We received our LOA today via UPS from the agency.

It’s hard to imagine that the whole process comes down to this simple form from China.

We better check the correct box. No pressure.

Remember what I just said about our Letter of Acceptance not coming today?

Scratch that. That lovely piece of paper came after all.

After Carmi spoke with our case worker (hereafter referred to as CW) on the phone, she emailed CW a little later about something else. When CW answered Carmi’s email, she also put in a note for Carmi to call her. Carmi figured it was about her email but no. DHL evidently thought the agency was still closed so the driver put a package at the agency’s side door instead of bringing it in and CW just found it!

The cool thing is...we will probably travel in late February which means we could be in China for our son’s birthday (on the 24th).

Carmi broke down and called our case worker to see if we had a late Christmas present sitting in the office when they returned to work this morning.

Mmmm...no dice.

I still think we’ll get our LOA this month before the CCAA closes for Chinese New Year.

OK. We don’t want to get our hopes up but…

Carmi was just looking at a Yahoogroup for waiting children and a family received their Letter of Acceptance today who have the exact same log-in date that we have. This other family also sent in their Letter of Intent in March like we did.

The kicker? Our case manager is on vacation and won’t be back in the office until Monday.

So IF our Letter of Acceptance did indeed come, it’ll be Monday before we hear anything.

Today is the 2nd (month) anniversary of our log-in date.

Based on the most current statistics from a ‘waiting child’ yahoogroup for families who mailed a Letter of Intent before mailing a dossier (which is our scenario): the earliest anyone has received a Letter of Acceptance is 55 days, the longest anyone had to wait was 125 days and the average wait was 82 days.

Normally all paperwork from China (referrals, Letters of Acceptance, pre-approvals, travel approvals) comes in one monthly bundle and usually during the first week of the month. Our agency has already received a package from China for December. However, there have been occasions when a 2nd package arrived later in the month.

Which means we really have no idea but that piece of paper could come at any time.

I mentioned back on October 23rd that a family from California was in China adopting a 12-year-old boy who went to the same boarding school as our son.

When the family returned home, Carmi emailed the mother and asked the mother to check with her son, Gage, to see if he knew “Mike”.

Carmi received a reply this afternoon that simply thrilled us to the core.

The mother showed our son’s most current photograph to Gage and Gage said Mike’s Chinese name right away.

On a humorous note, the mother typed into their translator that Mike was being adopted and coming to the US. Gage typed back asking if their family was adopting him! The mother explained the situation and Gage was happy to hear it.

This family only lives 40 miles from Los Angeles so we might have to see if we can fly into LA on our return home and get the two boys together.