Dossier Day

This past Wednesday was a day our family has waited 6 months for. It was Dossier Day. The unofficial holiday, which we have worked so hard to reach. Since the day we saw our beautiful daughter's picture and read what little information was available, we have been working like mad to get every document, to complete every class, to sign every last line, to reach the point where our dossier is complete and ready to pass on to our agency for review. Wednesday was this day!

Hours of Adoption Classes: Check!

Since we are a mere two hours away from our agency, we opted to drive that massive pile of paperwork down, rather than put it in the mail and wait on edge to hear word that it has been received. (Nothing could have convinced me to mail so much blood, sweat, tears, love, and time) We woke up that morning, anxious and a little nervous. Not only were we finally going to meet the people who have assisted us throughout this process, but we were worried that we had missed something-forgot to initial one spot, had a notary that would expire too soon, only added two copies when we needed three, etc.....

Notary Party!

We went through the morning routine to get the boys off to school and daycare, and I went through the list of requirements and each piece of paper for the (at least) sixth time. Once drop-offs were done, we headed south to our agency. The drive went so much faster than we had planned. Having a quiet car, where Joe and I could have a real conversation definitely helped. Once we got there, we were met by two of the most important women in our lives at this point- Amanda and Emily. Both of these women have supported our family through calming fears, answering a million and two questions, keeping us updated on our daughter, etc., etc. The list goes on and on, and it was such a powerful experience to meet them, laugh with them, and talk about our girl with ladies who know her as well as we do.

Saturday runs to UPS

After handing over paper-clipped packet, after paper-clipped packet, we left our agency. We were so excited to have completed this vital step in our adoption process, we were relieved to have our "To Do" list down to zero, but also extremely nervous about something not being done right or missing. Knowing that a mistake may take a few days to notice, and said mistake may take weeks (and another missed day of work) to fix and submit, we were preparing ourselves for our dossier not being sent to Korea for a while.

Immigration Appointment

I checked my email every ten minutes on Thursday, hoping we wouldn't get one saying that we would need to do more, but it didn't come. No news, is good news. I said this to myself, over and over again. Friday, I did the same. Every ten-ish minutes. While heading from one school to the other, I checked my email and saw one from Emily. Joe had already responded to it, so I saw his comments first. "Awesome!!" was all that he had to say. I then read the subject line that said, "Dossier is being sent to Korea today!". Although there was a long email with information on our next steps, I didn't need to read it just then. Our dossier was complete and it was heading to the same building, to be with the same people, our daughter sees at least once a month. The stress that I have been holding onto since November seemed to melt off of my body and a smile was plastered onto my face.

The last six months have been such a stressful, humbling, empowering, love-filled time. Our daughter is waiting and now we are waiting. Until our daughter comes home to us, we will wait: wait for EP submission, wait for EP approval, wait for a court date, wait for travel, wait to meet her for the first time, wait for the custody call, wait for travel again, and wait to have our daughter officially join the Brooks Bunch. It's going to be a lot of waiting, but guess what?? We can take it! We waited for our boys, we can wait for our girl.

Dropping off our dossier!!