On Thursday, January 31st, our final piece of paperwork arrived in the mail. Everyday, I would go to the mailbox looking for the 'brown envelope' that everyone talks about. This day was no different. Again, no brown envelope, but there was a small white envelope from the Department of Homeland Security. My heart started racing because I knew that this couldn't be right. Something must be wrong! I figured that our fingerprints didn't go through. Well, I open the letter and inside is an I 797-C. So now, I'm even more confused because I've never heard of that. I called Dennis to look on the USCIS website and he couldn't find that form. So, I emailed ASIA with the question and I noticed that the form did say the words APPROVED! Unfortunately because of the time difference, ASIA wouldn't open for another 2 hours.
Well, they got back to me saying that Massachusetts calls the form by a different name, but it is definately our approval! I scrambled around and drove the form to Den's office. We drove over to where the notary and got that done. Then I rushed home and over to the Post Office. All in one day!
ASIA now has everything for the dossier and is getting the necessary authentication done. We should be DTC (Dossier to China) by the end of February! With any luck, we can travel in June!
Today, I was able to send Tootsie her first care package. It has some blankets, clothes and dolls for her. We also included a photo album of us so that she can get used to our faces before we get to China. There's even one of the dog! Hopefully she'll get it around the same time that we are DTC!
