OK, Now that I am a little calmer, NOT!

So what an exciting time!  I was such a scatterbrain last night.  I asked a fellow blogger if I could copy her explanation of what happens next in the process and she said that I could!  So here goes!  What a confusing process!

In case you are excited because I am obviously excited, yet asking yourself, "what does that mean?," basically the LOA is THE referral notice from the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs. That means that they have officially said that Xiao Huan can be adopted by us. Now we wait for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve our form I-800 (a petition to classify a Convention country adoptee as an immediate relative). Once they do that, then they send our information to the National Benefits Center who will give preliminary approval for Lily's Visa to enter the US. Then that approval gets sent to the US Consulate in Guangzhou where they combine that approval with a copy of our LOA to "magically create" the Article 5. At that point the Article 5 gets couriered to Beijing to the CCAA who will then grant our travel approval. Once our TA arrives at Lifeline, they try to have us in the air within seven days.

Sound about as clear as mud? Yeah, me too. I don't fully understand what happens at all the steps, or why they are now separate steps opposed to the much faster process getting a TA used to be, but that is the outline of the process. We're looking at somewhere between 40 to 60 days, yet another wait with an unknown end. Ugh.

So guess who just arrived at my door?

Yes!!!! The FED EX MAN!!!!!!

And guess what he brought?

A Package!

And guess what was in it???

The LOA!!!!!!!!!!! Now I need to meet Mike at the FED EX to make copies of it and sign it and then the above process begins.  My agency sent a letter to start looking at flights and Visa's.  We are planning on taking Emma and Meilynn and we are hoping that our oldest daughter Kami will be able to go along to help.




  We have a new name!!!  Well at least a new middle name!!!  Here is the story,  I hope it is a little clearer than what I put together last night.We have made a little name change for Lily. We decided to keep the name Lily
that the agency had given her. None of the names I like fit her sweet little
face and Lily seemed just perfect. The change is in the middle name. We were
going to call her Lily Faith Xiaohuan, but when I was at the girl's choir
practice last night I got a message that Karla from my agency called. She said
that nothing was wrong but that she wanted to talk to me. I knew it was too
early for LOA so I thought she might have a question for me or even might be
asking me if I was interested in adopting a child that is aging out. (There are
several on our agency's list and we are approved for two. As I drove home the
girl's and I were listening to Christmas Carols on the radio. Just as I passed
a house with a HUGE lit up NOEL, the first Noel started playing. In my mind I
thought if by some miracle I get home and have LOA, Noel would be a beautiful
name. WEll I walked in the door and told Mike that the agency had left a
message on my phone had he talked to them. He said yes, I just talked to them
and they want you to call. We have LOA!!!!!!! I could not believe it. When I
crawled into bed all I could think about was that her name should be Lily Noel
Xiaohuan. So this morning I told Mike my little story and he agreed that we have a Lily Noel.
It won't be long now Lily Noel XiaoHuan.