We spent the next few months preparing the paperwork for the adoption. There are two virtues necessary for assembling a dossier (aka paperchasing). Organization and patience. Organization was not a problem. Patience...that was another story! However, although some people feel that preparing a dossier is difficult, we found it to be fairly straightforward. The hard part was waiting for the state and INS clearances. After some trouble with a lost background check, we were finally ready to send our paperwork to China in May 1999. We requested a baby girl between the ages of newborn and 9 months, but knew she would probably be between 6 and 12 months at referral. While we really did want a young baby, we also knew that God had chosen the absolute right child for us, and that we would love her, no matter what her age.
Once our dossier was in China, the real waiting began. At the time, referrals were taking up to 8 or 9 months, but we were hoping ours might come faster, at least before Christmas. By this time, we had decided on her first name--Cathryn, so our friends and family began to call her "Baby Cathryn." My mom and I began to work on sewing the nursery bedding and curtains, and I cautiously even bought a few baby clothes. By September, China was sending out referrals every 3 weeks and it looked like our referral would definitely come before Christmas. We were SO excited. A baby shower was planned for me at my mom's house in California on Thanksgiving Weekend. We left the week before Thanksgiving to drive to California. Our agency had told us the week before that our referral was in the mail, so we were on pins and needles... |
