Dossier Finished!

We mailed our dossier off yesterday!!!



Our dossier, with the two required copies.



Apparently, it takes 178 pages to sum up our lives enough for Bulgaria to determine if we will be good adoptive parents. 

I should feel elated. Instead, I feel deflated.

But the majority of the paperwork is completed now... though when I called the adoption agency to let them know that the dossier was on its way, they told me they had a new document that was now required that I needed to get started on. Oh, well. I must face the fact that the paperwork will not end until we send off the last post adoption report two years after we get him home. Maybe then I will celebrate.

Now begins the two-four month waiting for permission to travel.

We have been saying that we could get Vanya around Christmas... but that is being very optimistic and selecting the shorter timeframe within the time spans of waiting for travel, waiting for court dates, waiting for permission to go and get him and bring him home. The shortest we can expect to wait is five months from today... the longest is nine months. And then (I dread to even think about it) there is always the chance that everything could get all messed up and it could be even longer.

Do I sound discouraged?

I would rather think that I am grimly determined. Come hell and/or high water... he is ours and we are willing to pay any price, suffer through many long days of waiting, and travel over many miles to have him in our arms.

I wish we could tell him we are coming for him. I wonder if they have told him yet... that he has a mommy and daddy waiting for him patiently, yearning for him impatiently, ready to go and see him the moment we hear the word - straining at the starting line, ready to rush away to our little boy. 

We are coming, little Vanya! Your mommy and daddy are coming for you!