LOA-One Step Closer to Joel

We have completed another step LOA-this means Letter of Approval.  China sent us a letter stating that they are accepting our request to adopt Joel.  The more exciting news about this is THEY ARE EXPEDITING HIS FILE.  You never really know if they are expediting or not the only way you know is if things start moving very quickly.  Getting LID on October 25 and LOA on October 27 is HUGE!!  Sadly some families are on day 96 of waiting for LOA's.  But I have told you before that I put this adoption in the Lords hands.  If he wants him home quickly it will happen and I am so grateful to see that it is happening. 

I may have jumped the gun on the next step I800 but I figured it was worth the small $20.00 cost.  We got soft LOA on October 27 which means that we got the email saying LOA was completed but you need the LOA in your hands to sign it make a copy of it and send it to immigration.  So I had my agency send me the email and I printed it off, we signed it and I overnighted it to immigration.  This is a risk because they may not accept the email copy they may require that we have the hard copy from China.  But I had to take the risk as I had no idea how long it may take to get the hard LOA.  Right now our immigration paperwork is sitting in a lock box in Texas.  Remember with the I800a it has to sit there for two weeks before they mail it to Missouri to be processed.  Its just another crazy step in adoption that makes you want to pull your hair out.  So, I wanted to be sure when they got my I800 paperwork that my LOA would already be with the officer (he had already given me permission to mail off my paperwork without the LOA usually you have to wait for that to mail it off.) But I am trying to save as many days as possible so I mailed it off the second I could.  

Good news is we got hard LOA on October 31, 2014 and it will arrive to us Monday November 3rd.  Darn weekend threw off the overnight mail.  So Monday when I receive hard Loa we will sign this and mail a copy back to our adoption agency and mail one off to immigration.  If by some chance he doesn't take the copy he will have this one and it won't slow us down.  It only cost me an extra $20 but if it saves us even 1 day it will be worth it.

Dates:
LOI July 30, 2014
PA August 19, 2014
I800A September 26, 2014
DTC October 14, 2014
LID October 25, 2014
Soft LOA October 27, 2014
Hard LOA October 31, 2014
LOA arrives to us November 3, 2014

So here is what is next we are down to the last steps:

I800 is approved

Article 5 is submitted to China

Travel Approval

Consulate date is set

We bring home our son

Grand Total after mailing LOA's twice:

$40 in shipping

$10,005.05