Baby steps and surprises!

So today we got fingerprinted. It is a step that we have to complete, and one that Kevin and I have perfected in the 4+ years that we have been involved in the adoption process. We have been fingerprinted 2 times for FBI clearances and 4 times for USCIS approval, I actually had an extra time in there because one of mine didn't take, so I got to redo them. We have been the to immigration office so many times in the past few years that we have now made friends with the guard/clerk. She has been there every time we have come in and today I made small talk with her while she was looking over our paperwork. On our way out the door she said "See you next time." Hahaha! I bet she will!

Now we wait for the I797 approval from the USCIS, the one that says we are allowed to adopt a foreign child. Once we get this we send it, with our homestudy and our adoption petition (asking the Chinese adoption officials for permission to adopt Lyla and promising to love and treat her like our own) to China. Then we wait again. Hopefully all of this stuff will be on it's way to China before the end of August, that can be your prayer for us!

And now to the surprises! I am a member of a huge adoption forum on a blog called Rumor Queen. It is a great place to get advice, support, complain and make friends, seriously, I really have friends that I have met there. Yesterday someone noticed that Lyla was from Jiangxi and emailed me to ask what orphanage because she was adopting a little girl from an orphanage in Jiangxi. It happened to be the same orphanage, our girls are the same age and we have chosen the same American name for them! CRAZY! It gets even crazier, she had two pictures of our girls posing together, SO COOL! So she sent them to me. They were taken about a year ago, which is really cool because we have some pictures of Lyla from late 2009 and from early 2011, but nothing in between, so now we have some from late 2010.

It was just enough excitement to give me hope that this adoption really will happen. Sometimes during all the waiting it seems like there will never be a day when we get to hug her for the first time, but today put a big smile on my face and more hope in my heart!!!