Halloween afternoon we FINALLY received our "Log in Date" from our agency (affectionately known as LID). China registered our paperwork on September 18, 2006!! Yea us!! We are part of the September 2006 families.

For those unfamiliar with the term and its meaning... as mentioned above, LID is the actual date that China registered our dossier in their system. By the LID China will keep us updated on the location of our dossier. Monthly our agency will forward this information to us in an email. Families anxiously await the "places everyone" email which will tell us if our dossier has moved from one step to the next. The process looks something like this: LID to Translation to Review to Matching.

The bad news is that China is reporting a 14 month turn around to referrals. This could possibly mean that we will have to re-do the much dreaded immigration paperwork (which have an expiration). To re-do the immigration paperwork we will be required to re-do: homestudy, medical, financial, fingerprints and more. Needless to say we are discouraged by the daunting tasks but greatful for being so close (yet so far) to the end.

For those of you attempting to do the math... assuming the time span of 14 months does not lengthen- we should be receiving our referral on or around November 18th 2007-- possible travel to China would be December 07/January 08.

Please keep us in your prayers. We both feel we need strength to make it through this stage of the process. We trust that God has "it all" under control.

Julia