I got my documents back from the Secretary of State on Friday. It was very exciting to open the package and see 9 sets of documents, each with a shiny gold seal and signed by the Secretary of State of our great state.
I worked quite late on Friday so didn't really have time to do much more than look at the documents. I would have liked to get them in the mail and on to the next destination on Saturday morning but I had to copy every page of all the sets of documents. The homestudy was many pages and I did the copying at home so it was not so quick but I got that done on Saturday. I also had to write checks, get a money order, etc. and did not want to rush through it too quickly and make a mistake.
I actually am having a courier do the next two steps so I mailed all the paperwork to her. She will check all the documents when they arrive to make sure everything is in order. She then brings them to the State Department for another authentication and waits while they are doing it. As soon as that's finished she takes them to the Chinese Embassy and drops them off. They will give her a date to come pick them up that is 4-5 days later. When she picks them up she will do another check to make sure all documents were authenticated properly. Then the documents are forwarded on to my agency who then sends them off to China!
Wow! I can hardly believe my dossier paperwork is out of my hands! I would think that within about 2 weeks I should have a DTC (Dossier to China) date.
