Dossier Submitted. Today I feel like we have actually achieved a milestone. The past seven months of researching agencies, countries, and doing tons of paperwork, it all felt like an uphill climb. I could see the top but the path way up had many boulders blocking the road. Finally though, we are nearing the top of the peak, the day when we first lay eyes on the child/ren that God has chosen for us.

August 2, 2005... Our dossier was submitted to the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine. This to me is a miracle of itself. In reality its only been a little over five weeks or so since our dossier reached Ukraine for submission. It felt like a year though of waiting on edge to see if we would "get in the door" before the real close down happened. Five weeks of not knowing if all the work I had done to complete our dossier would have to be changed because Ukraine is temporarily closing its doors to adoption until the changes proposed by their newly elected president could be implemented. If we could only get our foot in the door before the close down, our case would be processed as normal like the other families in progress. If only.....and we did :-).

Now we exist in Ukraine's eyes, we're a thick pile of paper on someone's desk and soon we'll be a number, waiting for our letter to request a date. But to John and I its something more...today we are parents...... almost.