Our Baby Girl

Elizabeth Perkins!

LOA:  December 9 (meaning we are officially her parents!)

12 months

15 months

I know, you probably just want to gaze at her little face...but for those of you with questions, here's a little update.

Wait...LOA?!  What happened to the referral step?

Oh, you caught that, huh?  We actually received Elizabeth's file on November 11, but we were asked not to share anything until we had our official LOA.  It's been killing me to sit on this news, but it's kind of like just finding out you are pregnant--we told our family right away but had to wait a little longer to tell the internet.

So what happens next?

It could move pretty quickly at this point, although the holidays (both US and Chinese) don't help.  Once we sign the LOA and get it back to our agency, they send everything to US Immigrations.  Once we receive our I-800, we can request travel authorization from China.  We'll need our visas, etc., along with a consulate date before we can buy our tickets.  With Christmas and Chinese New Year in there, we're not sure how long things will take, but we could travel as early as February now!

How are you feeling?

I'm still a little in shock--we really expected the time from referral to LOA to be more in the 3 month range (it was a month).  This step also feels a lot more real than all the others so far...even compared to seeing her picture!  I think maybe it's the fact that we are officially her parents, but mostly it's the thought that February/March is just NOT THAT LONG!