I call it the "elusive" dossier because until it was complete and on it's way, we hadn't seen a page of it. We worked hard with our consultant (via mail) to get her all she needed, but all we knew was there was this mound of paper forming that basically held the keys to our trip to China and our new daughter.

It was during this phase that we hit our first delay. The INS. They didn't like our fingerprints and sent a request back to have them redone. When they determined that we had to do them over, they notified us by snail-mail. The letter, when it arrived, was two weeks old. We hurried back to the City of Atlanta Police station and got our fingers inked again. We sent off the new prints and waited for the INS - an activity we'd become accustomed to. Finally, in early November 1996, we received word from Guangzhou that they had received our INS documents. In the packet was our long awaited I-171H form.

This was the busiest time for us. Going here, going there, getting this document, filing that document, getting inspected, subjected, certified, legalized, ratified and authorized. There was hardly a day that didn't find us doing something. Finally, in the beginning of November of 1996, our dossier was complete and was on it's way to China, hopefully not on that well-known "slow boat".

The next phase was the toughest for us. With all our work done, all there was to do was wait. Nine months were to pass before we'd see our Emma's face - and only then on a tiny photograph that would be a year old when we first held it in our hands. Then another three months before we would board our flight to Hong Kong.

The second delay came as our dossier was about to be sent. The China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) closed down their program for a couple months or so. The government was switching the responsibility from one agency to another and embarked on automating their process. Things were on hold and very few referrals were coming to Holt. We were assured by our agency that this would pass and we'd be on our way again.

It was hard. Each day started with the hope that we'd hear something and ended with dissapointment. Weeks passed slowly, but finally things began to move again. Along the way were kept well informed by both Holt and Lutheren Ministries. Also, I found the A-Parents-China E-Mail List and found it to be invaluable in keeping us up-to-date on referrals coming out of Beijing. As the progress picked up, so did our spirits.

The paperwork part of the journey was not the uphill part. It was downhill all the way. That's when we hit bottom and began the slow climb to the top of our "China" mountain. Once we got to the top, it was as if the wait had flashed by us. By the time we held Emma in our arms, the agony of the wait evaporated into the deep recesses our our experiences and was gone. It was as if she had been with us always. It was in those first moments that we knew Emma had been ours all along, we just didn't know who she was.

Now we did.