Day 152 - LOA!

Yes, it finally arrived! Our sponsor called us this evening. Jean-Pierre answered the phone. When he said that it was our sponsor I didn't believe him. I was laughing and saying, "Yeah right. Good try. Say, 'Hi' to your mom from me.' He then put the phone on speaker so I could hear too and it really was our sponsor! First, I said a few very choice words concerning about how long everything had taken. Then I felt like crying, but didn't....much. (At one point in the conversation we had to give our sponsor our postal code. I broke down a little when I said, 's, like Sam'. Somehow saying his name made everything more real). As soon as we hung up from our sponsor we hugged, laughed and then we each called our parents with the good news.

Anyway, obviously we're happy, relieved, excited and cautiously optimistic for a January travel date. We now need to wait for our TA (Travel Approval) which is the final permission to enter China and pick up our son. We expect the TA to take about a month to get here. It could come faster, but...well...we haven't been too lucky with faster, so we're counting on it taking at least a month. So, a month for the TA, a week or two to get flights, etc. organized and away we go - that puts us in mid-January. I don't mind. I just want to get there before Chinese New Year which is the beginning of February.