Waiting

Several people have asked about what the next steps are for us and the little girl from Lianjiang we hope to adopt. As always with a China adoption, there's a whole lot we don't know and a bit more we have to guess at. But here's the situation as we know it:

Our LOI asking for permission to adopt Baoxin went forward to CCAA last week. We're not sure exactly when it was received there, but let's say for the sake of argument it was Friday 7/6

We have been looking into what others who have adopted from Lianjiang have experienced. It seems fairly predictable. It only seems like it's miving in geologic time.

From LOI to LOA - about 30 to 35 days if you're out of the review room; much longer (as much as 50 days longer!) if you're not. BTW: Our heartfelt congratulations to those LIDs in May who just got out of that chancery, including Millicent and Floyd over at Different Dirt.

From LOA to TA - about 25-30 days. This seems pretty standard.

From TA to "gotcha day" - about 30-40 days. This may be a little more in our case, since Lianjiang is pretty much the ass-end-of-nowhere-Guangdong-Province.

So our guesstimated timeline looks something like this: LOA around August 10; TA around September 10; travel in latest September to early October, home with our little girl before Halloween...

And Miss Baoxin sez: You better have my room fixed up NICE, or...!!!