LOA

Wohoo!!! We finally got our LOA!! For those of you who don't live in the adoption world as we currently do...an LOA is Letter of Approval. In the world of special needs adoptions from China it's the equivalent of a true referral. It says that the CCAA has matched us with our daughter and all our paperwork is in order. It took 91 days from the date we sent our LOI (letter of intent)...it was a long 91 days. In those 91 days, Keeghan went from being a one year old to being a 15 month old, we've gone from summer to near winter, we've had labor day, Doug's birthday, gone to the fair, almost finished and entire season of soccer and started basketball practice. Anyway...here's the story. I was at work yesterday morning. I'd been scheduled for a short shift (8-12) and we were having some of the kids friends over for a Halloween party so I needed to get some stuff done at home and was hoping for a nap. So, it was 11:30 and the phone rang, one of the "direct lines". I answer the phone alot since I work at the service desk so I grabbed it and gave our typical phone answering line "Thank you for calling Toys R Us this is Tami what can I help you find?". The person on the other end said, "Tami Dowling?". I was like ah, yeah, and had no clue who it was. Well, it was Meg, the in house social worker at our agency. She told me she had good news and that our LOA had come. At this point, the other person who'd been at the service area with me was walking past, as she had just said she was going to take a quick break before I left, and saw me jumping up and down so she stopped. I finished talking to Meg though I still don't know exactly what she said and hung up...only to start crying and jumping up and down more. Sarah finally got out of me that we had our approval and gave me a big hug. In the mean time I needed to call Doug to tell him and be sure he was ok with Meg signing the letter accepting the referral for us. Sarah decided her break could wait so I could call. Doug was not quite as excited as I was, though he knew what it meant to me so that was good. Then I had to do a return...silly work! Then one of the managers came over and I told him our good news and called Meg back to tell her to sign and send the letter. Then I did a bit more work that I'd promised I do before I left before going to hunt down Ro to let her know we got our letter. I found her in a pre-school aisle with a guest. Again, I started jumping and crying and told her I'd just gotten the best birthday present EVER. She started crying too and the poor man she was helping looked at us as if we belonged in a psych ward. Finally he caught on a bit to what was happening and asked "going where?". Ro told him to China to get my daughter and he pulled out his wallet to show me a picture of his beautiful 4 year old Chinese daughter :) I asked where she was from and he said Changsha which is the capital city of Hunan! It's such a small world. Then Janet heard the commotion and came to see what was going on and was just as excited. It was so nice to be with a crew of people who were so thrilled for me. Of course it would have been AWESOME to have been home with Doug and the kids, but this was probably close. It's a good thing Meg called so close to when I was supposed to leave because I was USELESS after that. I punched out and headed out of work. I had a few errands to do and managed to accomplish them without forgetting too much stuff. I sent a text message to a bunch of people about getting our letter which resulted in a flurry of congratulations. I had to bring Carson the goodie bags she'd forgotten to bring to school that morning so I went up to her classroom to tell her we'd gotten our LOA. Her eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and she'd gotten what she wanted most. I thought, a bit, about going and getting all the kids from school but decided I could wait for them to get home. Devon and Kennedy get home about 3 so as soon as they walked through the door I told them about the letter. Devon gave me a hug and Kennedy was pretty excited too. Then it was a struggle to get myself together for the Halloween festivities. I tried to take a nap, but I was so over the top excited I couldn't. Halloween is a pretty well celebrated holiday in our house and my birthday is Sunday so really that phone call couldn't have come at a better time. Now, keep your fingers crossed that we can pull the money together and have Keeghan home for Christmas.