Oh JOY!

It's official: WE HAVE LOA!!! Basically this means that China says we are a match and it is our official referral from the government. This is such big news! I truly wish you could have seen the chaos that ensued as soon as I opened that email... I screamed and ran to Steve who panicked and wondered what was wrong. Then Samuel and Timothy started running around with their fingers in their ears, screaming. Then I started skipping around the room and Steve kept cringing and ducking every time I came near him, for fear that I would tackle him. It was quite the sight to behold.

Even more importantly though, we have a new family member! We are thrilled to introduce to you LilyJoy ZhiPing. Keep the prayers coming, they're working!!

Now, for those of you wondering what's next, here is a basic rundown.

*Receive LOA from agency, sign it, send it back
*Send 1-800 application
*Agency sends one copy of LOA to U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou along with DS-230
*DS-230 and approved I-800 get married to make Article 5
*Article 5 travels to Beijing where it meets the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs)
*CCAA puts another copy of LOA and Article 5 together in a nice happy package and sends out TA (Travel Approval)

I may have one or two things off a bit, but as you can see, it is confusing and a bit of a miracle that any adoptions happen at all in China! At any rate, the current wait times for all this are averaging about 50 days from LOA to TA. Once we get TA, it depends on when the next group from our agency is traveling-- could be anywhere from 2-3 weeks till we travel! Which will put us right about the beginning of Sept., understanding that things could be faster or slower than this at any point.

Needless to say, we are thrilled.