Century Club

The Century Club is a club you NEVER want to join. It means you have been waiting for 100 or more days from you LID - waiting for the Letter of Acceptance or Seeking Confirmation letter. This letter is new in the process since our last adoption in 2006 - it is part of the Hague Treaty for international adoption compliance. It in essence asks the parents if they "truly want to adopt said child" that they have been waiting and waiting and waiting to go and pick up?! Well, OF COURSE we still want to adopt him!! It now precedes the TA (travel approval) by 2-4 weeks. But it is a necessary piece of red tape that prolongs the process yet another 3-4weeks. We still have yet to receive it. Add to the 101 days since our LID - we had our dossier actually sent to China on 7/29/07 but it was unfortunately not logged in until 9/3/07 - an additional 36 days to our waiting time. So we have officially been waiting 137 days since our dossier went to China. With all of our prior 3 adoptions from China, we never were more than 87 days from LID. We now have great concern that we will get to China before our visas expire on January 18th. That will cost us several more hundred dollars to redo. We are not in this waiting alone, though - all of us who were logged in during September are still waiting - and most of us were logged in late, too.

I truly know that God is in control - it is my weak nature that is so impatient. Just this morning I was pondering just how long the Jewish nation waited for the Messiah to come. 400 years without a word from God! Now that was a long wait!! But they still held out hope and watched and waited. And at just the right time God sent His Son as a baby born in a stable to a normal, everyday Jewish couple.

The day will arrive when we will get to go and pick up our dear son, Jeremy. And, yes, we might have to spend hundreds of dollars more to get new visas, too. But the pain of this loooong labor will pale as we have the rest of our lives to enjoy him and watch him grow.

Sure would appreciate any prayers for this way belated LOA, though! :-)

Mary