Mission accomplished!

Yesterday was like Christmas morning, as I went out to get the mail. I found the following items tucked in our mailbox:

• National Visa Center- cable letter (which a copy needs to get to our Ch*in@ coordinator ASAP)
• Our fingerprint appointment notices- 4 of them actually. I suspect our officer issued a duplicate to be mailed before she headed out of town to ensure we got them this week. We each had 2 copies of our notices....pretty funny.
• My latest sewing pattern from Portobello Pixie, the most adorable ruffle pants !

So today, the order of business was the following:

1. Email our agency a copy of the NVC letter and let them know we were going to get printed early and to be on the lookout for our I-800A this week
2. Zip over to Orlando to finally get printed
3. Call/email our covering im*migration officer to let her know what's up.

Patrick was able to get off work early enough to attempt our walk-in. We arrived at 3:15; they close at 4pm. There was only one other person waiting to be printed. So we thought our chances were good. We explained that we had fingerprint appointments but were here early because our I-800A just expired. We couldn't even get the rest of our story out before the officer was like, "Let me see your hands and your ID." Phew! And praise the Lord! Not only was it a snap to walk in early for us. But the officer actually kept joking around with us and Caleb. He kept asking Caleb if he wanted a big brother as well as a little sister. I was laughing so hard under my breath. I had just sat down and put my purse down when my number was called. In fact, they didn't even call Patrick's number; they just took him back. We were in and out in 15 minutes, I kid you not! It was such a relief and a huge answer to prayer. I would've gone nuts if I had to wait until May 27th to get fingerprinted.

Anyway, after hopping back in the car and heading home, I called our covering officer and left a message for her regarding our early fingerprinting today. After I left the message, I realized I didn't give her our UPS account #. So I was bummed about that. But then Patrick remember he had his 3G USB "thingie" for the notebook in the backseat of the car. So I quickly shot an email to our covering officer as well, this time giving her our UPS account so that she can overnight the approval to us.

So hopefully and prayerfully, our covering officer will be able to issue us approval on our Supplement 3 this week. She has until Thursday to approve us if our Ch*in@ coordinator is going to drop off our documents at the consulate in Guang*zhou on Monday. Otherwise we will be stuck waiting until Thursday. Either way, our wait for TA will begin at the very beginning of June. If we get TA 3 weeks after that, we could travel at the end of June. If it takes 4 weeks for TA, then we will travel first week of July. I will feel so much better once we get our im*migration approval sent over to Ch*in@ and our documents dropped off at the consulate. But it's nice to know we are nearing the end of this Hague paperchase. And we will soon be on a plane to bring our precious Madeline home.