Travel is in our near future!

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything in our adoption blog.  Here is our updated information:

We were matched with our daughter back in November.  It was the happiest Thanksgiving for our family!    I had just finished eating lunch and was sitting on the couch when the phone rang.  I was so excited to learn that our agency had a child's file for us to review.  Our daughter is currently almost 2 years old.  She was born prematurely and she has a small growth on her outer ear.  The Chinese actually call it "an accessory ear."  It does not seem to affect her in any way.  We had doctors review her file and said "yes" to her before the end of the day.  Since it was Thanksgiving week, we did not have long to make a decision.  It was one of the easiest we've ever made.

After your referral, you begin the wait for the LOA (letter of acceptance) from China.  It can take up to 4 months to receive this letter.  We got ours in just over 2!  This was a huge surprise for us.  Chinese New Year was coming up and all the offices in China were going to be closed for over a week.  We were expecting to wait until March for our LOA.  Thank you, God for this blessing!

Paperwork has really begun to fly after that!  Needless to say, we are only 2 steps away from going to get our baby girl.  If everything goes smoothly, we should travel sometime in May!

As soon as I can post pictures, I will.  Our adoption agency has advised us not to share any of her personal information or pictures on social media until she is legally ours, which only happens after you are in China.  We want to be respectful of their wishes.  Sorry for the lack of information.  I want to share her pictures so badly.

Until then, we covet your prayers for Naeleigh's safety and health.  We pray for her every night, sometimes multiple times a day.  Whenever she comes to our minds, really.  As a mother, God has given me a peace about her care.  Don't get me wrong---I'm such a "type A" person.  I want to know everything but the fact is that I can't know everything.  

However, I do know the One who is omniscient.  He knows exactly what my baby is doing right now. Which is probably eating a snack since it is 10:40 A.M. in China! That's right, a 13 hour time difference...hello jet-lag!!
Well, that is all for now.  The next step is our Article 5 notice and then our travel approval.  Both documents can take weeks to come.  We are hanging in there!