The Waiting Game . . .

We are on day 92 of our "100 Day Wait"! If you are unfamiliar with Special Needs adoption, you may wonder what that means. To back up even further . . . Teddi is considered "special needs" by China's standards because she was born with a cleft lip and palate. Her lip was repaired when she was six months old, her palate remains open and will require surgery (or a series of surgeries once we get her home). Now, back to "the wait" . . . When we began Teddi's adoption last June, we spent several months compiling documents. We were fingerprinted and checked out by the FBI, had medical check-ups (the whole family), security clearances were done, letters of recommendation were written (thank you friends) . . . . we proved our net worth, and we had a homestudy visit with a social worker ONE week after moving into our new house! We took passport pictures and we went through adoption education classes . . . and we became best friends with the mailman as he delivered the much awaited documents--one at a time! This was our adoption "paperchase". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it was a mighty long chase!

To sum things up . . . we have jumped through many a hoop to prove to China that we truly desire to adopt one of her children. So what are we waiting for? Well, by the time we had gotten every single box checked off on the "collection of things it takes to adopt from China" list, we had accumulated an important stack of papers better known as our dossier! Our dossier was sent off, and upon its arrival in China was logged into the database of the China Center of Adoption Affairs, or the CCAA. We then received an official "log in" date of December 4, 2007. Typically in a special needs adoption you wait about 100 days from your log in date (LID) to receiving your Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China. The LOA is a letter (obviously) that asks us, "Do you still desire to adopt this child?" Ummm . . . YES! We do!


Given that today is the end of day 92 we should be receiving a call from our agency any day saying that our LOA has arrived. They will send the letter to us, we will sign it and Fed Ex it back, they will send it quickly back to China . . . and then we will begin our final wait . . . for travel approval! We're getting ready to meet our sweet girl, hold on Teddi.

Blessings~

Tina