LOA!!!

Psalm 100:4 - Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.

I have prayed from the start of this process that we would received a fast Letter of Acceptance (LOA).  Well, my prayers were answered with the fasted LOA on record - 4 days!  That's right - 4 days!  This part of the referral process usually takes 30-90 days.  I have heard of a few families who received LOA in less, but not many.  David has believed that ours would be fast from the start and I will be the first to say that he is completely right! 

I received an email from Karla this morning asking me to call her as soon as I could.  Since we just turned in our I-800 paperwork for Homeland Security/Immigration yesterday, I thought that there might be a problem with the paperwork.  I would never have guessed that she had such great news for us.  After playing phone tag for 5 minutes, I was able to speak to Karla.  She explained that the LOA was here and I needed to come sign it.  Fortunately, the bell was about to ring to begin my planning block.  I raced over to Lifeline and saw the official document.  Karla explained where to sign and the next steps.  Standing in the lobby with Karla, it hit me that this was truly real.  After waiting for so long, I haven't allowed myself to completely believe that David and I have actually accepted a precious little girl who is our daughter.  We have a daughter and I now have a piece of paper with a check mark in a box that says we accept this child as our own.  It is almost official - we just have to get approval for Amelia to come into the country and travel to get her. 

The paperwork has been signed and delivered to Homeland Security with our I-800 paperwork.  We now wait for Homeland Security to grant approval for us to bring Amelia into the country.  Karla feels confident that we should travel to China in mid to late December.  There is a big chance that we will spend Christmas in China. I'm not sure how our families feel about this, but I hope that they will be willing to hold off on celebrating Christmas until we return.  I would love to be able to celebrate Amelia's first Christmas this year with our families!