Let the TA wait begin! (hopefully a few days ago...?)

Well, we are officially waiting for TA (Travel Approval)!  Our Article 5 was picked up sometime this week but no one seems to want to tell us when.  Erik badgered them enough to get them to agree to find out and let us know on Monday.  Anyhoo, that begins our TA wait.  This is THE LAST STEP!!!!  What happens is our Article 5 gets sent to the part of the government in China that handles adoptions and well...okay, I really don't know what they do with it.  I heard somewhere that they contact the orphanage to make sure everything is ready on that end...?  So, Liana, I hope you're ready because we sure are!  Once our TA is issued, our agency contacts the U.S. Consulate for a Consulate Appointment (or CA, if you just love all of these adoption acronyms ;-) and then we plan our trip!  The TA wait is, on average, about 14 days but it can be anywhere from 6 days to 3 weeks.  This is why we want to know exactly when our Article 5 was picked up.  We want to know how long we are into our TA wait.  We are (of course) hoping for a super short wait.  After long waits for so many things, we deserve a short TA wait, right?  RIGHT?!  The thing is, if we were to get our TA next week, travel in September would be no problem but if we go over 2 weeks for our wait, September is probably out.  We will either be traveling September 13th or October 4th because the first week of October, the government is shut down for a national holiday.  So, please, please, please pray for a quick TA!!!  I've seen a lot of them lately in 7 or 8 days so I just hope that we get lucky.  We want to bring Liana home and adding another 3 weeks to our wait would just feel like forever.  We have waited long enough and so has Liana!