How Do You Spell Relief? LOA!

I have been keeping a secret: On July 3rd, I received a call from our agency letting me know that China (CCAA) was asking for more information from my doctor. They didn't feel that the other 3 letters provided with our dossier were enough. My biggest fear was that they would apply a Post-May 1 way of thinking to our Pre-May 1 dossier. (For those new to this system, a rule change effective May 1st changed rules that might have affected whether we would have qualified to adopt from China).

We kept this quiet, all the while people asked daily how things were going. It was more than a little stressful. Suddenly, our final big step was in jeopardy of derailing our entire process, especially after better than smooth sailing all year. We were able to obtain a new letter from my doctor and learned last week that it was approved by CCAA. We were on to the next step.

I learned that this is not uncommon, but would probably mean that our dossier would be out of line and delayed sometimes by several weeks or even months. It was really depressing to see people with Letters of Intent sent long after ours already getting their LOA's and in some cases even their Travel Notices.

I had done the mental math and figured that we would see our LOA at the end of August: somewhere near day 100. My calendar at work marked today as day 71 since LOI. As I drove home for lunch today, my cell phone rang. My agency's name on the phone. I knew this was it. "Congratulations! Your LOA has arrived!"

Now we watch for our Travel Notice, which should come anwhere from 2 to 4 weeks after we send in our LOA. That puts us at the end of August at the latest. Travel Notice or Approval (TA) gives us 90 days to get in China and finish the China portion of the adoption before the 90th day. We can galavant around China as long as our Visas will let us after that. They don't care at that point. (Although we will have the all important US part still to attend to in Guangzhou).

The kicker is that October is a horrible time logistically to travel in China with a majority of the month filled with holidays that will either make government related appointment times scarce or at the very least, will make travel crowded and more expensive. This means that we might be stuck waiting to travel until November. It works better for Shawn's work schedule and means that I would be able to take time off work through the first of the year, which might be nice, too.

We'll see how it all pans out. All I know is we're on the home stretch now. It's nice just to have progress.