Well, even for someone who has been at the process for 3 years (me! :) I get confused by ALL the steps that have to take place. So, you may remember that in my last blog - or maybe the one before that - I explained that we had submitted our LOI - Letter of Intent. This letter has all the required wording that basically states we want to adopt the child that we were sent the referral on. We sent ours in on Friday, May 2, 2014. That was last week. In China last Thursday and Friday - May 1st and 2nd - was a national holiday so they were not in the offices at CCCWA to even receive our electronic form. At any rate our LOI was translated and entered into the system at CCCWA to await approval. We were told that we should expect it to take probably about 10 days for the electronic approval to come back.
To my surprise (and the surprise of our international adoption agency!) it came today!! Here is the email I received at 12:45 am this morning:
Hi Jessica,
You know the saying good things come to those who wait....we'll we have already received your online approval & I can see in the system that CCCWA is processing your LOA!
I've attached a copy of the online approval for your records.
I've also attached the I800 & I864W cheat sheet so you can start working on the documents.
The LOA will be coming anytime within the next 30 days.
take care
Karla
So next step?? As the email above indicates; it's getting the LOA - in it's official and tangible form from the CCCWA. While we now know that our request to adopt Zhu Ting Na has been approved by China! This is HUGE!! The official document from China does take a little while as it has to go through the proper channels and get the proper stamps, etc. before they will send it out to us. Getting the official LOA document is another really big step because once we receive that we will expect our TA (Travel Authorization/Approval) to come about 8-9 weeks later based on what they have been seeing recently.
For now I am staying plenty busy with the other stuff I need get done in preparation for Lily. Everything from more 1800 forms to setting up her bed and even getting a passport and Visa for Tanner, our oldest son. We have been discussing the possibility of taking him with us when we go to pick up Lily and I think we have decided that is what we want to do. He is so excited to go and while we can't take all the kids with us we really do think this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity and we should try to make it happen for Tanner. I really like the idea of having him with us too. He is a really great kid and will make a wonderful travel companion for Derek and me. And how special it will be to share our "gotcha day" with him :)
And in wrapping this entry up I have to tell a brief story that Gabby's nanny told me today when I got home:
Mariah has been watching Gabby for us every week for more than a year now. She is definitely one of (if not THE) top people in Gabby's life and she loves to talk about, to and with Mariah! Well today, apparently, one of those conversations turned into a very personal one about something Gabby realized her and Mariah have in common. Mariah has a sister named Bekah that Gabby knows pretty well. Since we have been talking to Gabby about her new sister Liliana I guess today she decided to make the connection with Mariah. She said to Mariah, "Bekah is Mariah's sister and Lily my sister"! A-MAZ-ING!!! I wasn't sure she was "getting" what we are trying to get her to understand as far as Lily coming home, but it sure seems like she is. I can't believe that she made that connection at 2! I really need to stop underestimating Gabby. She is awesome!
Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers.....It means so much to me and my family!
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