Jumping Over Hurdles

Today we sat in an immigration office for people desiring to become citizens of the United States for an hour. No cell phones were allowed, the boys were stared at as they sat in the hard chairs and did amazingly well doing nothing for that long, and no one at the office smiled. But we jumped over one more hurdle, one more obstacle in our way of bringing our little girl home. In 2-4 weeks we should have our immigration approval.
We have our dossier documents finished. The documents have been notarized at AAA, certificated through the state of California, and are now being authenticated at the Chinese consulate. Once we receive immigration approval, we will do these three steps with that document, and then our big packet of hard work will be sent on its way to the People's Republic of China.
After that, the waiting game will begin. Each time a new child is put into the system, the adoption agency will check with the paperwork of the families who have been with them the longest to see if the child's special needs, gender, and age are a match for that family. If not, they will check with the next family; until finally, we are chosen.
Praying for a short wait but know that God has the perfect little girl picked out for us, somewhere. She is alive, crying, breathing, seeing things. I hope she is still with her birth parents and if not, I pray she is with a loving foster family, helping her through this first year of her life. So here's to continuing to jump all the hurdles necessary until we finally bring her home.

Love in Mandarin Chinese. ;-)