Happy Chinese New Year!!

And WHAT a happy start to the Year of the Dragon for us! As I have alluded to in the past post(s), we are in a race against the clock. We NEED to get our dossier (paperwork) to China (be DTC), like, NOW. We really have to be logged in before we can send our letter of intent to be considered for Tank. We have been, impatiently, waiting for our last piece of paperwork to clear through government channels. We were logged in with the USCIS on Dec. 14, auspicious since that's my brother's birthday, and were fingerprinted the second day of the New Year, first work day back, 1/3. It has been taking about 60 days to get the I797C, said final piece of paperwork, so I was actually fearing that we wouldn't get ours until February 13 or later. Well. On the 2nd day of the Chinese New Year, I called to check in to see if we had been assigned an officer yet. The reponse I got was, "Not only have you been assigned an officer, you have already been approved. It wasn't approved until late yesterday, so it was just mailed out this morning." YAAAAAYYY! I am over the moon. I hadn't realized how much I had been holding back until I heard those words. I told this officer, I don't know if I want to laugh, scream or cry. There is a chance I may have done a little of all three. I am so excited. I finally looked at the pictures of OUR SON next to my computer screen and really, completely let him into my heart. I had been thinking of him as our boy in a theoretical kind of way until now. Now, he just found his way into my heart and soul as well as into my head. Of course, the paper still needs to be certified by the state, FedExed to DC to a courier, expedited through there, FedExed back to us, and finally, FedExed to Holt, OR. So many places / ways to be lost or misplaced. Please pray this last piece of our dossier meets with no problems and that we get it to Holt and China by 2/10 (through my calculations, if everything goes smoothly, that should be possible). Ahhhh! It finally seems real. We're going to China to get our sweet baby boy!