Immagration approval: check

Well, we just received our second round of approvals from USCIS (formerly known as INS). We orginally applied at the start of this process but it's only good for 18 months. It's not an easy process in terms of you can't ever talk to anyone about it - emails only. The person only deals with orphan/adoption approvals on Tues and Thurs and yes I do mean THE person. There is one orphan officer for all of Cook County (those of you not familiar Cook County is the one that includes Chicago and a lot of it's surrounding suburbs). We were hoping everything would move quickly but we must have hit the jackpot because out papers were submitted on January 9th and we already received our approval letter yesturday! Apparently January is the time to submit your I-600A paperwork (take note). It's a huge piece of the puzzle we'll need done and taken care of for travel - which is good to know I don't have to worry about it anymore. We've also beein in conversations with our placement agency and our local agency and the two are going to start communicating with each other (which is also nice because we're not entirely sure what steps we need to take and this way all the professionals in our lives will be on the same page.

I've been resisting the urge to run to Babies R' Us and purchase things. I have coupons and really would love to go and buy our new stroller and Ian's new booster seat but I'm resisting. I think my parents are going to take Ian away for the a weekend and then Sam and I are will cleaning/organizing/shopping fiends. I just don't want to jump the gun on things and then run into a snag or something. I've already purchased a few small items (toys, shirts, blanket) and that will have to hold me over for a while. :)