Nothing New Under the Sun...

Based on my internet scannings, a lot of families received their LOAs on Thursday past. The LOA- Letter of Approval- also known as Letter Seeking Confirmation is a form that the adoptive parents must sign and return to the CCAA before the CCAA will issue a Notice of Coming (also commonly called TA- standing for Travel A.... cceptance?, or ....pproval...? , or ?...something like that).

This is a relatively new step in the Waiting Child Program process, but has been standard protocol with regular program adoptions. In the regular program, the Letter Seeking Confirmation is signed at the time that the family accepts their child's referral. Travel plans are then made by the agency for travel within 6-8 weeks of receiving the referral. The LOA step seems a bit redundant in the WCP, since a family already has been required to write a Letter of Intent for their specific child, who has already been identified. So, of course the family is going to "accept" the child! Am I missing something here? Anyways, far be it for me to question the wisdom of this new rule... all I can do is wait for our LOA to arrive. Once this happens, our agency should be able to make our travel arrangements. I'm still hoping for travel in early-mid July.

In fact, I think its possible that not getting our LOA with this batch might mean that some of the other families with our agency, waiting for their LOA, might get their LOA with us in the next batch. So... this might mean that we could form a small travel group with them, which would be awesome! I'm particularly hoping that we'll get to travel with Kelly & Dan, who also have a referral for a son from Jiangsu province, so they will be going to Nanjing, too. It would be great to be there with them, and then to meet up with the other families in Beijing.