Entering a New Phase

The plane with cherished cargo took off from BWI Airport into the midnight and made it to Portland, Oregon the next day. You can look it up – the FedEx tracking number was 791646518225 dontchuknowit. The March 7th date was hit and we were thrilled about it, as was Kate of AGCI.

What was next? Yet another authentication of course! It would be the final layer, this time from the Chinese Consulate in Washington D.C. As a parallel effort, one of our complete dossier copies was expressed mailed by Kate to Benjamin in Beijing (AGCI’s resident China employee) to begin translation. Net this all out and it would be another three to five weeks before our dossier was sent to China. None of this would require us to lift a pinky. The Friday Weekly emails from AGCI that would faithfully have a “paperwork” section with tips and strong reminders no longer applied to us!

Rose and I had always heard about the wait period, that it was apparently the most difficult time; for us, the adjustment came easily. Frankly, we needed the break from the ever-present avalanche of adoption activity; while it’s all doable, it was no doubt taxing. Probably the most telling reason we did okay, though, was that we didn’t have a specific boy or girl tugging on our heart. We had plenty of distractions in our life, three trouble-makers in particular; so as the sun is wont to do, it came up and went down faster than we could say our daily prayers to the Lord for “the China Child in Your Heart.” Further, having moved into the path of Special Needs, we now felt the possibilities for adopting in 2007 or early 2008 were real, and we needed as many days on the calendar as we could get to prepare.

Three weeks later the entire dossier was returned to AGCI by the consulate authenticated! That day was the 29th, and looking at the fancy green and red seal it was authenticated on the 22nd (and apparently by an Irish fellow no less, named Patrick O. Hatchett? Hah.). Just like that Kate sent out everything to Beijing and we were DTC, or Dossier To China.

There are some key acronyms to accumulate along the way, and this was a satisfying first for Rose and me. To date, it had not gone unrecognized by us that through it all – the emotions of discernment and pursuit of precious paper – The People’s Republic of China did not have a clue about us. Not one. As a result, on May 3rd, when Kate sent us a document that had “Demian & Rosalie Seeley” and a bunch of Chinese lettering on it, it meant the world that a part of us was now in China. Our official LID (Log in Date) was April 15th.