Signing the LOA

This is the official "Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter" that we received from China this week. It basically means that they are offering Amelia to us and we are formally accepting her. We are so excited to make her our daughter!

LOA!!!

Praise the Lord! Our agency called this afternoon to tell us that they have our LOA. They are overnighting it to us and we will have the package tomorrow afternoon. Waiting for LOA to come is the part of the process that varies most as far as how long it takes. Our wait (46 days) was pretty average. We have been told that we can expect to travel in about three months, which would put us in China in June. So tomorrow we will be busy finishing our I-800 application and getting that sent off so that we can start waiting again. . .

Next steps

It's been over a month since we received our referral and sent in our letter of intent to adopt Amelia. Now we are waiting for our "LOA" which is a letter from China approving us to adopt this specific child. The time it takes to get this document varies widely -- anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months. The average wait seems to be about 45 days, which has us hoping that ours will arrive by the middle of March. Once we receive our LOA we can apply with USCIS to bring Amelia into the country as an immigrant. Then we wait to receive our travel approval. We are still hopeful that we will be able to travel in June. Please pray with us that our LOA comes quickly!

We were allowed to send a photo album and small (12 in. square) blanket to Amelia. We found a really great website where you can make customized board books with your own pictures. We had fun choosing pictures of all of us to send -- Amelia's first look at her new family. We went to a fabric store, and Elizabeth chose a really soft purple and pink fabric with butterflies on it. My mom sewed a little blanket to send, and she'll make another one, a bit larger, for Amelia to have once she comes home. Each little thing we can do for her makes it all seem more real!

An Update!

I was so excited yesterday to open my e-mail and find an update on Amelia, with NINE new pictures! She looks like she's doing really well. From what we can see in the pictures, the nannies look like they truly enjoy the children, and all of the children seem well cared for and happy. We are so thankful that Amelia is getting good care until she joins our family. Here is a portion of the update:

"She develops a lot recently. She can walk by holding things by self. She can stand and crawl by self. She is very cute when she is walking and crawling. She sounds “Ma Ma” when she feels happy or in hurry. She is gentle and quiet. She appears smile on her face when she is happy. She requests hug when she sees familiar. "

We also learned that our Pre-Approval date is January 25th. This means that the CCAA has successfully received that letter of intent we sent saying that we wish to adopt Amelia. One more small step down!

Her name will be. . .

Amelia Grace Hahn. Before referral we had talked about incorporating part of her Chinese name into her new name. But we don't even know how to pronounce it! So we will keep her Chinese name as something special for her, and we hope to learn more about it. We do know that her last name comes from the name of the city where her orphanage is, and that her first name is the name of a popular singer in China. We will call her either Amelia or Mia, which won't be decided for sure until we meet her!

We have a daughter!!!

Last Tuesday, January 18, we were waiting again for our agency to call us, as we knew that China had released a new list of children the night before. Now this was the 4th such list to be released since our dossier was logged in, and we hadn't been called yet, so we had learned not to get our hopes up too high. On the other hand, we knew it had to be our turn soon!

That morning when I thought our agency would be open (they are on the West coast), I turned on my computer to check the web board to see if any other families had been matched. And the internet wouldn't work. I tried everything I could think of to fix it, since I knew if we got a call they would send the file to us by e-mail. Nothing worked.

At about 11:00, the phone rang. I was baking cookies, mostly just to keep me busy, and I saw our agency's name on the caller ID. It was the director of the China program, calling me with a file to review! She described to me a 14-month old girl in Hubei province whose special need was corrected cross feet and asked me if we were interested in seeing this file. Of course we were! She said she would e-mail the file, and since the little girl I babysit was napping, I figured I would just be waiting until she woke up before going to Mark's office to see the file and pictures. After I hung up with her, I called Mark right away to tell him about the call, and while we were talking, the internet started working again! By the time the e-mail arrived from the agency, Mark was on his way home for lunch. He told us to go ahead and open it, so Elizabeth, Evan and I clicked "open" and waited anxiously to see our first pictures of our sweet girl's face. She's beautiful! Elizabeth sat staring at the computer screen and said, "She's so cute I just want to sit here and look at her. I don't want to waste this picture!" Mark was soon home, and we all looked at the pictures together and read over her file. She is described as quiet, with a ready smile. She likes to play hide and seek with her caretakers and likes to eat cake!

I have been encouraged by my agency not to post pictures here, unless I make the blog private. So until I decide whether or not to do that, you'll have to see me in person or send me an e-mail, and I'd be happy to share our girl's picture with you.

We consulted with our pediatrician and with an international adoption specialist, and we submitted our letter of intent the next day. We are so thankful to be welcoming another daughter into our family, and we are praying that even now the Lord would be preparing her heart to join our family and to love Jesus!

Dossier To China!

Our agency called this morning to tell us that our dossier arrived there and needs no corrections. Praise the Lord! I'm so thankful to have that stack of paperwork (seven months' worth) out of my house and on its way. Holt sends dossiers to China in batches every Friday, so we will be officially DTC (dossier to China) this Friday, September 24th. It will take a couple of weeks to get our official log-in date from China. Once we have that, we will be eligible to receive a referral. New special needs lists are released on or around the 20th of each month, and the lady I spoke with today told me she expects that we will receive a referral from the October list. They are matching families very quickly, and we are open to a variety of minor medical needs. So a month from now, we could know who our daughter is! We are EXCITED!!