Hello beverley106,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities! We see you're having an issue with accessing documents with iCloud Drive, and we'd like to help.
With iCloud Drive Desktop and Documents, you're looking in the right place, they should be available in Finder, in the iCloud section of your sidebar, as shown here: Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive
Have you restarted your Mac since noticing this issue? If not, go ahead and do that, as a restart can resolve unusual issues.
Are you using iCloud Drive with any other devices? If so, check for those documents on those devices, following the steps in the above article.
Also, check at the iCloud website. Sign in with the same Apple ID you use for iCloud, and check in iCloud Drive.
If you aren't able to access those documents anywhere, we'd suggest contacting Apple Support for help with this. Get Support
Take care!