The Paperchase

The paper chase is well underway and we are expecting our home study draft very shortly! On Wednesday we had out USCIS fingerprinting early in the morning at 8am. Of course, it is 2 hours away from where we live, which made for a very interesting morning of all getting up by 4am, piling into the van, and being on the road by 5 to be able to make it there in time, leaving some extra room for the ever present Chicago traffic. We ended up getting there at 7:45 with 15 minutes to spare. We were all pretty nervous about the printing due to the fact that my Mom's prints had just been sent back from the FBI, unable to be processed. Thankfully, due to lots of lotion and very careful care for a week, we are almost sure that Mom's prints passed this time! Yay! After that we were on the road again to finish off with our very last home study visit. We are now expecting our rough draft within the next week or so, and then, we'll be almost done with the paper chase! Last week Chrissy, Sarah and I had to go in to the doctor's for more dreaded stabbings, aka our TB tests, or as Sarah Lu calls it, a "TV test". ;) When the nurse asked who wanted to go first, Sarah was such a brave girl and with tears running down her face, she enthusiastically raised her little arm up in the air. Next it was my turn and last it was Chrissy's. Sarah was a very brave and perfect little sport about it. Of course, getting to go to the store to pick out her very own Starburst Jelly Bean Egg with a Kitty picture on the front did help cheer everybody up! ;) She has been very proud the little spot on her arm from where the needle went in, and just loved to constantly compare hers to mine and to Chrissy's. I think it helped that we all had to get them- not just her. We all had to do it together, even though none of us wanted to at all. Other than that, all of the documents for the dossier are all coming together pretty quickly. We had a bit of a slowdown with a birth certificate from California, but it finally made it's way here. I am really hoping to be DTC in mid April! After that, the time line for others seems to be around 4 months which will put us somewhere around July-September for travel. I actually think August would be the time, but due to the Olympics, I don't think that will be a choice. I'd love to have everything go a little bit quicker and get her in July, by her 6th birthday! If not, then I'm expecting travel in September, which is still only 6 months away! I am so excited!