At this point we don’t have any new news to report. We are in the infamous LOA (Letter of Acceptance) wait. I’m trying not to count days, but I did for this blog post. We are day 11, I think-it is confusing for me as to when you really start your LOA wait, so the best guess I can give is day 11. On average it takes 60-90 days (2-3 months) to get your LOA. We’re hoping for the beginning of June sometime.
In the mean time we’ve had quite a bit going on here. We had our final yard sale on Saturday. Again, we were humbled by the donations we received. We made around $300 at this yard sale, and are very grateful. We will be selling a couple of things that didn’t sell at the yard sale on Craigslist. The remainder of the stuff we passed along to friends in the JTM (Journey Together Ministries—our church’s adoption support group) who will be having their yard sale this Saturday. We are not planning on having any more—they can give you some good revenue, but it is a LOT of work to get prepared for one. I am still recovering from Saturday morning
Now that the yard sale is over, my next priority has been getting together a photo album to send to Evan. We have connected with a sweet lady who will be traveling to his orphanage in a couple of weeks (she’ll be adopting a little girl from there). She was kind enough to offer to take some pictures of him, as well as to take an item or two to him. We bought one of those toy photo albums (it’s a soft toy book that you can insert photos into). I printed out some photos of myself, David, and Kathryn to place in the book. I used Google translate to find the Ch characters for Mom, Dad, and Sister, and printed them off (along with the English words) and glued them to the pictures. I’ve heard Google translate is a helpful tool, but sometimes it’s not 100% accurate. I’m hoping the characters are correct, otherwise it may be a bit humorous for his nannies and embarrassing for us. We also bought him a “lovie”, and will be sending that as well. We’ve been sleeping with it the last few nights to get our “scent” on it. That was a suggestion in some of the books/articles/other people who have adopted—that way it helps get him used to your scent which can help down the line. I’ll be mailing these items to her tomorrow, so she can get them packed.
Of course, there is no guarantee that he’ll get these items, or that the lady we know who is traveling will be able to take photos of him. We think he’s in the orphanage, but there is the possibility that he’s in a foster home. There’s also no guarantee that the orphanage workers will let her see him, photo him, or even give him the gifts. She’s going to try, though, and we’re going to pray for all of the above. Our adoption agency also started a care package program, so we’ll probably send him a care package as well (I’m thinking I may wait until May to do this). Hopefully we’ll be able to get some pictures from that as well (you can send care packages with cameras, or request photos/videos as part of a care package).
Anyway, we are also starting to shop for new furniture for Kathryn. We have debated about letting her keep her furniture (which converts to a full sized bed), and getting Evan his own, or getting her new furniture and passing hers down to him. After a lot of thought, we decided to get her a new daybed and dresser as her room is somewhat small (a full sized bed and her dresser would be a tight fit). We’re going to be making a decision about that soon so we can get it ordered and get her transferred over to it.
So, that’s about it around here. We are still reading our book about attachment, and I’m also re-reading “The Connected Child” by Karyn Purvis. Attachment and bonding are our biggest concern, and will be our biggest focus when we get him home. I’ll be doing a post in the near future about these two important subjects in order to give everyone a head’s up on the way we’ll have to do things (which will seem very strange to most people—but things that we will have to do in order to have him attach and bond to us).
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