LOA!

We have LOA!

The stork (better known as the FedEx man) arrived at our house on January 8th!  (Happy Birthday, Aunt Tami.)  We finally got the Letter of Acceptance from China that allows us to mark the box "Yes, we accept this child."  We were actually approved on January 3rd which was my sister Kim's birthday and received it on my sister Tamara's birthday.  My birthday is tomorrow, I'd be very happy to accept the next step, I800 approval, as my birthday present.  With LOA in hand, it looks like we will probably have Gotcha day on 4/14/14.  The next day is Forever Family day (when you go back to the SWI and officially sign the adoption papers) and, interestingly, is my only other sister's birthday.  Weird.

Many of the agencies want you to wait until you have the LOA before you send any care package to the orphanage.  They have had too many (and I suppose one would be too many) cases of the adoption falling through before LOA and the child having to be told that they didn't actually have a family.  Since we have LOA, we were allowed to send a package to Katie.  We sent her things to try to prepare her for the adoption.  We sent her a soft photo album with some family photos and a silky pillow that also has a family portrait on it.

We thought it might help her be a little bit familiar with our faces when she met us.  Most of the children will never have seen an American face.  They say the Chinese kids often call Americans "big nose" because that is our most different feature to them.  I'm in luck, my pug nose should not intimidate Katie at all.  :)  We also sent cookies for the nannies and a memory stick (in hopes of them down loading some of her older pictures).  We didn't send any kind of toys or clothes.  In many (if not most) cases, the orphanages don't try to give the things to the children.  It would be very difficult on the other kids who own nothing at all to see a select few have things of their own and hard for the nannies to keep up with who things belonged to if many of them got gifts.  We know that at 18 months, Katie is probably not old enough to understand what is about to happen but once her package is delivered she will at least be introduced to the idea.  It is so hard to know what goes through their minds at that age.  What we do know is that in about 90 days, this tiny little girl is going to be taken from all she has ever known and flown half way around the world.  She will leave behind all of the people that she has ever connected with, all of the scents and sounds and smells of her birth country.  She will be loved, oh how she will be loved, but she will hurt and she will grieve.

I would ask all of our friends and family to be in prayer for her.  Pray that Tim and I know the right way to comfort her and help her make the transition that her big brother made look so easy.  Pray, too, for Jaden.  Tim and I will work to help him know and believe that this trip is not meant to give him back.  I worry that the the ayi's careless words (that we were bringing him back to the orphanage and had decided not to keep him) will echo in his mind.  His faith in us will be tested some on this trip.  In the long run, we feel that leaving him behind would be more detrimental and that by being there, his relationship with his baby sister may be stronger.  I hope we are making the right choice; we think we are. 

Jaden saying goodbye to his SWI, January 2013

It isn't fair.

The steps in China adoption have changed a little in the last year.  Last year, we had DTC (dossier to China), then LID (Log in Date), OOT (out of Translation) and then LOA (letter of acceptance).  Now we have DTC, LID, OOT and then the Reviewed, Match Reviewed, Soft LOA and then Hard copy LOA.  I'm not sure if this is good or bad but it is different.  Now there are more steps so that you feel like you make progress but also more steps to get through.   We are now Reviewed and on the way to Match Reviewed.  If we don't get stuck on any of the coming steps, it looks like we may travel in early April.  It should be a beautiful time in Chengdu.

The adoption world has been improved in many ways with social media.  It is so nice to have a hundred other families going through the same thing, but it is also hard because of the very fact that there is not much rhyme or reason to how China processes their applications.  On fb, we see women who log in later make two or three quick steps ahead and then get bogged down at a different step.  It really works on some folks due to the absolute lack of "fairness" in the whole thing.  I've got some fb friends that I know really hurt when they see others progress ahead of them.  I get it.  It isn't fair. 

I've never been one to see good things for others as unfair to me, and that has helped me so much in this process.  There are lots of biblical principles that I do struggle with, but I'm so glad that this isn't one them.  Remember the parable in Matthew when the guy hires vineyard workers in the morning and agrees to pay a certain amount, at lunch more workers show up and they are told they will get the same amount as the first set.  In the afternoon, more workers show and are told that they, too, will be paid full wages.  When we studied that in Sunday school, I think my class thought I was a little crazy.  I don't find any of that unfair.  The full pay of the second two sets didn't reduce the pay of the first.  The adoption process is like that.  There are families that didn't show up until lunch and yet they are on their way to get their little ones.  But you know what?  That's ok.

It is nice to be able to rejoice, even when the others are making progress and you aren't.  I woke up the other day with such a strong sense that God was reminding me that none of this was "fair."  It isn't fair to Katie or Jaden that their moms couldn't take care of them, it isn't fair that it takes so stinkin' long to get our babies into their forever families.  It isn't fair that my babies born in China didn't have the opportunities or exposure that my bio kids had, and it really isn't fair that there are so many of  Jaden's orphanage siblings will never have any opportunity to be loved on.  God never promises us "fair."  He promises to be with us and to love us through whatever we are going through.  He promises to love us even when we mess up and let jealousy or anger creep into this process.  I still (sometimes) struggle with anger toward China when I hear how tiny my baby girl is or when I see the ground that Jaden still has to cover to catch up with his peers.  By dwelling on those negative things, I was allowing "That's not fair!"  to creep into my heart.  I'm not sure why I was allowing that to happen but the changes that adoption brings to our hearts definitely shouldn't focus on those things.  There is so much in this that is God-sent and wonderful; I never want to let the bad steal the place of all of the good.  Yesterday, as soon as my eyes opened for the day,  I "heard" God say, "No, it isn't fair, not to the kids or to either set of parents, but don't worry.  I've got this."  He wasn't telling me that our file would be on the fast-track; He definitely wasn't telling me that I didn't need to continue to do all that I could on my end to keep this process smooth.  He was affirming that there is definitely going to be unfair parts of this whole process but that's ok.  Katie will be here before I know it and I won't remember a time she wasn't.