Well heaven forbid I say "we're close". I mean, I do know how to jinx myself and that would be the way to do it.

So... to recap, in case you haven't been following along: 5 families got referrals on the same day, us included. 3 passed court on 3/4. Us and one other family were delayed by a day because both of the birthmom's didn't bring the appropriate paperwork to court that day.

I assume the 3 families who passed that day had their kids' paperwork submitted so that they could get birth certificates, passports, TB tests and, finally, their embassy dates. I also assume that our paperwork was submitted just a few days later.

The other 3 families' kids were taken for TB tests last week, but we were told that our kids were still waiting for birth certificates.

So far, one family was assigned an embassy date of 4/16. Great! But then another wasn't given an embassy date until 4/28 (each agency is only allowed to have embassy appts every other week). So I can only conclude that the *earliest* our embassy date will be is 5/12. If not later.

Wait, let me just say our embassy date will be late May. Maybe I can jinx myself into an earlier date.

MAY!

You know, honestly, that's fine timing for us - if it was only us I was worried about. It will be after the work conference that I have in NYC in early May (I was worried I'd have to leave our new kids at home with Dad for 3 days.). It will be after my parents visit us. Marc will almost be done with school for the summer, so we won't have to hire a nanny to be here during the day.

But it's not fine for the kids. You know, the ones in the orphanage? The ones who are going to see all their friends get picked up by their new parents. The ones who need a mommy and daddy to give them some lovin'.

Sigh.