New Update!

Here's the latest...

Our dossier was sent to the Chinese government a few weeks ago. This is a big deal when it comes to international adoption! The dossier is a compilation of all our hard work over the last year. Under the standard adoption program, families wait for about 40 weeks for a match after their dossier Log In Date (LID). We are fortunate as we already have a match with our little Elyssa Li. Now, we have to be patient as the Chinese government needs to review our dossier to ensure that they are ready to allow us to adopt our baby. So, the wait will probably be between 3-6 months until we can travel. This will make the trip quite challenging, from a logistical standpoint. Brian will have to probably fly from Iraq to Kuwait, and then on to Beijing during his R&R from Iraq. We hope he has enough time to fly back to Los Angeles. However, the R&R rules are very clear and he only has 15 days away from the job. As the average time in China for these trips is about 14 days, we are anticipating no time in the USA for Brian.

In other news, we got some additional documents about Elyssa this week. An email arrived that contained a few medical documents that the great staff at Holt translated into English for us. It said that Elyssa had a surgery to close her cleft lip last August. That is good news! What is not clear is whether her pallet was corrected. We do know for sure that her alveolar bone will need corrected as she gets older. Either way, we are ready to give her the best care possible when she comes home to the USA and are grateful for all the love and care she is receiving in China.