Kids are perfect, parents usually aren't

If you’re not familiar with International adoption, you probably have no idea what “LOA” means, or how exciting it is!  LOA stands for “Letter of Acceptance” and is the official letter from China granting permission to adopt a specific child.  And we just got ours!!!  This is a very important step in our adoption process and means we will likely be traveling to China to bring our daughter home in about 10-12 weeks!  Yay!

Our journey to this point began many years ago, in early 2007.  My husband and I had been married for about 6 months and were discussing starting a family.  We researched International adoption and decided ideally our family would be a blend of adopted and biological children. We debated which to do first, but for us getting pregnant was faster, and we were very lucky to welcome our two incredible snerds in 2008 and 2009.

In May of 2011 we submitted our application to an adoption agency in Pennsylvania called Pearl S. Buck International to adopt a baby from Korea.  We were warned that International adoption can be a rocky road, but we had no idea.  Long story short, 2 years later we are bringing home a baby through China’s Special Needs program using an agency in Colorado called AAC Adoptions.  (Yes, during our process we switched countries –because Korea is closing International adoptions– and agencies — because our daughter was only available through AAC Adoptions so we switched agencies to pursue her.)

Our daughter (pictured right) was born in Nanchang, China, in February 2012.  She has a rare and serious heart condition that was repaired in China shortly after her birth, and is presumably otherwise healthy.  We are so excited to bring her home.  Our 3-year old asks daily when we are going to China, and every morning when I ask her what she dreamed about the answer is “my baby sister”.

At this point, post-LOA, we have several more steps, including applying to the US Department of Immigration for her to become a US citizen, obtaining our Chinese visas, scheduling a consulate appointment in China, and then waiting for China to give us “Travel Approval”, which means we can come get her!!  We would love to travel in late July, but will probably be August, if all goes smoothly from here.

Stay tuned to follow our journey!

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