The Story of a Dossier

I woke up this morning with great expectations for the day.  We would wait for the FedEx truck to come bearing our homestudy report.  Then we would grab the rest of our paperwork, rush off to Becca's (who was also waiting for the FedEx truck to come so that she could send her dossier today, too) to make a few copies (picking up a $.99 latte from Dunkin Donuts for each of us on the way--wouldn't that make such a momentous occasion even sweeter?), and then we would all head to UPS to overnight our completed dossiers to AGCI.

Last night I had meticulously put together all of the four (an extra just to keep with me) copies of our paperwork for the dossier--application letters to Ethiopia, post-adoption commitment letters, birth certificates, our marriage license, letters of good conduct, proofs of employment, financial statements, letters of reference, doctors letters of good health, power of attorney forms, photos of us and our house--24 pages each.  I just needed that homestudy report which is 13 pages of separate but similar information from more forms that tells the story of our family.

I stayed by the windows for a good chunk of the morning watching and listening for the truck--my camera ready to capture the moment.  And then I thought, much like trying to watch a pot of water boil, it might happen if I started doing something else.  So I folded and put away the laundry.

Hark!  At 11 o'clock I saw the FedEx truck driving into our neighborhood.  I yelled, "It's really here!"  And then he pulled into our neighbor's driveway.  Not to worry, though, surely we were next!  And then...he drove away.  Hmm...maybe there are more trucks that come?

At 11:45 I called FedEx to see if I had missed something.  They checked and said that it had been delivered an hour earlier and was on my front porch.  I walked outside.  No, nothing.

Now, today, all of the weather reports had been calling for maybe, at the most, an inch of snow and then rain as the temperature climbed into the high 30's.  That would be no problem for my traverse.  By midmorning, however, they are now calling for 6-10" of snow (big difference). 

So, while FedEx was trying to track down my missing (very valuable) package I started to look around at our neighbor's houses for it.  First I checked the box that had been delivered earlier--maybe it was stuck to it?  Nope.  Trudging through the very steady snow I saw something resembling either a chunk of snow or a plastic bag a few doors down.  Yay!  It was indeed, my missing package--safely tucked into a snow-covered plastic bag.  (I must have missed that truck when I was in my closet putting away the laundry.)

I quickly grabbed the kids and headed out to Becca's.  The snow had really picked up and our road was covered.  The first two stops were pretty slippery and the main road was not so good.  It really didn't seem like such a great idea to try to go to Becca's house (on windy country roads).  Ugh...with this newly expected snow, maybe tomorrow...?

Completely bummed, I called Becca to tell her we couldn't come.  And then, so cool, she said that Eric (her husband) would love :) to come and pick them up so that they could go out today.  Wow!  How awesome is that?

Becca made my last copies (on her great copier) and then Eric sent them off!  They should be at AGCI (in Oregon) tomorrow.  Then after everything is reviewed and approved we will finally get our number on the waitlist!

Okay, so this day completely did not go how I had expected.  No pictures of the FedEx truck--or tellling the driver how excited I was to be getting the package.  No lattes.  No taking the package to UPS for it's send-off together.  :)  But, it all turned out just great.  :)

And how cool is it that I have such a close friend who I can walk through this process with?  All because of different delays in each our processes, here, today, we got to send in our dossiers together.  Pretty cool.

So love having someone to talk through the frustrations and dreams of this process.  We are two separate families, with two unique stories, but we get to walk this journey together.  Love it...

Thank you, Becca and Eric!

[P.S. FedEx was great about tracking down the missing package.  The deliverer even came back through all of the snow just to make sure that I got it. :) ]