Taking the Next Steps

At this very moment, a package that contains just about every important paper and detail from our lives, past, present, and future is on a plane to the Washington, DC, area.  I spent my last hour and a half of work on photocopying, compiling, checking lists and re-checking lists to make sure every single solitary detail was perfect for our international adoption dossier this afternoon.  I now know why some people are willing to pay $800 for someone else to do this part for them.  The weight of getting the details just right is pretty hefty!

The moment of letting go of all those original documents was a lot tougher and more momentous than I expected.  So very much went into getting it all right, and it is scary to finally know that it is now considered a complete dossier that is ready to be authenticated by our Department of State and then the Embassy of that beautiful land far away.  

I spent a pretty penny to make sure the package is properly treated on its way across the country, where it will arrive tomorrow afternoon--no first class mail this time.  I also am spending the money to pay a courier to hand-deliver it to those two offices in DC, cutting a month off the processing time.  Next the courier will Fed Ex Air Mail it right back to me, so I can copy the final approvals before sending it, and several copies of it, on to our agency.  Once the agency has the dossier packet, they can send it on to the land far away where the very people who have the power to choose a child for us will have it in their hands.

Here's the possible timeline:
Friday 29th (Happy Birthday, niece Alyssa!!)-courier gets package
Monday 1st--courier brings dossier to Department of State
Tuesday 2nd--courier picks up authenticated dossier from Dept. of State and brings to Embassy of __
Wednesday 3rd--courier picks up twice-authenticated dossier from Embassy, along with a letter recommending our family for a child from that country; courier sends the package back our way
Thursday 4th--dossier is back, we copy authentication pages and recommendation letter
Friday 5th--dossier is sent overnight to agency
Monday 8th--agency gets package

From there, I'm not sure how quickly the agency sends the dossier to the country, maybe within a week or so.  At that point, we are waiting for a referral of a specific child.  There is absolutely no real timeline from that point forward.  Our country has still not given any referrals at all.  That could mean we will be waiting a long time, even a VERY long time (a year?).  We could also luck out because others have already been waiting for many months while the government gets their adoption infrastructure in place.  Maybe they are almost ready to get going.  Maybe.  All I know is that there is really nothing for us to do from that point forward but wait.  It is out of our hands, and I hope we will find peace and acceptance with the process while we wait.

We do not know anything about the orphanage where our child is residing.  We do know that children in this country, the 2nd poorest in the world, are most often in the orphanages because of extreme poverty and from war.  We know that the government orphanages will not release a child for adoption unless they have lived in the orphanage for 5 years, giving the family plenty of time to return or to find the child if they were separated during fighting.  The private orphanages have the children for at least a year before they will consider releasing them for adoption.  Our agency does not run an orhpanage but works with those already there.

We have requested a child, age 5 or under, of either gender.  Since most adoptive families request very young children (especially girls), our child will likely be closer to 4 or 5, and more likely to be a boy.  A child thought to be 4 or 5 in and orphanage can be closer to 6 or 7 when they are fully nourished and the real age can be better determined.  Basia is very excited to have a sibling close to her age!  I am very excited to know the age and gender of my third child.  I want to "nest," to buy bunk beds for one room or the other, to get things just right for someone who has had so little.  I want to see a face and fall in love.  It all still seems so far away, and very well may be.  In the meantime, it's nice that youtube has some videos of orphanages in this country that I can watch and now share with you: