waiting....waiting....waiting

We were fingerprinted for USCIS on Monday. This was a blessing as my appointment was actually on Monday, but Jim's was not scheduled until next week! The people at our USCIS office are really kind and helpful....the same folks were there for Norah's adoption. They allowed Jim to get his fingerprints done anyway, and we are now waiting on our approval (I-797 for those in adoption land) so that we can send our dossier to China.

Now that we are close to sending things, the timeline is out of our hands and into the hands of Eli's birth country, and I have been looking at the average wait times lately. It looks like most are cases are taking about 4-6 months from LID (log in date) to traveling. The LID will come when we send our dossier to China and they send us a date saying that they've accepted it. We're hoping this will come this month, but could possibly come next month.

At this point, we're praying boldly and asking anyone who is willing to do the same along with us. We're praying that our approval comes very soon, as some have, and that our dossier gets logged in very quickly once it is in China. Above all else, we're praying that somehow, we fall on the short end of the estimated time frame so that Eli can be home for his fourth birthday on January 8th, or, at the very least, we will be with him on his birthday.

Thank you for praying with us!!