A Day with the Government

On Wednesday, June 30th, Julie and I made a trip to Indianapolis to get some of our paperwork state sealed and to be fingerprinted with the Department of Homeland Security as part of the I-600A process for our Dossier. We had been given an appointment date and time for July 12th, but are unable to make that date, so we thought that we would try our luck at walking in without an appointment. All of the documentation states that you have to have an appointment, but we have heard stories about people just walking in without a problem. So, we figured it was worth a try...and how bad could it be? We planned for a long day of red tape and getting the run-around.

We drove right to the building and went to the 4th floor of the building. As we stepped off of the elevator, we were immediately greeted by a guard who asked us to remove everything from our pockets and walk through a metal detector (very similar to airport security). He then gave us a form to fill out and told us to give our paperwork to the lady that had just walked into the waiting room. She then took our paperwork and about 5 minutes later, another lady came out and called our names. We were escorted back into a room with a handful of other foreign people needing fingerprinted for their green cards. Within 10 minutes we were on our way back down the elevator. Task #1 complete! We needed one of those "That Was Easy" buttons.

We then headed to the capital building to find the Secretary of State's office. We found a parking spot and headed into the rather large building located it the heart of Indianapolis. Once we found the Secretary of State's office, we explained to the person at the counter what we needed, and within 15 minutes we were done. Wow...how much more easier could the day have gone?!?! What we were anticipating as a stressful day, turned into a pleasant, productive day.

Now that we have completed the fingerprinting process, we are waiting for our I-171H to be mailed to us. That form along with a few other miscellaneous forms will need to be notarized and state sealed and then we should be ready to turn in our dossier! This will be a major step accomplished with the next step actually receiving a referral. The referral is all of the medical information, family history and photographs of the child that we are matched with by the adoption agency. The referral process usually takes 6-12 months. Ugh!! More waiting.