We’ve been waiting for China to issue us our letter of acceptance (LOA) since our paperwork was logged in on January 30. LOA waits can be very long, but lately many people have had their letters issued in just around a month’s time, so when we sent our paperwork off, we had high hopes of a quick turnaround…but so far we seem to be stuck in review with no end in sight. We had been holding on to hope that we would travel to get our boy in May (first we hoped for March or April, then settled on May…) but now it seems we might have to push travel to China off till June.
Realistically this is going super fast for an international adoption (we only officially started in June of 2017), but since we first saw this face in July of 2017, the waiting seems unbearably long to us. We’re reminded often that you have to hold your timeline plans with an open hand, because often they’ll slip from your grasp and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.
Maine has been gradually gaining daylight hours since December, and I’ve been so thankful to be able to continue walking outside. It’s so therapeutic to be in nature and have time to pray. Sometimes my desk job feels suffocating. It’s weird how your body can need to tire itself so your brain can have a little peace…
I found this little round bit of jade at a thrift store some months back, and I’m pretty confident it’s Chinese (my sister in law says it looks very Asian)! I put it on often just to have something tangible I can hold while our boy is thousands of miles away. Even though it has no real connection to him, it feels like a bit of his culture I can cling to to remind me of him. We’re feeling weary of the seemingly endless process right now, but one day we will wake up, and it will be the day we’ve been waiting for for so long. One day we’ll wake up and it will be the day we meet our son for real, for the first time.
For now I’ve made up a little album of photos to send him in China (also a little stuffed animal to accompany it). It has hand written explanations from me and Chinese translations from my kind sister in law (thank you Xin!). I hope this will help our little one be able to grasp the idea that mommy and daddy are coming, and that they absolutely cannot wait to be his parents.
