I-800 Approval

We got our I-800 approvals yesterday!  Yeehaw!  I was REALLY hoping this would come before my birthday and it did!  This means the US government has approved us to bring these girls to the US.

So now we wait.  Again.  This feels like an endless waiting game!  We're mostly waiting for our Travel Approval now but there are a few little steps included.  Not much for us to do on our end - just wait, of course.  

Our USCIS officer will send our approvals to the National Visa Center.  Then the NVC will "cable" (basically email) our file to the US Embassy in Guangzhou, China.  This is approval of our visa petition.  Then the NVC will mail us a letter stating that our petition has been forwarded to the Embassy.  This letter doesn't look like much but it's super important.  We have to have it in order to proceed with the adoption.  So now we wait.  Most people wait about 1-2 weeks for this so hopefully that will be the case.  

Then once our agency gets the NVC letter they will forward it to the US Consulate in China.  Once the Consulate has the NVC they can issue the Article 5.  This is the pre-approval for our girls' immigrant visas.  A courier will take the Article 5 and take it to the CCCWA and then our Travel Approval can be issued.  Then we can go to China!!!  

In our waiting, we've been trying to keep busy preparing everything for their arrival.  We have their cribs set up and I have some clothes washed and ready to pack.  We purchased some carseats but haven't taken them out of the boxes yet.  We should really make sure they fit though.  Maybe we should do that this weekend. We were able to get all the luggage we need for the trip and I've been collecting things here and there.  I think we're pretty much done with all the big stuff. We are also still trying to finish unpacking the boxes that are currently stored in the girls' room.  It's all my scrapbooking/craft stuff that just doesn't have a home here at the new place.  It had a room all to its self before though so there's quite a bit of stuff to go through!  Dreading it.  They won't need the room for a while but I'd really like to get it all ready before they come home.  I'm sure my time will be seriously limited once I have 3 under 3!