We have LOA (LSC)!

We have just received our official letter from China:  "Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter."  This is China telling us that we've been officially matched with Rayanna.  Now we have to sign it to say, "Yes, we really want her."  We can also now file our I-800, which is the application to the US Government:  "Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative."  Once that's OK'd, we send the US approval and the signed letter back to China.  Then we get approval from the US Consulate in China, then China officially invites us to travel to come get our daughter.  About 3 weeks after that, we GO!

So I was just doing the math on the estimated time frames for all of that.  The LOA came on the fast end of what's expected!  So, if everything else went super fast we COULD travel in June.  BUT, it'll probably be July.  And I'm going to emotionally plan on August so that I won't throw a hissy fit if we hit delays.  :)

There are a couple important things this summer that we'll need to work around (Taylor-Side Family Reunion and Cousin Beth's wedding), so hopefully there won't be any complications with any of that.

I can't believe we're getting this close!  We still need to get her room finished, find baby clothes, find the rest of the money, and make sure we're ready!  I feel like with Tabitha's adoption I was just waiting and waiting and so frustrated with how long it took.  This time I feel like it's FLYING by!  The process has gone a little faster this time, but I think we're just 10x busier than we were before and haven't had time to get fully ready, let alone impatient!

One of the major things keeping us busy is Tabitha's medical stuff.  We're still waiting for insurance approval for her surgery scheduled for May 16th.  Please continue to pray we get that, because otherwise she probably won't be able to have the surgery before the adoption, and that will just make everything so much harder.

God did answer a prayer about insurance today though.  Last week we received a bill from the hospital for over $9,000 that wasn't being covered by insurance.  Lovely.  That didn't include the doctors' bills and wasn't even surgery or anything--just some tests!  Anyway, we knew we had insurance approval and they should be covering it, but I was imagining this big long battle and many hours on the phone and all that.  But Pam at the Colorectal Center (who had helped us get the insurance approval originally), called the insurance company for me, found out it was a mistake, and said that they will get it fixed.  And I didn't have to do anything!!!  If you knew how much stress the thought of those phone calls was adding to my life, you'd know God just sent a wonderful blessing through Pam.  =)

Another prayer request is that we applied for an adoption grant from The Lydia Fund.  It would be a great help if they say yes!  But of course, there are many adoptive parents applying, and some might need it even more than we do.  So my prayer is for wisdom for the people making the decisions, that God would direct them to make the best choices about the money.

Oh!  I almost forgot!  Now that we have LOA we're allowed to post whatever information we want about our daughter!  So Rayanna's Chinese name is Feng Hao De (fung how duh).  Her new name will be Rayanna Haode Runkles.  Her birthdate is 03/21/10.  (Ethan's is 10/21/03, so I thought that was pretty cool)!  She was believed to be found on the day she was born, so her birthdate is probably exact instead of an estimate.  She lives in the Fengxin Welfare Institue in Jiangxi Province.  AND WE GET TO MEET HER IN JUST A FEW MONTHS!!!!