A couple of weeks ago, I had a eureka moment. My family is in the process of an international adoption of a sibling group, and I, as the crazy type A person that I am, have been looking for books, testimonials, or really anything that I can find that can help prepare me for this journey that I am on. If you look you will discover that there are lots of training materials for adoptive parents, picture books so that young kids can understand what adoption is, and even books to help adopted kids get through their transition, but there is nothing for biological teenagers who are watching their entire family dynamic change. So, I decided to create this blog with a lot of help from my friends who have also adopted, so that you can see that what you are going through is normal, most likely even expected, and that there are other kids out there thinking, “What the heck is a dossier?” 

I know that before you can even begin to trust what I am saying you are going to need to know a little bit about me. Well…here goes. I am a sixteen year old Army brat with two younger biological siblings. Mikayla (who will be writing these posts as well) is fourteen, and William, my video-game obsessed brother, is twelve. We made the decision to start the adoption process over Christmas break of 2020 when a friend’s mom posted about this family of six girls who were going to be split up if someone did not offer to adopt them within the next three days. My parents decided to pursue those girls but were told that they had already been taken care of. Much to my parents’ surprise, this devastated me and Mikayla. We were completely ready to have more siblings, so, after some intense conversations over dinner, we completed our pre-application and soon after, our application for an international adoption. Now, several months and lots of tears and laughter later, we have completed our home study and are working on our dossier. I hope that you will join me and my best friends as we learn what it is like to gain new siblings after our family has already been established for years. 

-Gabriella