Dossier

Yesterday, I took our big notebook of adoption documents so that I could go through it and put notes on the pages to remind me of what needed to be done. Some of the pages need to be signed by us and notarized. You'd be amazed how many times documents must be authenticated, signed and what not. When I finished I had about 5 questions and emailed Mei at CWA. Well, earlier in the month, she had given the name of a woman who I thought was a courier. I got her number out and called her and WOW did I get an education! She actually has a dossier service and takes your documents and makes sure they are authenticated by the right people, basically checked and double checked. I thought putting the dossier together was easy... no such luck! I truly believe that had we tried to do this on our own, we would be delaying the process even longer. Needless to say, she's hired. She also told me that the Georgia turn around after fingerprinting is about 3 weeks so hopefully, ours will come in next week. She was very nice, bubbly and full of information and lives in Jacksonville. She even told me about an organization that she is a member of Families With Children from China (or something like that). I'm going to look into that. I don't know why they don't just tell you up from all the ins and outs of adoption. Someone should write a book of tried and true tricks of the trade.