Waiting for I800A approval

We walked in to the Milwaukee USCIS office 9 days early to get fingerprints done (1/19, our appointment was 1/28), thinking it would speed up the process.  It really didn't matter, as USCIS was backed up with applications.  We received approval the day after we were finally assigned an officer, 61 days after the application was submitted!  That was a long 61 days, as no paperwork can go to China until this is approved.  In the mean time, we gather all the other documents needed for our China dossier:  medical forms, police clearance letters (again, different than for homestudy), photos, financial statements, employment letters, passport copies and photos, marriage certificate, birth certificates, etc.  Each document had to be notarized, sealed by the Secretary of State in the state it was issued in (involved Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin), and then sent to the appropriate Chinese consulate or embassy for authentication.  This involved lots of time, money, and visits to fedex!  All paperwork was competed, notarized, sealed, authenticated, and to Holt by mid January.  The wait for the I800A approval (2/22) seemed very long!