"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance.The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break." -Chinese proverb

Saturday, April 21, 2012

30 days closer

The LOA wait is brutal and there's no rhyme or reason to who has a 50 day wait versus who has a 125 day wait.  It's hard looking at your daughter's pictures, not knowing when you'll be able to bring her home.  So, I saw this great idea on another blog and I'm stealing it.  Instead of just counting down (up?) the days with added dread, not knowing where the end is (although, I admit, I'll be doing that too), we are going to celebrate every 30 days of our wait as 30 days closer to Liana.  So, today was day 30 of our LOA wait so we celebrated.  Ella and I made a sign and baked a cake, we had Chinese food for dinner and then, we watched Big Bird in China.  It was fun!  Inside, I'm hoping we only have to have a celebration like this twice, if not just this once, but it was fun.



Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The LOA wait is on...

So, the question that everyone's asking us is, "When do you get to bring Liana home?"  That's an excellent question.  I wish I  had an answer.  What happens next is...we wait.  We're waiting for what is called a Letter of Approval (or LOA in the adoption community) from China, approving us to adopt Liana.  They have to translate our dossier and review it and it can take anywhere from 30 to 100+ days to get this.  30 is highly unlikely so we're hoping for somewhere between 2-3 months.  We're on day 19 of our wait so we've got a ways to go.  After we get our LOA, well there's other steps to go through that I won't get into yet but it's another 2-3 months after we get our LOA until we get Liana.  And I might be on the optimistic side with my estimates here.  I'm not really clear on what all is involved after LOA but I'll take it as it comes.  We did get a packet from our adoption agency of more paperwork to fill out while we wait.  We should have it in the mail by the end of the week though and then we'll just continue to wait. 

On a happy note, I did order Liana's bedding today!  The bad news is, it's on backorder until July 5th.  Oh well, I guess we have time.  I'd really like to start painting her room but I don't want to pick the color until we have the bedding to match it with.  It's very cute though and I'm excited!  I just can't wait to bring Liana home to her own room with her own toys and clothes that have never been worn before!  I just want to spoil the heck out of her! 

And just for the fun of it...here's an Easter pic of the kids.  Now, just picture our little Chinese girl sitting next to them and you can imagine Easter next year!