Embassy Day!

Today was Embassy Day! You know, it was actually kind of painless. I was nervous or something, I couldn't sleep very well last night, neither could Tim. Good news is Tabitha slept all night long! Tim woke up this morning and said he kind of felt like a kid on Christmas morning; you know you wake up hoping that it is morning and Santa has come with presents, but it's only 3 a.m. and there's no way that it is time to get up. The whole thing went pretty smoothly, except stupid me went off and left the little pictures that you need for the visa lying on the desk. Fortunately the photo place is across the street from the Embassy. Tim walked down there and had new pictures made. Tabitha was great, she even took a little nap while we were there. The whole process at the Embassy is ridiculous! They give everyone an 8 a.m. appointment and there are tons of people there waiting to get in. They start letting people inside at about 8:15, then you or your fascilitator submit all of your forms at one window. You go to another window and pay your $380. Then you sit and wait, and wait, and wait. They issue 30 appointments a day. Our number was 30. Then they start calling people to go to window 10. You go in this little room and a man is sitting behind a window. You give him your passports, he looks at them, he asks a few questions and then tells you whether or not he approves your I-600. He then tells you to wait until you are called for your exit visa interview. Once you are called to the window for the visa exit interview, they have you hold up the baby so they can see that the baby is the same baby on the passport, the parent(s) raise their right hand and swear that they have answered the questions on the form correctly. This person also asked some questions about whether or not you visited, who your agency was, if you hired outside help besides the agency, and then the main petitioner on the forms, Tim in our case signs a few forms, the person says what kind of visa you will be getting. Ours is called an IR3 because we visited, which means the moment that Tabitha is on American soil, she is considered a citizen! We will do a readoption process of course because we want her name to legally be Tabitha Alice Lourdes Taylor; right now her passport just says Lourdes Taylor.
It is just starting to sink in that she is ours! I looked at Tim this afternoon and said with tears in my eyes, "she's really ours, we don't have to give her back!" I think that it won't truly sink in until we are back in South Carolina!
Tomorrow we get her visa, and then we fly home on Wednesday! Look out South Carolina, here we come!