Paperwork Hurdle Cleared!

So this past week was a flurry of activity on the adoption front! We took off for Naperville on Wednesday for our fingerprinting appointment at the US Dept of Immigration. What an adventure! We headed to the big city the night before because our appointment was at 8:00 AM and we worried about being stuck in traffic and missing it. Good thing we did because the address for the immigration office didn't come up on the GPS and the name of the office was random and didn't at all match the name on our summons to the appointment. Anyway, a nice Asian man working at a local gas station knew exactly where immigration was located and so he gave detailed enough directions to get us there. As we arrived, we realized that they must give everyone an 8:00 AM appointment because every one's summons listed the same time. How neat it was though to sit outside this office with other adoptive families and share our journeys. Throw into the mix quite a diverse crowd of multicultural immigrants waiting as well and you've got some interesting sights and sounds to start your day! The fingerprinting appointment that cost us nearly $1,000 lasted only about ten minutes and we were sent on our way wondering how long it would take for the magic piece of paper to arrive to clear us and send us off and running to the next paperwork hurdle. Well our wait was over extremely quickly, because we received approval the next day!!! This is truly miraculous. So, we notarized about 50 pieces of paper on Friday and sent off our official referral acceptance paperwork to AGCI. Next week, we should have our dossier (the mountains of paperwork china requires) state certified in Springfield and off to China! Then the official waiting for China to invite us to pick up our daughter begins! I have been begging God lately in all my prayers to move mountains and get us to our daughter as quickly as possible. I am dreaming that we will hold her before May-a girl's got to dream. Right? Can't wait to see her. Hold her. Smell her. Kiss her. See her with her sissy. Just can't wait!!!