Good News!

So, I posted on Facebook today that we received our LOA today. We’ve been waiting (patiently?!) for this for about the past 2 months, so it was HUGE to get this today! Many of you expressed your excitement for our family with reaching this milestone…Thanks! We thought, though, that we’d fill you in on what this actually means and what the process will be from here. Unfortunately, it does not mean that we are ready to travel…but we are one BIG step closer!

Here is a brief explanation of what our timeline looks like:

*Once our agency submits our LOA, which is our Letter of Acceptance from China, they will send out a set of immigration paperwork to the USCIS. We will try to wait patiently for a few weeks for our provisional approval of this.

*Upon receiving these documents, our agency will submit all of our documents to the US Consulate in Guangzhou. We try to wait patiently again for a few weeks while they review documents. After reviewing, the US Consulate will issue their approval of our case, which is called an Article 5.

*Our Article 5 will then get sent on to the CCCWA (China Center for Children Welfares and Adoption).

*After a few more weeks of waiting, the CCCWA will issue a Travel Approval, which will get sent to our agency in Colorado.

*When our agency receives our Travel Approval, they will email an appointment request to the US Consulate in Guangzhou. Once we have a confirmed appointment, our agency begins making travel plans!

Realistically, it looks like we will be traveling to bring Kai home in about 10-14 weeks. Of course, we’d love to get on a plane and head to China yet tonight! But, we know that there is a lot of preparation that is necessary before we can head out. Until we do travel, we would appreciate prayers for patience, patience, and more patience as we wait for documents to process and approvals to be sent.

This little face makes all the work and waiting more than worth it!