The Paper Chase - Consulate Certificate

I-800A Approval Letter

One of the extra steps in Chinese adoption is the certification of the paperwork by the Chinese consulate.  This step happens after all the documents have been authenticated by the Secretary of State in your state.  As we posted earlier, we had submitted all our documents for authentication except the I-800A approval.  Well, on 12/12/15, we received a letter from USCIS telling us our I-800A had been approved.  It didn't seem like a very official looking document so we sent it to our coordinator at Great Wall to verify.  It turns out that it was the right document so we needed to write a notarial statement saying the document was truthful and then have a notary sign that.  Then the Secretary of State authenticates that document and then we sent it to the Chinese consulate for certification.  On Tuesday, 12/15, I took the documents to the Secretary of State and paid the rush fee for certification.  Surprisingly, the lady in the office said she'd have it done within 2 hours.  Wow - that's better than the advertised 1-2 business days! 

And it turns out that was a good thing.  As I researched the next step of certification with the Chinese consulate, which is in Chicago, I started to see a potential delay.  Paperwork to the consulate must be hand delivered.  So that means a trip to Chicago or working through a courier service.  The courier service recommended, There's Always Hope, is efficient and reasonably priced and it was a no brainer decision to pay the courier fee rather than 2 round trips to downtown Chicago.  However, she is traveling to Haiti from Dec. 28 - January 6.  And it takes 4 business days for the consulate to certify the paperwork.  So, if we sent the documents overnight, they would arrive on 12/16, but would probably not get to the consulate until 12/17.  That would get the documents back on 12/23 or at the latest 12/24.  So there was no time to waste.

I took off the afternoon of the 12/16 to prepare the paperwork for overnight delivery.  As I was double checking all the paperwork and making photocopies, I found another potential problem.  On two of our letters, the date of the letter was different than that of the date we signed in front of the notary.  We called our adoption coordinator to see if it would be a problem.  If we sent the paperwork to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, it would be rejected.  However, if we sent it to the Chinese Consulate in Washington, DC, it would be ok.  However, before the paperwork could be certificated at the DC consulate, it would have to be authenticated by the State Department.  So I spent some time researching DC couriers, the fees involved and the timeline for document approval since we would have an additional step.

In the end, I figured we would be better off sending our documents to the Chicago courier in two batches.  One batch to be processed normally and the two letters to be processed as "expedited", or two day processing.  So we sent our first batch of paperwork on 12/15.  Then on 12/16 we reprinted the letters, found a notary to get them signed.  Then I went back to the Secretary of State to drop off the paperwork.  That afternoon I went to pick up the documents, put them in an envelope and mailed them to the courier.

As it turns out, all the documents arrived in time for her to make the delivery on 12/17 so they were all processed as one batch with regular processing and should be ready by 12/24 - our Christmas present!