DTC!!!

As of July 16, 2008 we are finally DTC, which is adoption speak for Dossier to China!!!! We celebrated with a Chinese dinner that evening. And in a call with the Waiting Child Coordinator from our adoption agency, she said, "We'll be sending your son's original paperwork to you." I giggled when I got off the phone. I had to explain to my eldest daughter why I was giggling and reassure her that I had not gone off the deep end. I just got such a charge out of what the Waiting Child Coordinator had said ... "your son's." Wow. This is getting very real now - one step closer to Jack.

When Jenna heard that the paperwork had been sent to China, she gasped and said, "Does that mean we can go and get Jack? He's been waiting for us to come get him for such a long time!" Jenna has been working hard, too, by bringing me "more papers to help you get Jack." :0) Whenever she would see me doing paperwork, here she would come with a stack of papers to contribute.

After I had called and e-mailed everyone, I sat there thinking, "Now what?" This really is the hardest part because there is nothing actively to do to try to make this go along any quicker. You just wait. We had been so fortunate to receive many pictures of Jack throughout this process, that this was going to seem like one mighty long dry spell.

Well, got a package today for Jenna from Mrs. Yang the orphanage director. She had sent it back with one of the families who just returned from China. We knew there were clothes in it, but Mrs. Yang packed a little surprise - 3 more pictures of Jack!! A note was included, as well. So, I rushed out to a nearby Chinese restaurant and asked them to translate for me. By the time we were done, the cook had come out from the back to look at the pictures and ask questions, too! The note said, "From your mother and aunties in China. We all miss you very much and hope you have the happiest of lives in America!" Jenna used to call Mrs. Yang, "Mamma," which for a time, she was the closest thing Jenna had to a mother. There are many older, special needs children in this orphanage, who may never be adopted. To them, she is truly ... Mother.