Certifications

We are going through China and this is what we had to do for each document... 1) notarized by a notary whose commision is good for at least another full calendar year (this sounds weird but it was actually a problem for us) 2) the notary must be certified by the clerk of the courts for the county in which they live, not the county where the document was notarized (also caused a little bit of running around!) 3) take the notarized, certified documents to Annapolis to have the Great Seal placed on them. Note: a different seal may be used depending on which country the documents are being sent to so it is essential that you specify. 4) have the documents sent to the Chinese Embassy which serves the state of origin. We had to go to 3 Chinese Embassys. While most of our documents are from Maryland so we were able to easily access the Embassy in DC, we also had to use two others because of the states in which my dh and I were born (for our birth certificates) Our agency did this final step for us, so unfortunately I am probably not able to answer your question :( I was getting very frustrated towards the end. It is not that it was difficult or even that time consuming but it just starting feeling like each step, each hoop we had to jump through was a little bit of a punishment for not being able to have bio. children. Probably a little over dramatic, and I'm way over it by now, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to get that dossier done and in the mail and having each document verified over and over again seemed a bit ridiculous. oh-well, consider this your "labor" :o