L.O.A.

Dear Vivi,

One day you will learn your letters.  We will sing the alphabet together, your brother will teach you to do it backwards, and you'll start to learn all about how to put letters together to make words or create abbreviations.

Here's your first lesson on the value of putting three little letters together.  Apart, these letters don't mean much.  Together, they signify a hugely critical step on our journey to you.

These letters don't mean much outside of the adoption community.  Once you're a part of the adoption community, however, they mean the world.

They mean that the Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Affairs has approved us to adopt you.

Letter. Of. Acceptance.

Tomorrow, we will receive this L.O.A. from our adoption agency.  It formally asks us if we want to adopt you.  Once we sign that letter, you are ours. Officially.  No turning back.  And no one can take you away. Ever.

The countdown also begins once we mail that document back to the agency, which we will do tomorrow along with your immigration documents..  It means that we will come and get you most likely in the next 10-14 weeks.  That means we'll have you by the end of the year, and that we'll most likely be traveling over Thanksgiving or Christmas to get you.

In a post from last Christmas, I mentioned that we told Micah and Liam that there would probably be one more Christmas without you.  Now we have hope that you will be here with us as we celebrate Christmas together.  Which would lead to three more letters that, not so coincidentally, spell one of your middle names

J.O.Y.

Love,
Mommy & Daddy