Lucky Bamboo

Things seem to be so connected some days that it is really kind of scary. I received a piece of "Lucky Bamboo" from my staff last year as a gift. All year it has steadily grown and then all of a sudden it has just begun to take off. I kept the little tag attached to it and reread it this morning. This is what it says "We sincerely hope this gift of lucky bamboo will bring happiness and good fortune to you." Hmmm, our dossier is in China, meaning our precious Koli is one step closer to us and all of a sudden my bamboo is starting to look like the beanstalk from J*ack and the Beanstalk. I know, I know, cheesy but come on people-I'm looking for anything to make me feel like we are still forging ahead.

As I mentioned before we are planning on getting to know the other 5-6 couples in our area that are using the same adoption agency and were DTC the same date as us. I have talked with a couple of them and they have received their brown envelope. Of course we have not received ours because that is the way things go in the H household. The brown envelope is filled with important documents that are sent to you by the US Consulate in China. It contains things like Visa applications, etc. Receiving the brown envelope is like Christmas for some people (me being one of them). I would race to the mailbox every day waiting for it then I found out the other people in our travel group have already received theirs, which made me feel like I was the kid on Christmas morning that received the lump of coal in her stocking. I have been assured by our adoption agency that not everyone receives the envelope and they have all of the necessary documents that are contained in the brown envelope at their office so not to worry. It's still a little disturbing to me but I am trying to focus on the positive. We still have not been notified of our LID (log in date) yet. This is the date that the Chinese government officially logs your dossier in to their system for processing. I don't expect to hear for another few weeks and keep telling myself that the longer it takes for me to hear, the less waiting time I will actually have left when I find out the date. It typically takes up to 14 days to be logged in so if that is the case we are looking at June 24th or somewhere close to that date as our LID. Which means that we will realistically not get our referral until January. I'm hoping for our referral in December but don't want to get myself into the lump of coal category again by setting myself up if it doesn't come by Christmas.
L made another trip to Cabela*s last week and came home with two very adorable outfits for Koli. Of course they are camo colored but they do have ruffles and bows so I'm happy, we are making progress.