More pictures

If you click on the photos, you can see a bigger version of them. :-)

Immigration Approval AND new photos!

Our I800 Provisional Approval finally arrived on 9/18. It has been sent on to China with the required information, and thus we wait again, for TA (Travel Approval). We have been told that TA is taking 6-10 weeks to get. Hopefully we're closer to the 6! It shouldn't take much longer to book flights after that.

And NEW PHOTOS from China arrived today! :-) Yan has lost at least one front tooth! He may not be able to say "Christmas" this year even if he does learn it in time ;-D. He looks happy and healthy, and that means SO much to find out after 6 months of not hearing/seeing anything. :-) I'm so thankful the orphanage did that for us!

China's written update says that his eyes are doing well (he's at high risk of glaucoma in the one eye), and that he has only had colds. He's healthy otherwise.

Yan is now 40 inches tall, and weighs 35 pounds. His foot size is confusing, so we'll just have to hope his new size 11 Sorels (extra warm boots) fit him! Since Yan is from the subtropics and sea level, he'll have quite an adjustment if he comes here right into our winter season. :-}

THANKS for all your prayers getting us all this far in the process.

LOA received

We FINALLY received the coveted and long awaited LOA (Letter of Approval) from China that officially approves of our family to go ahead and adopt Yan! Yahoo!! The letter was dated 8/17/09 and we got it 8/24/09.

With the ball back in our court, so to speak, we needed to get a copy of the LOA off to Immigration ASAP! It was a VERY frustrating week of misprinted documents, missing training certificates because we hadn't finished training, people on vacations, broken computers, internet troubles, seemingly slower snail mail than ever, etc. I didn't even want to post on this blog, I was that frustrated and depressed :-}.

But, that thick packet of information that needed to go next to Immigration was finally sent off, and we are now playing the waiting game for approval (again?) from Immigration.

Under pre-Hague law, this application for US Immigration approval would happen at the same time as our agency's seeking Travel Approval (TA) from China, I believe? No more. :-( Application for TA can't even happen until we get the approval from Immigration (not back yet) AND approval of some kind from the place in China that will finalize Yan's adoption.

The current estimate is for traveling sometime in December. At the start of this adoption journey, I would have never believed it would take over a YEAR to adopt an older, special needs, already identified child from China. Wow. I had been hoping and praying for June travel. Now we just pray it will be in 2009!

We have had no word nor pictures of any kind on Yan since mid-March (swine flu concerns stopped all forgeign visitors to the orphanage). Please continue to keep him and his caregivers in your prayers? And please pray God allows us to travel at the "right time" to go get Yan and bring him home. Thanks!