Where Do We Go From Here? (Must be sang like the final chorus of the Buffy musical)

Our dossier is done!!! Now, I'm sure some of you just thought, "What's a dossier?" I'm pretty sure Rob still doesn't know that word. A dossier consists of all the info about our family that is going to be sent to China in order for them to officially approve for us to be Fiona's parents. It contains our birth certificates, marriage certificate, home study write up, employment letters, police reports, financial statement, physical reports, approval by our government to go ahead, pictures, and an adoption petition describing the child we wish to adopt. Some of these documents had to be purchased from various government agencies. Others were created by me. Each document required a notarization, authentication by the Secretary of State's office, and another authentication by the Chinese Consulate.

Today, I picked up the final two pieces of our dossier from the Chinese Consulate and put them in the mail. That's it. I'm done. So much paperwork that I've had to keep track of for the last six months, and, now, it is all gone. It's kind of a crazy feeling. I've been carrying it all around in the same bag, praying nothing gets lost. Now, it is no longer in my hands. Awesome!

Luckily, I sent most of the dossier last month so our agency has already had time to review those parts. These last two bits shouldn't take them long to go over. Then, all the pieces will be bound together, translated, and sent to China.

Then, we wait for the acronyms. This adoption world is full of so many acronyms. We have already submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent) for Fiona. China received that and gave us our PA (pre-approval) for Fiona. This was the point where they locked her file for us with the rule that we must complete our Dossier by October. Now, we wait for LID (Log in Date, I think?). That's when China has received our Dossier and gotten us into their system. Then, we wait for LOA (Letter of Acceptance). That's when we're officially approved by China to adopt Fiona. Finally, we'll get our TA (travel approval). That signifies they're ready for us to come get her.

That's a while away at this point, though, and we have a lot of waiting coming up. I akin it to that point in pregnancy when the nausea has subsided, your belly is not getting in the way yet, and you've just started thinking about what you'll need to buy before the baby come. Your just waiting. Not much else to do.

Although, I do need to learn some Chinese.