We Got "THE" Call!

On Sept. 10, out of the blue, the WC coordinator at our agency called.  She had come across a file and thought of us and wanted to know if we would like to review it.

Back up a week.  We decided to revisit our medical checklist.  I had been coming across kiddos with needs that we did not know much about so we scheduled a call with our IA doctor.  We learned so much during that call and we were able to expand our list a bit.  So, I sent the new list to our WC coordinator along with our new age range and let her know which needs we are 100% okay with so she is comfortable locking a child when the new shared lists come out.  I also mentioned that I would be celebrating my 40th birthday next month and what a great gift it would be to find our son or daughter!

I had been waiting for a new shared list all week.  It was about that time and there was buzz about it coming out on the 9th, which is considered a lucky date in China.  I had asked my coordinator if she thought there would be a new list and she said she was expecting one.  I was very restless that night and had trouble sleeping.  When I got up in the morning to see that no list had come out, I was a little disappointed.  I decided to run errands to keep myself busy and take my mind off of it.  Just as I was jumping in the shower the phone rang and I saw that it was our agency.  I had been e-mailing with her that morning about a precious ten year old she was advocating for.  I wanted to help.  The first thing I thought was -- she's calling to have a chat about that.  Instead, she told me that a series of events had led her to call me about a child she came across on the shared list the night before.  She shared some details and asked if we would like to review her file.  Would we!

I already knew what this child's medical needs were based on what the WC coordinator had told me and it was all fine.  When I opened the file and the pictures of this beautiful little girl popped up, I just knew this was the right one for us.  We had looked at other files and I never felt that instant connection like I did with this little one.  I was beyond excited but knew Brandon & I would need to take a look at the medical info and send it to our IA doc for review.  Even though it was only an hour, the wait to hear back from the doctor was excruciating!  She gave us the confirmation that we needed -- aside from a few minor things, this child was perfectly healthy! And perfect for us!

We have completed and submitted all the required paperwork including a letter outling our understanding of the child's need, our care plan and desire to adopt the child.   And now we wait!

Although we would love to share more details, we will wait until we get a formal approval from the CCAA.  The next step will be a pre-approval (PA) from the CCAA, which takes two to four weeks.  They will then pull our dossier for review and if everything looks good, they will issue the formal approval, the Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC) or otherwise known as Letter of Approval (LOA).  It seems to be taking 90-120 for those to be issued.  So we wait...again!