Thurs, May 17, we got our LOA. I was stunned, we were only on day 55, and I was thinking day 70 at the earliest.

To explain: When you are matched (by your agency) for a waiting child, you send a formal "letter of intent" to China. We sent ours in on March 23. We have been waiting to get approval from China which comes in the form of a Letter of Acceptance (LOA). The wait for that ranges from a few weeks to several months. I had no way of knowing when it would come, but as I said, I did not expect it so soon.

So, we signed the letter, Fed Ex'd it back to our agency, and they will send it back to China probably tomorrow. Now we wait for what is called Travel Approval (TA) from China. That takes 2-4 weeks. After that, as far as China is concerned we can come any time. But now we need an appointment with the American consulate in Guangzhou, so as soon as we get TA, our agency (Harrahs' AIM of Texas) will get us a consulate appointment. We make our travel arrangements around that appointment.

I don't have a sense yet of how flexible that appointment date is. I'm hoping we can travel in mid-July. The kids will be at camp until July 6. We need a few days to get ourselves together before we can travel. (Oh, and we have to be home by early August because we're going to Maine. C will think she's been adopted by a family of gypsies- [um, er, Roma, sorry]).

I have been running around putting together a care package. I bought a little pink dress, and little pink sunglasses, and little pink socks, and a pink teddy-blankie (soft and satiny), and a pink hat. I also bought lollypops and candy for whoever opens the box. I included a photo album of our family (with labelled pictures), a toddler's book with pictures of a baby wearing hats), some pop-beads in animal shapes, and a memory book of questions to be answered by the director or C's foster mother. I also sent two disposable cameras so they can take pictures. I wrote a letter explaining the contents of the box, and one of the docs at work translated for me which means more to me than she can possibly know. I should have taken a picture of the whole box of loot, but I was in a hurry to get it mailed. It cost about $50, and there's no guarantee they'll get it, but I did what I could, and it was fun.

Now I'm dealing with the saga of B's lost passport. We got the other three kids' passports, but B's never arrived, even though the passport office says it was sent on May 14. The USPS has no record of receiving it. I'm stymied. You can't get anyone to answer the phone anywhere. I HATE dealing with the government: USCIS, USPS, passport office, IRS, etc. You can only ever get voice mail or, if you're very lucky, a bitter woman who isn't very helpful.