The Check is in the Mail

Literally. 

It's done. Oh, I can hardly believe it, but it's done. Months and months of paperwork, appointments, meetings, reports, payments, notarizing, apostilling, checking, double-checking.

Our Colombian dossier is finished.  "Dossier" is just the fancy word to describe all of the paperwork we have been preparing over the last few months and includes our home study update, applications, photographs, medical and psychological reports, reference letters, financial documents, and more!

And on its way to Minnesota.  Accompanied by the first (of several) REALLY big fat checks we'll have to write before we meet little JS.  Ouch.

Once reviewed by our agency, it will be submitted to Colombia for translation into Spanish.

Admittedly, I have been extremely frustrated in how long it has taken to finish our dossier.  As you may (or may not remember) it was February when we started the ball rolling.  It took about two weeks to put our first dossier together (about 6 weeks if factoring the home study) and only ONE WEEK to have all our paperwork ready for Selam (even our home study was done then!).  For it to take 8 weeks time was really hard, mentally/emotionally.  I honestly did not understand the affect the Hague vs. not Hague adoption would be.  Without going into too much detail, certain countries are considered "Hague", meaning they have adopted the Hague treaty. The purpose of the treaty was to safeguard international adoptions by putting certain safeguards in place. There is a lot of debate over how much Hague really helps, but the practical result is MORE PAPER. More requirements, more documents, more formality, more specifics.  Everything.takes.forever.

BUT.

It's done.  

I can't get over how excited I am about this!  I realized this in a round-about way when I started telling random acquaintances at work why I was going to the post office. :) The adoption certainly isn't a secret (I'm blogging after all!).  Yet, we haven't been overly public about it either.  For the most part, people have been very supportive and positive.  But I have noticed 2 distinct responses from most people - (1) extremely interested in the WHY (Why adopting again? Why Colombia? How many kids ARE you people going to get?), and (2) a complete disinterest.  I certainly don't expect everyone to care about it (and certainly don't want that - it would get weird!) but there has been some level of awkwardness?  I know that not everyone approves of or understands adoption (or larger than average families) but still...

Alright, random tangent.  :) Anyway, I haven't been shouting from the rooftops but today I feel like doing that?!

We're one step closer to our son!