Visas in hand...one step closer to Hannah!

It has been a CRAZY month! It is hard to believe that one month ago we had just seen our baby's face for the first time. As you might imagine, I haven't slept much since we received our referral! Sure, I'm exhausted, but it's good practice (and good to know that I can function on much less sleep than I usually get!). So, what have we been up to? Well, other than being in full-blown panic mode (which Mara has been in for most of the past month), we are trying very hard to get everything ready for Hannah! We had NOTHING ready at all. We have used Hannah's room for storage for nearly 10 years. This was not a great idea. :) So we have cleaned everything out, made many many trips to the thrift store and the dump, and are down to the last few boxes (which have now been moved to our basement!). We ordered her furniture (thanks Bubbie & Zaide!) two weeks ago, and this past weekend painted the walls a beautiful princess pink! Mara will be steam cleaning the carpet tomorrow (that DOES sound like fun, right?), and the furniture arrives on Thursday! Just need to go and buy a mattress, some bedding (we picked out this set), and a bookcase and the room will be ready (well, ready enough) for Hannah! Sure, we don't have a lot of clothes (or anything else yet!), but it doesn't really matter, does it?

We've also been working on lots of paperwork. Mara went to the Chinese Embassy today with DeeDee & George, our new friends and travel partners (they received a referral for an ADORABLE little boy the same day as us from the same orphanage - we will be traveling to Kunming together) and got our Chinese Visas! The visa office for the Embassy is quite an experience, but the people who work there might be some of the nicest people we have dealt with through the entire process. If everyone in China is as nice as the women we dealt with today, we may never come home! :) Now we just wait for our TAs...our Approval to Travel to China. Once we receive our TA, our agency can make our appointments at the US Consulate, we can book our airplane tickets, and we can go get Hannah! I have no idea when this will happen. Our agency thinks it may be another few weeks, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that they are wrong and we will receive them this week (other families with other agencies who received their referrals on the same day as us have been told that their TAs are on their way...hopefully ours are too!). We will travel 1-3 weeks after we receive our TA, so keep your fingers crossed that they are in the mail!! :)

A big thank you again to everyone for all the kind wishes. I haven't been able to email or call everyone back, but please know how much it means to us. This has been a VERY long journey (ugh...whenever a contestant on a reality show says that, Chris rolls his eyes and says "Don't Stop BELIEVING!!"), but it is amazing to know how much Hannah is loved. I cannot wait to tell her how many people were waiting for her!