In readying ourselves for the arrival of our third son, our first preparatory act was to name him. As noted in the previous blog post, we
finally chose Carter Allen. See, I had always intended to name ONE of our daughterS Catherine in honor of my sister. Well, since plans, as they are wont to do, changed, and the daughters we thought we were going to have were instead going to be boys (and it seemed marginally cruel to name a boy Catherine and nickname him Katie), we needed to find a different, more suitable name. Still, we wanted to pay tribute to Cathie: hence, Carter which feels like a male derivative of Catherine. Troy's middle name is Allen, so we chose that to be paired with his first name.
Our other bit of preparation we completed was buying the much-dreaded, long-avoided "grocery-getter." I never saw myself driving one, but the reality is, our mini SUV, the Mercury Mariner, or the Sable would be uncomfortably cramped -- the metaphorical can of sardines (or Sturgeons if you will). We could have done it, but the question remained. What is our mental health worth? And, let's face it. I would even be concerned about the boys' physical health on a trip lasting more than 15 minutes. It's already something of a harassment-fest back there already with just the two.
Alright. If I'm going to be honest. I actually like like it. It has a lot of gadgets and options that, although entirely unnecessary, are fun and possibly sanity-saving (read not one but two DVD screens and wireless headphones). Most importantly, though, there is extra room and the boys can get in and out of the car independently. Yay!
Lastly, the small paperwork steps. On Tuesday we got our biometric fingerprints done, so on Wednesday I decided to give USCIS a quick email to see where we were in the I800A process. I was hoping to hear that we had been assigned an officer. Needless to say, it was a
pleasant ridiculously exciting surprise when I found out that we not only had an officer, but we had actually had our application approved. In under 30 days vs the 60 I had HOPED for! To put this into perspective, our I797 is on its way which means that as soon as that little piece of paper makes its way to us, the last of our dossier can be sent to the state for certification and then onto the State Department and the Chinese Embassy! After that, we can be Dossier to China! In the simplest terms, one huge step will be able to be checked off our to-do list. After we get our dossier logged in with the Chinese officials, we start excruciating wait for an indeterminate amount of time: our wait for Chinese approval -- LOA.
Suffice it to say, it has been a whirlwind of a week. Exciting and fun, but exhausting. I'm ready for the weekend. And summer...!!!
