harder to answer, which is
usually not the answer that the person asking the question wants to hear, but
it is the truth. Rob and I have to be in
Albania for a mandatory 15 days prior to court to bond with our daughter. After
the initial bonding period, we will have our three court appointments, which we
hope will all be done within a span of two weeks. At the final court appointment, the judge
will declare that Lucy is legally ours, however, we will be unable to take her
home at that point. Albania has a two week waiting period after court in which
we can still visit Lucy at the orphanage, but we cannot take her for an
overnight visit to our hotel. At the end
of the two week waiting period, Lucy will be allowed to leave the orphanage
with us, her parents, and at this time, we will begin the process of getting
her new birth certificate, her visa and her passport. All of these things
should take another week. If you have
been keeping up, this time frame totals about six to seven weeks. Of course, this is another reason that we
need to work on our Albanian language skills…because we will be there the better
part of two months!
Believe it or not, I actually enjoy answering all of these
questions and more about our adoption.
The discussion gives me a platform for something that is so close to my
heart and for something that I am so amazingly passionate about.
