The most important letter I've ever sent

I stood in line at the post office for over an hour today.  It's an unfortunate month to be sending a package, but now was the time.  I had three large padded envelopes, and not one of them were presents.  But all of them needed to be sent today.  One was full of necklaces I had given away during a launch party for one of my books.  One was an ornament someone had ordered from one of our fundraisers.  And one was continually clutched to my chest like some random person was going to run by and steal it.  The man behind the counter asked me if it was worth anything.  Those were the words he used.  "Is it worth anything?  I mean, do you want it insured?"

I truly said, "Empirically, I suppose it's not worth anything.  There's nothing inside but papers.  But it's the most important letter I've ever sent."

Well, there was also a check for $2,500 inside, but I could have cancelled it, had it been lost.  But it really was the most important package ever in my possession.  In the future, I have no doubt there will be packages even more important than that, but this one was not just sending paper, it was sending the future of our family.

See, today I sent our preapproval packet for Daniel.  His country is somewhat (really, really, really) anal retentive about their process.  Bless them for caring, but they have an excessively difficult screening process that involves multiple instances of going through approvals.  The first is this one, preapproval.  For us, this is our first make or break moment.  They may tell us no to our very first request.  Especially since we need a BMI waiver.  You see, Daniel's country also has a list of requirements as long as your arm.  On average, it's about two thirds more than the length of qualification lists from other countries.  We don't meet one of them.  Typically they will waive for special needs children, depending on what kind of waiver you seek.  However, they can feel free to say no at any time.  And because of changes that his country has been going through of late, they may indeed do just that.

So cross your fingers for us as we freak out our way through the waiting process to see if we are preapproved!

A