August 4, 2004

Well, we finally received our I171H from the US Department of Immigration, which is the biggest sigh of relief ever. Our agency told us that it "could" take up to eight weeks. I almost cried when they told us that. I heard from several people on my email group that the Denver Immigration Office (called the BCIS office) was processing the first half of the alphabet really fast. Good news for us! We are the sixth letter in the alphabet! Woo hoo! After ten business days I was starting to freak. I was thinking "just watch, they are going to take the maximum eight weeks to process". I cried several times thinking about it. I didn't think I could wait that
long for a stupid piece of paper.

Well, it arrived on Monday August 2nd. I went from begging our post office box, to cursing it, to tears of joy. I am convinced our postmaster, who I am SURE was behind the wall listening, thinks I am a complete wacko! I am. I am crazy about the idea that in the first few months of 2005, I will have the daughter I have dreamed about since I was a child. This journey for me has been longer than a few months so far. This is a life dream that I (and my dear hubby of course) am making come true. That feeling of euphoria is something that cannot be easily explained.

Rob is taking the Colorado paperwork we have down to the Secretary of State tomorrow and we are sending off our (tons) of paperwork to the Chinese consulates in the US on Friday. After that, we are DTC (Documents to China). This is the biggie! Then our timer starts. The sands of fate begin to fall through the hourglass and we wait for that ever-so-important call that we have a daughter. Its looking like a five to six month wait for our angel. No problem. I can take up that time fixing up the nursery.
Speaking of nursery, I can honestly say that we have a NURSERY now. I moved all the office stuff out of the den and it is (slowly) being transformed into a magical place that, this time next year, our beautiful baby girl will be sleeping. Oh my. That is such a wonderful thought. I can hardly wait!!!