I can’t believe we didn’t have a party on the anniversary of log in date: on August 30th, 2005 the CCAA in Beijing officially accepted our massive dossier filled with a year’s worth of certified, notarized, registered, stamped, reviewed and beribboned certificates attesting to how worthy we are to become parents because we were:
- born (New York and Virginia, respectively)
- married (New York)
- heavily indebted homeowners (Massachusetts)
- employed
- crime-free (at least in the United States)
- disease and debilitating factor-free
- befriended by people willing to go public with that information
- scrutinized for psychological faultlines
- …endlessly patient and willing to jump through enormous, bouncing bureaucratic hoops
And they went for it, without even knowing then how skilled I’d become at buying elephant-head shaped rubber safety covers for the bathtub faucet and negotiating eBay for ridiculous numbers of Tea Collection, Catimini, and Room Seven togs for a little one who might fit anywhere between size 4 months and 18 months (or 70 through 90 for those fine little Marese, Mafret and Bonpoint outfits.
No news yet, though: we could get our referral in a few weeks and travel in December … or we could find ourselves waiting until March for that first photograph …