LOA!!!!!!!!!

After 132 days of waiting since we submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent) to adopt Eden, we finally, FINALLY, received our LOA today! This is what we've been waiting for because now we can move forward and apply for travel approval and file all of Eden's immigration paperwork.

It has been agony waiting this long, just sitting on our hands, not able to do anything to progress the adoption and knowing she is out there. Now we're looking at about 3 months til we're on that plane :)

When Love Takes You In

I myself don't have a high tolerance for sap, but please indulge me here. SCC has a gift for expressing things that are hard to find words for and I have an even deeper appreciation for their family's story after the tragedy they endured last year.

Her Name Is Eden

First of all, thank you to all for being so diligent about keeping up with our process, asking us how things are going, and if our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) has arrived yet. It really means a lot to us to know you're involved and helps to remind us that we are not alone.
I spoke with Holt about 2 weeks ago and they said they had contacted the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) to find out where our LOA was. They were told our dossier was still in the translation department and maybe by the end of October or early November we would get it! So we're praying it's soon, but still know that there are no guarantees.
I had posed the name Eden to Paul months ago and he wanted time to mull it over and make sure it felt right. Well, after holding out on me for a few months he finally told me on Sunday, "Okay, it's Eden." :) We will keep her Chinese name, Qinying, as her middle name and now have to work on getting Malia to call her Eden. We've been referring to her as "baby sister Qinying" for the last few months so she's a little confused about who Eden is.

Want to Challenge Yourself? Try Learning Mandarin!

Since Qinying will have only heard Mandarin in her young lifetime, Eliza and I figured it would be good to try to pick up some basic language skills before venturing out to meet her. Yikes! Mandarin is really hard to learn. The tones are hard to pick up. After our first Rosetta Stone lesson, we sound ridiculous... but we're going to keep trying. Anything we can do to try to connect with Qinying as quickly and smoothly as possible is worth the effort.

So for now, 再见 (goodbye).

All the articles and stories I've read on adoption websites and heard from other adoptive parents tell of the moment they saw their first picture of their child, of how they knew it was their son/daughter. So I naturally had that in my mind as how it was supposed to happen for me when I first saw my daughter.

As I anxiously opened the email from the agency that had her picture, my finger held the little white arrow over the attachment as I prepared myself for my big revelation. I opened it. I looked at it. "Oh, a Chinese baby." She was adorable, she was precious. But no fireworks going off in my head, or instant connection being formed. I was wondering what this meant.

Paul and I decided to take the route of praying about her and thinking about her over the 24 hours we had to make a decision and seeing if any red flags came up in our minds. None did, and as I spent the day going over her medical records with doctors and researching cleft palate programs, staring at her picture between phone calls, a connection slowly started to form. Already I was being a mother, learning about her medical condition and trying to figure out the best way I can help her.

Now it's been a week since we were matched with her, and our bond is growing. It really is excruciating, not having her here with us and having no idea when we can go get her. For now we are trying to make the most of our time with Malia and trusting that God has perfect timing, just as He's always had.

What's in a Name?

So I showed the Chinese characters for "Qin Ying" to a Chinese friend, and he translated it as "fragrance of cherry blossom." It's beautiful. We plan to keep it as a middle name. We're still discussing a first name to give. Any suggestions? :)

Ai Yai Yai

It didn't take long before we hit another snag.

It turns out that the next step is to wait for China to respond to our Letter of Intent to Adopt by sending us a Letter of Acceptance. Nothing else can happen until we receive this. The only problem is we don't know how long it will take to hear from China. It could be 45 days at the fastest. It could also be 6 months... gulp!

So I spoke too soon on the timeline. We have at least 45 days to wait before we can process any further paperwork and then plan the trip to meet Qinying (an additional 2-3 months).

It's harder now to wait. We've seen her picture. We imagine all of the developmental stages we want to be a part of. She's no longer an abstraction. She's a real person.

Sigh... This is going to take patience.