To Sing Frogs Chapter 3d

The U.S. half of a typical U.S. to Russia adoption dossier (Pronounced dah-see-ay). All documents (some up to six pages) would be translated and presented in an equally formal way to complete the dossier.

I pity the idiot who asks any stay-at-home-mother with four kids if she has a job. After removing a pair of six-inch scissors from his ear, I might double-dog dare the imbecile to say something about a dress making her look fat.

Amy spent every bit as much time working in the home as I did outside it. Above that, she was the one who drove the adoption forward.

For Russia, that meant a dossier with English and Russian translations. Dossier is a French word that translates to “a file containing paperwork about every freaking thing in the world.” The documents of the dossier (both originals and translations), all have to be individually appostiled. Appostile has Latin roots and it means, “redundant step in an already too complicated process intended to waste vast amounts of time and resources.”

“I have everything done but fingerprinting with the FBI,” Amy told me. “We have an appointment next Wednesday. You need to take the afternoon off.”

“Sure. No problem. Then what?”

“After that I Fed Ex everything to Russia for translation.”

“Then what?”

“The documents all come back here to be appostiled.”

“Then what?”

The scowl showed me she finally understood I was messing with her. “I hate when you do that. Maybe you need to stay home all day and talk to kids while I go to work.”

“No, no. I’m good. I’ll be good.”

Amy had been on a goose chase. The file was filled with things like police records, complete physicals, home studies, verifications of employment, verifications of income from multiple years, and history of jobs and schooling back to high school. Lastly there was proof of marriage and evidence for stability of the same (like any marriage could remain stable after an international adoption attempt).

After several weeks the dossier was back from Russia and Amy was headed in to have everything appostiled. That involves a full-blown gold-foil sticker placed on the paper then embossed with a paper imprint stamp. The procedure “proves” the embossing was applied to both the paper of the document and the gold foil at the same time. It’s kind of like an imprint from the Pope’s ring in sealing wax, but not as quaint. The reason for the appostile seal is to verify the notary. I had always thought there were steps in place to verify notaries before they got their stamps. Silly me.

“Dad. Dad. Dad. We go see seal tomorrow!” Jack was excited. He loved seals.

“Are they going to the zoo?” I asked Amy.

“No. We had a communication glitch. I told the boys that I needed to go to the Office of the Great Seal to get the appostiles done. Jack heard ‘seal’ and I haven’t been able to re-program him.” I laughed, barked like the marine animal, and awkwardly clapped my hands as if they were flippers. Jack giggled, mimicked my bark, and clapped his own hands. Amy rolled her eyes. I had just added another two days to reprogramming requirements.

I have to wonder what magnificent piece of state legislation was drafted to come up with such a lofty name for an office with an imprint stamp. I guess I shouldn’t complain. In Michigan, at that time, we were always able to show up on the spot and have each document stickered and stamped for the very reasonable rate of $1.00 per document.

I have heard California was charging $50.00 per document for appostiles, plus an outrageous expedite fee if applicants needed the procedure accomplished during their lifetimes. We would later learn that Utah had also realized the monopoly status of those who held the mighty power of appostiling. This lofty office in Utah was the Lieutenant Governor’s Office. They charged $25.00 per document for standard service and $65.00 for rush jobs. Compared to California, those fees might not sound bad. However, a dossier contains papers (and translations of those papers) about every freaking thing in the world. Even in Michigan—at a buck a pop—the cost of appostiles for the documents in a U.S. to Russia adoption dossier would be comparable to the gross national product of Peru.

In between gathering this multitude of documents, we continued our adoption education classes with Jane. She was a practical person and realized that some of the training didn’t apply to us. For instance, a lot of people that adopt have spent years waiting and trying to get children in other ways. Finally, after having thrown their hands up in frustration, they turn to adoption. Where we already had three biological children and one who was adopted, Jane allowed us to “CLEP” certain parts of the instruction.

“The book says adopting parents need to be aware that their lifestyle will dramatically change when a child comes into their home,” Jane stated, just before looking at me and rolling her eyes. “Any questions?”

“Does that mean we’re going to have to cut back on our spontaneous outings together?” I asked while drooping. “Cause cutting back from never is going to take some effort.”

Jane grinned and tossed the comb-bound book onto the table. That meant we got bonus time. The rest of the meeting was spent in relaxed conversation gathering real information from Jane about her adoption experience; a life adventure we soon hoped to have in common.