LOA!!! and more...

We finally got our LOA! For those who are wondering, "What the heck is an LOA?" , allow me to enlighten you. LOA stands for "letter of acceptance" which is the colloquial name for a letter sent by the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs). It basically asks us if we are sure we want to go through with our adoption...(duh!) Once we sign it and send it back, we will be issued our TA (travel approval), and we can travel as soon as a consulate appointment and airline tickets can be found. Hopefully, our TA will show up within 3 weeks or so.

Anyway, our LOA arrived on Monday. We are on vacation in Florida right now, visiting my sister, so our agency sent it via FedEX to her house. The FedEx man must have wondered why I ran out of the house, smiling and waving! He waited for Marc and I to sign it, I popped it into my prepared-in-advance FedEx envelope, and off it went.

Perhaps even more exciting than our LOA is the update we got from China about Josiah. Our wonderful agency had their China liasion visit the Wuhan CWI and took a video of Josiah and 2 other kids waiting for their families as well! I will try to post a link to the video if I can figure out how to do it. We also got 2 new photos of our boy. Check out his pink sandals! Here's the video:

The package has been sent!

Well, our package for Josiah will be winging its way to China soon! Yesterday, I finally managed to get to the post office, and $40 dollars poorer, I left. YIKES. It should arrive next Tuesday in Wuhan. I can only hope he gets it. I sent Grace a photo album while we were waiting for her, and I never saw it again. I don't think her orphanage ever showed it to her at all. Josiah is in foster care, but the package is going to his "home" orphanage. The children come to the orphanage regularly for appointments or something, so hopefully he will receive his gifts. I sent a photo album, two board books, a Washington Nationals T shirt, a stuffed dog, fancy soap for his foster mom, a Yankee Candle for the orphanage director (a woman), a little metal notepad case and pen for his foster father, and a bouncy ball for his foster brother.

Hubei province does not allow foster parents to have any contact with adoptive families for some reason. I guess they aren't up to date on all the research that encourages such things. It is sad. I would so like to know something about the family that has had Josiah since he was three weeks old. The only thing I know is that he has a foster brother. I tucked our address into the package in some hidden areas, but I don't know if they will find it or know what it is if they do.

Freaking out

Well, it's starting to look like we may travel sooner than we had anticipated. You'd think after 3 adoptions I'd know better than to try to orchestrate exactly when we would travel, but nevertheless, I do it every time. This year, we are supposed to go to Maine the first week of August, for me to compete in the Masters Track National Championships, and to visit with our friends, Pat and Paul and their girls. Kind of a two-for-one trip! But it is very possible that we will be in China about then. I have been talking with another family adopting a little girl from Wuhan, also using our agency, Small World (we love them!) Their family needs to travel late July or the first week of August. We hope we can travel together, but we both need different timeframes. I find it so hard to just say, "God will work it out and His timing is always perfect." But I know that's what I should believe.

I have been working on a little package for Josiah. It has a photo album, a couple of board books, a stuffed dog, a shirt, and a couple of gifts for the orphanage director and foster family. I am trying to find a family traveling to Wuhan soon to hand carry it, but so far no luck.

Concentrating on other things (homeschooling, housework, etc) is almost impossible right now. Maybe I should pray that our LOA will come REALLY early and we can go to China in early July. That might work out nicely...

The journey so far...

We are about 4 months into our journey to bring our new son, Josiah home. So, I need to give a brief synopsis of what has occurred up to this point.

First, a little background about our family. We are Marc and Joan, crazy middle-aged parents of a still growing family. We have 4 "homegrown" kids, 2 daughters adopted from Haiti, and 1 daughter adopted from China. We are in the process of bringing home our 8th child, an adorable 2 year old boy in China. We keep waiting to feel "done" building our family, but so far, it ain't happenin'.

Anyway, I had been having the urge to adopt another child for at least a year, but was waiting for that "reluctant husband waiver" to materialize. Around Christmastime 2006, I saw a glimmer of hope...my waiver was soon to arrive! Sure enough, Marc was ready. Since I had already been checking out the waiting child lists from a few different agencies willing to work with a family of 9 (not many, let me tell you!), it wasn't long before we found our little Wu Ke Min on Small World Adoption's list. Isn't he the cutest? Here are some more photos of our little fellow: