Approved!!

I called the USCIS office yesterday to check on the status of our case and our officer had just approved our file!! Day 62 for those of you reading this that might be waiting on your approval too. She mailed it yesterday, so hopefully we'll have it tomorrow or Thursday.

Once here, I'll get it notarized, run downtown to the Sec. of State office and have it certified, then overnight it to the courier in Chicago to have it authenticated at the Chinese Consulate. Our courier will then overnight it to our Xiaoqing (our awesome agency coordinator). IF all of this can happen prior to next Friday, Xiaoqing said we could be DTC (documents to China) next Friday, if not we will for sure be DTC the following Friday.

After we're DTC we wait to hear what our LID (logged in date) is ... this is important because once we have a LID, we are eligible to be matched off of the shared list that comes out at the end of each month. This is the list that China posts each month of available children from the waiting child program (the same list we were matched with Anna). Our hope is that we have our LID by mid-August so that we're eligible for the August list. That doesn't mean we'll necessarily be matched, but we'll at least have a chance. When we were waiting to be matched with Anna (once we switched to the Waiting Child Program) it took about 5 months to find our sweet girl.

Speaking of our sweet girl ... Greg and I keep saying lately that she seems to be growing up so fast! Last night I was getting her pj's on after her bath and I said "You are mommy's favorite girl in the whole wide world" and Anna said "Anna growing up. Mommy and Daddy watch Anna grow up." Oh my! She brought tears to my eyes. This little girl of ours is really something special ... God blessed us so when He gave us Anna.