Quest for Mia part 3
Our adoption paperwork is organized in a giant accordion file with five manila folders separating each category of papers…HOPE, Home Study, USCIS, Dossier and Expenses. During the next three months we worked primarily on gathering the documents for our dossier and meeting with our social worker to satisfy home study requirements. This was all relatively painless…except for the part when I spilled a glass of water on our already notarized dossier documents and had to go through the leg work of replacing them (that stunk!). Chrissy was very helpful and patient with us as we asked an abundance of questions while gathering our documents. Seriously, we never felt like we were on our own through this process which is a good thing considering the paperwork gets a little confusing at times.
Speaking of not feeling alone, we have been overwhelmed by the amount of support we have experienced from our family and friends. I’m an admitted idealist and often dreamed of the clever methods we would use to announce our baby to our world. However, when we made the decision that our daughter would come from China, I was so excited that all of those ingenious announcement plans went by the way side as I blurted “Hey, we are adopting a baby girl from China!!!” to everyone who would listen. Some people were caught off guard and would cautiously mumble a “congratulations?”, but most folks genuinely rejoiced with us. I love it when people ask questions because it feels like such a release when I’m able to share what I’ve learned about my future little girl.
At the beginning, Chad and I considered ourselves “trail blazers” because no one in our lives had experienced this path. As we shared our glorious ambitions with others, nearly everyone commented that they knew someone who had adopted from China. I have found much comfort in these statements because it is so important to me that my daughter not feel like an outsider. Knowing that there are many other American families with daughters from China gives me hope that Mia will find friends and role models with whom she can identify.
Continued
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