We got our TA!!!

Today, I was so excited to see CCAI come up on the caller ID! We have been waiting for this call for months now. The Travel Approval arrived from CCAA, which means our agency can book our appointments (US consulate, Provincial) and we can start working on an actual travel plan. We are hoping to leave for China on August 16th. We would spend 1-2 days in Beijing, then we would go on to Nanjing on Aug. 19th. Ethan will be brought to Nanjing most likely, not sure what day just yet. We will have to wait a few days (until they can confirm our appointments) before we have an actual itinerary.


I started this blog so that our friends and family can follow along on our journey. Although, it seems like things are moving very quickly, we actually started completing paperwork to adopt our third child in early 2006. By summer of 2006 our dossier (large packet of paperwork) was complete and ready to send to our adoption agency, CCAI, in Denver, CO. They translated and bound the paperwork and off to China it went. Our dossier was officially logged in on October 11th, 2006 in China's central agency called CCAA. Not long afterwards we completed a "waiting child checklist" to adopt a child with a special need(s). We were open to a boy or girl up to 3 years old. Fast forward to April 30th, 2007 and our agency called us at dinnertime with news of a baby boy called Lian RuHan. He was born August 3rd, 2006 with a cleft lip/palate and was living in Lianyungang orphanage in Jiangsu province. We did a lot of research and talked with the kids and made the decision to adopt him. Since that time we have been completing more paperwork and waiting for our TA to finally arrive! In early June we received an update on Ethan's Growth & Development, new measurements and a report of surgery on his cleft lip. Everything went well and they sent us an updated picture (top left corner). We are anxious to meet him and we pray he is healthy and happy every day. Thanks for following along.