You know that little sprinting stretch we've been in?

It just came to a crawl. Our I800 approval and NVC cable happened just about as quickly as possible (thanks USCIS!), but now I just got in the line behind an 85-year-old lady with a full cart who needs a price check on cat food, uses a hundred coupons, and then pays with a check, at least figuratively speaking. You see, the embassy in Guangzhou takes both the Chinese and American holidays. All of them. I knew my paperwork would sit on someone's desk through Chinese New Year. I thought that the embassy would be closed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which is what the website says, which would delay my pickup by three days (four, if you count the fact that it couldn't be dropped off until today because they don't accept Monday dropoffs). But I found out tonight that they're actually closed the WHOLE week and they're closed for Martin Luther King day too, so our pickup will be delayed not by the three days we were thinking, but by EIGHT days.

So it looks like travel the first week of March is out. The second week is better for Eddie, but man, I want that baby ASAP. If we'd traveled that first week, we could have had her at ten months instead of eleven. We'll take her at eleven months, but every day counts here.