Waiting

I read this poem in a beautiful book I received the other day from Love Without Boundaries. It's full of Chinese adoption stories and poems. I've enjoyed reading other people's adoption stories and dreaming of our little girl.

Waiting
by Kelly Feichtinger

Wondering who,
Wondering where,
My child is waiting for me,
Somewhere out there.

I don't yet know your name.
I have not seen your face.
I only know that you were born to another,
In such a faraway place.

I long to enfold you in my arms
To hold you close and tight.
I yearn for the day when I can be the one,
To rock and kiss you goodnight.

My heart already loves you.
In my dreams, you are there.
You smile and call me "Mama."
Something I've been waiting to hear!

I pray that you are safe.
Please know that you are loved.
I've asked for Him to send his angels,
To watch over you from above.

Soon, I will hold you.
It's taking forever, it seems.
But for now, I'll be waiting,
And seeing you in my dreams.

DTC!!!

We are now DTC!!This means Dossier to China. Our agency mailed all of our documents today-the next stop is China! Now we just sit back and wait to be matched with our little girl. The closer we get, the harder the waiting becomes!

Dossier Complete

I heard from our dossier coordinator today, and she received my "employment letter" today from the Chinese Consulate. So she has everything and will be sending it off to China in the next few days. Now we are anxiously awaiting "the call!" It could be any day, it could still be a few months.

Bummer

I heard from our agency today, and I missed a document when putting together the dossier. Apparently I need a letter stating that I am a homemaker. When I looked at the checklist and saw Employment Letter, I assumed it just meant for Jason. Typing up the letter took me about two minutes, so it's no big deal. The big deal is that just like all of the other documents, it has to be notarized, certified, and authenticated. We are going to run to Springfield tomorrow on our way to St. Louis and get the letter certified, then it'll be sent to Chicago, then to our agency. Holt said everything else looked good. It's been really frustrating that I made this mistake, but I know that all things happen for a reason. The dossier will be on it's way to China in the timing God has planned.

Authentication...Check!

I was surprised and overjoyed to see our mail lady at the front door today with a really important envelope in her hand! I hadn't even started tracking the package yet because it had only been at the Chinese Consulate for six days. They said on the website it would take between 10-14 days to authenticate. It was a good thing I didn't have much planned for the day because I was able to turnaround and get the dossier shipped off to our adoption agency before the post office closed. I'm hoping and praying that everything was done correctly so it can be on it's way to China soon! So, the next step is for the agency to review it, and then it'll be heading to China!!

Here's the stack of papers, all notarized, certified, and authenticated!


This is what the authentication seal looks like. It was so cool to see the Chinese on it. Unfortunately the picture came out fuzzy, but you can get the idea of what it looks like.

For those of you wondering what authentication is, here's what our agency's guidebook says. "The government of the People's Republic of China acknowledges the legitimacy of a document and accepts it for its intended purpose through authentication."

Documents Certified-Check!

We just got back in town and the IL certified documents were waiting at the post office for us. I made copies, triple-checked to make sure everything was in order, said a prayer, and mailed them off to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. The lady at the post office was impressed at how organized I was this time. I'm getting the hang of this! Now I understand why they call this phase the paperchase!

Iowa is fast!

We already received my birth certificate back from Des Moines. They received it Wednesday morning and it was on it's way back to IL later that day! I am really impressed with how quick the turnaround was. I talked to our agency and they said IL is much slower. I'm hoping we'll receive everything back from Springfield in the next few days. I'm nervous having all of those precious papers in someone else's hands!