I don't think this is by chance. I think God knew this is what I needed to stay sane. As quickly as life is moving along, our adoption process passed huge milestones in the past month. Even though we are moving along quickly, every minute that is free is all-consumed thinking about our little guy. What is he doing? Is he being held? Loved? Are his owies being kissed? Is he well fed? Does he know about us? In some ways it has been really good to be so busy that I don't have many moments to think these thoughts. I do dream about him though. I dream about holding him. I dream about losing him. I dream about watching him sleep. I dream about him not wanting me. I dream about his hugs.
Like I said, things have moved along very quickly this past month or so. Our Dossier was sent to China (DTC) on 3/7/14. Our Log-in-date (LID) was 3/13/14. This means our paperwork was IN the office and logged in with the Chinese Government. We thought we would wait a few months before we were matched, so imagine my surprise when I came home from a playdate at 7:00 on April 8th and listened to my voicemail. It was CCAI and they were asking for me to call them back. I knew what that meant because in the past eight months I have never had a call from them. Of course, their office was closed already for the day, but thankfully Adam had a chance to take their call at 5:00 on his way to a meeting. He agreed for them to send us the file of our son, Liang Yun Peng. It was love at first sight. I couldn't stop crying and looking at him. I just knew - he was the one. Our son. He has such a twinkle in his eyes.
I called CCAI the next morning and asked for more information. They gave us seven pictures and a few pieces of paper explaining his medical needs and background. We decided to not wait or hold the process. Instead of sending his files to a medical professional to look over and analyze, we decided to accept his file and to start the next phase of this process. I submitted our letter of intent (LOI) over my lunch break on 4/9/14. We received three short video clips, which are like gold, of him playing and interacting with staff. He doesn't talk, but he makes great eye contact and seems happy and healthy. Our LOI was locked, which means that we are committed with our son, on 4/15/14.
Then comes the next waiting period. I have been told this is THE hardest part of our process. We have a face and a name. We know who our son is and we want to bring him home. We were told from 4/15/14 to when we can bring our son home will take 4-6 months by the agency. From other adoptive families we were told four months is more of the average time, but agencies want you to be prepared for longer in case you are one of the random unlucky ones who do have to wait that long so you are not bombarding them begging for updates.
The papers we are now waiting on is our Letter of Acceptance (LOA). This will mean that we have permission from China to adopt our son. First paperwork has to be translated, then it has to get processed. This part could take 2-4 months. I called today to check on our status and found out we are Out of Translation (OOT). This means we are translated! They don't have a date for when this happened, so for the sake of keeping track of dates I am going to use today's date, but there is a chance this happened 1-14 days ago. We still might have to wait anywhere between 1 week to three months to get our LOA, but at least things are moving along. I "heard" through facebook groups I belong to that the average wait for a family like ours waits 40 days from OOT to LOA. This puts us somewhere mid-June. Then there are several steps before we can travel, and each involve quickly overnighting paperwork across the country and world so we can make sure not to be the cause of any type of delay. The timing of this is perfect because it would be nearly impossible to run around and complete this paperwork quickly while working. So, mid-late June is probably when our chaos will begin. I also heard that 12-14 weeks is the length of time between our LOA and travel time. This puts us at mid-September. Not ideal as a teacher to be gone in the middle of the first month of school. I am sure my head will be swimming. I pray that we can travel in August to make this as smooth of a transition for our children and for my students, but ultimately, we will go when we can go because that is what is best for our son. I think we could delay things a little if we needed to, but I just want our baby home.
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support for our family with this process. We couldn't do this without all of you (sanely at least).
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