Dossier Sent!

Dossier (n). Fancy French term for "beastly stack of adoption papers for an international adoption".

What an awesome fews days! We got our USCIS approval "the golden ticket" on Tuesday and had it notarized on Tuesday night by an awesome lady who offered to finish our papers off for free! Here is a photo of the remaining pages to be sent to EE. The first 12 pages were sent in December to let Micah's government know that we want to adopt him, and the powers of attorney for the faciliation team doing our work over there for us.

All of the paperwork we've had to obtain had to be notarized, then apostilled. An apostille is a piece of paper with a state seal that authenticates the notary stamp and form. Each state has their own process, look, and price.

Here is what an Arizona apostille looks like. It only cost us $3 to get this authentication. The reason we had to have this one done in AZ is because our landlord had our rental form done in her homestate, and the form has to be apostilled where it was notarized.

This is what a California apostille looks like. It costs $20, unless you go in person, then it costs $26. Highway robbery? Yes... one of the most expensive states, but we are in a budget crisis. Go figure. About 44 of our pages had to be apostilled in CA. Yike$.

This is a picture of our beautiful golden ticket :) Not too fancy if you ask me... it should be lined in gold! But this is one of the most important pieces of our dossier. We're going to frame this baby!

Since we are in a hurry to get Micah as quickly as we can, I decided to get the last four pages apostilled in person instead of waiting 1-2 weeks to get them back in the mail. Sacramento is about 8 hrs from us, so I broke it up and drove to Turlock with the girls Wednesday morning and got there at 12:30pm and had lunch with an amazing new friend from Lodi, who is also adopting from Micah's country (http://bringcarsonhome.blogspot.com/) They are actually adopting Carson and his newfound older brother, John! We had a wonderful time, and I got to my mom and dad's around 3pm. We enjoyed a couple hours before having dinner with my brother and sister and kids at Chili's, then hung out at Adam's letting all our girls play until 9pm. It was so nice to see them because I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving!

Then I woke up bright and early to head to Sacramento Thursday morning. My best friend, April, came with me to help with my littles and we had a quick drive up and back in the rain and wind. Our plan was to sight-see in Old Town, but the weather had other plans.

This is the nice gentleman who did the last four apostilles for us at the Secretary of State in CA. I didn't get his name, but he was genuinely happy for us and wished us luck.

The beautiful State Capitol across the street from the Secretary of State office. I love going to this place. Had a 4th grade field trip there, then went back about 7 years ago and it's just FUN! A beautiful park surrounding it too.

After getting the last of the dossier in order, we through Capitol Park and found the FedEx office a few blocks up. In the Adoption Handbook from Reece's Rainbow, it says to kiss your dossier goodbye. I'm assuming it's for good luck, but we know who really is in charge of this process :) Still, Chloe and I gave it the good luck kiss goodbye.

I can't tell you the nerves that were balled up inside the pit of my stomach. I didn't know whether to be happy, sad, scared, or nervous. I was all of them. Here I am sealing up the envelope inside the box for extra protection. I was trying not to get emotional letting this "beast" go. Since November 5th, I have literally been running all over the place to get forms filled out, making requests for information that seemed to baffle the people I was asking, as if nobody in San Bernardino County has ever done an international adoption and asked for such things. In the end, 4 1/2 months later, I met some WONDERFUL people along the way who really cared to help us and supported our efforts in adopting Micah. To all of them I am eternally grateful.

Filling out the international airbill to get to Yulia ASAP.

We needed to get the dossier to EE by Monday in order for the team to translate it and submit it to the SDA on Thursday, but the FedEx lady said it won't get there until Wednesday. That is when I got choked up. The SDA is closed the first two weeks of April, so me rushing around may be in vain if they can't submit us until April 14th.

Goodbye old friend that has caused me more stress than anything else I've ever done in my life. From here it should be a downhill ride to bring Micah home.

Update: Found out when I got back to Wrightwood Friday night that the beast has already arrived and departed Paris, FR!!! Maybe it will be there Monday afterall. When I sent the CSPs and POAs, I sent it on a Thursday and it got there on a Monday. Here's to hoping and praying! Oh please Lord, stay on our side like You have this whole journey.