8-0

No, that's not a score. That's a shocked smiley.

After waiting 2 weeks longer than we expected, Sandy-the-Social-Worker FINALLY sent our paperwork to USCIS (in short, Immigration) Thursday AM. This is OUR last step. Now the paperwork just has a few more to go.

Anyway, I expected to hear from USCIS in a couple weeks or so, at best. YESTERDAY MORNING Brennan went to the mailbox and brought back two letters--one for me and one for his dad--from INS. He just had nothing for Bart, a problem that we hope will go away tomorrow. Anyway, I spent at least 2 hours wanting to find a corner somewhere out of the way where I could just sit down and bawl, and I'm not sure why except that I was going through a gamet of emotions that would reduce Gov. Ah-nold to tears.

I called our friend who did a recommendation for us and was so matter-of-fact sounding that she said, "Gee, Carolyn, I'm glad to hear you're so excited." I replied, "I'm still trying to process this." She put it better than anyone could when she said, "I know. It's like when you try and try to get pregnant and when you finally do, you're almost like, 'Uhh, I don't think I want to do this anymore.'" She had hit the nail on the head. I'd felt exactly the same way three other times in my life; I'd just forgotten. (Hmmm. Might have been 4. I think I had some of the same stuff going on the last week before my wedding!) =)

I contacted Sandy as soon as I could type again and this was her response: "I am Shocked! Your appointment is the most expedient I've ever heard!" She's working on finding out why Bart hasn't received a mailing and she's trying to figure out why Brian and I got separate letters--investigations that I hope will prove out in our favor somehow--but she can't believe this any more than I can and she's been doing it for I forget how many years. (We're writing the book on oddities. I don't remember if I blogged our other two-day paperwork. She'd never seen that, either.) All I could say was that tons of people are praying this through. She e-mailed back, "Can't hurt! =)"

Once we're fingerprinted, it's 30-60 days before we receive our I-171H--I hope that's all, anyway. (Poor Bostonians are waiting about 4 months right now while I'm despairing that a NKyian told me yesterday that they've waited 6 weeks with no approval yet.) Once that is in, we'll know our paperwork is headed to China. Then it's another 6 weeks before we know the actual day that the paperwork went to China and that their government accepted it. Then we start counting to 5 or 6--months.

And sometime within the next 2 months we'll send $3465 MORE to government officials (this time in China) and to our adoption agency. (The officials get less than the agency does!)

Thus far we've spent:

$400--Apps to 2 agencies
$610--USCIS for fingerprinting--what we're doing this week
$1798--Social worker

Total: $2808. About $14,000 to go, at least.

Now I really understand the 8-0!

=D