Step 11: Euphoria!

It finally came! The long-awaited Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter (colloquially known as the "Letter of Acceptance" or "LOA") finally arrived. At long last, things are starting to move forward again.

We received a message from our agency notifying us that they had received the LOA on October 3rd. The letter was sent to us via overnight mail and we quickly signed it and returned it to the agency on October 4th. Here it is in all its (redacted) magnificence:

It's official, peeps!

Now that we have our letter of acceptance, I can officially introduce our little Pearl. I think she's pretty awesome and here is the photographic evidence to back up my claim:

Angry Driver is especially fond of this last picture since it shows our little Pearl gazing fondly upon the Communist Party symbol embedded in a paper flower.

Having the LOA means that we can also mail Pearl's care package. Yeah! After much deliberation, we settled upon the following contents:

1) Handmade purple elephant blanket square, crafted with love and angst by yours truly

2) Flash drive on which the Children's Welfare Institute (CWI) will hopefully put digital pictures of our daughter so that she has some record of her early life.

3) Photo book with pictures of our home and family. The captions are in English and Mandarin (or at least a Google Translate version of Mandarin simplified characters).

4) One disposable one-time-use camera. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a disposable film camera in this day and age? Quite difficult, actually. Our hope is that Pearl's caregivers snap some pictures of her for us and that we get the camera back when we pick her up. We shall see. They will probably laugh hysterically at the idea of anyone using a camera with film.

5) One complete outfit. This includes a pink kitty cat shirt, a skirt, pink cat tights, a white sweater, underpants, and matching shoes. I obsessed over which outfit to include, the sizes to buy, etc. In the end, I just have to hope that she gets the clothes and that they fit. If they don't fit, I hope some other child enjoys wearing this because it is adorable!  

6) A letter introducing ourselves to the CWI, thanking them for the excellent care that Pearl is receiving, and explaining the contents of the care package. Concluding that Google Translate was probably not up to the task of translating an entire letter, I took the advice of my Facebook mentors and turned to Ann at Red Thread China. It would have been nice to send the entire care package through her service, but our agency said that this was strictly verboten. Nevertheless, I paid $20, e-mailed the letter in English last night, and received a translated version today. Now that is service!

The final product.

I'm sure that it will cost a small fortune to mail this care package to China, but my hopes are that Pearl will get it, that her caregivers will know that we are excited to meet her, and that they will have some inkling of just how much we will treasure her for the rest of our lives!

The other Project of the Month is the I-800. This is the application that goes to USCIS (you remember my Citizenship and Immigration friends, right?) seeking approval for us to adopt Pearl specifically. Once the LOA was signed and returned on 10/3/14, I quickly completed the forms and mailed the I-800 packet on 10/4/14. 

Easy peasy. 

Actually....no. 

This involved completing the I-800 Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative, the I-800 Supplement 1 Consent to Disclose Information, the G-1145 e-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance, the I-800A Supplement 3 Request for Action on Approved Form I-800A, and the I-864W Intending Immigrant's Affidavit of Support Exemption. I also included our home study addendum, a copy of our current I-800A approval notice, a copy of all of Pearl's referral documents in English and in Chinese, a copy of the signed LOA, a statement from our agency verifying that Angry Driver and I completed our required pre-adoption training and attesting that Pearl's documents are accurate, and...a check for $360, naturally.

Now aren't you impressed that I started and finished all that on October 3rd and mailed the packet out on the morning of October 4th?? 

With all of this stuff done, I can relax. And by "relax", I mean I can start on the applications for our travel visas. Honestly, I don't even mind all of this paperwork and running around because it is sooo much better than sitting around waiting for other people to do things. And all of this work brings us that much closer to meeting our little Pearl!