The adoption process has as many or more acronyms than the
US Government and as much red tape – Chinese red tape and American red
tape. So, here’s a rundown of where we have
come from and where we are headed.
DTC – February, 25, 2013
LID – March 18, 2013
Matched – May 20, 2013
LOI – May 21, 2013 (we thought –
official LOI date was June 18, 2013)
PA – June 24, 2013
LOA – September 4, 2013
Got it? :)
(For a full explanation of the
adoption process and the acronyms, you can read below this entry for everything
leading up to this blog)
So, where do we go from here?
Here are the steps we must complete from here.
We are currently waiting on our I-800
receipt from USCIS. This is a piece of paper that indicates our LOA has been received
and that we have requested to travel to China to pick up Zoe. This takes about 2 weeks. (We are just completing week 1 of this wait.)
Then we will wait about 2 more weeks for
the official I-800. (I-800 is an official document that gives us permission to
travel). After that, our I-800 is
forwarded to the NVC (National Visa Center). All of our paperwork is reviewed
here and forwarded to the US Embassy in China.
We will be notified by the NVC with a cable letter. This cable letter is
necessary in order to begin the Article 5 process. Article 5 is the process in which Zoe will be
issued a Visa at the Consulate in China. This process takes exactly 2 weeks. After
the Article 5 is picked up, it will be sent overnight to Beijing and couriered to
the CCCWA. Once the Article 5 is
couriered to the CCCWA, we will be in process for our TA (Travel Approval). TA usually takes 3 – 4 weeks. TAs are granted
by the CCCWA and sent to our adoption agency.
Once we have TA, we wait for CA (Consulate Appointment). These are
generally scheduled within 48 hours of TA.
Once we have TA and CA, we can start working on scheduling our flights
to China!
While we wait, we get things
ready. We gather things we will need for the trip. We get Kayleigh’s room ready
to share with Zoe. We research flights and try to get an idea of how much it
will cost. The list is endless. I usually
sleep some, but there are some nights my mind literally runs like crazy with
all the things that we will need to do. It will only get worse, the closer we
get!
One of the things we are doing
while we wait is try to do a little more fund raising. We are currently having an online campaign to
raise funds. For every 10 people who donate to our Adopt Together account, I
will do a drawing to give away a prize. This prize is the winner’s choice of a
Ugandan bead necklace, Ugandan or Haitian earrings, a Bring Zoe Home t-shirt or
one of Marissa’s adoption drawings.At this writing, nine people have donated, and we need one more to have that first drawing.
If you would like to help us bring
Zoe home, you can go to our Adopt Together account at www.adopttogether.org/bring-zoe-home.
All donations made to this account are tax deductible and go directly to us for
adoption expenses. Some may ask how much
we expect travel to cost. We are anticipating that travel costs will be in the
neighborhood of $23,000. We are hoping
for less, but also realize it could be more.
We will keep you posted on each
step along the way. At this point, we
are hoping for travel around Thanksgiving.
(The Whole Kit and
Kaboodle)
The entire process began in May of 2012 when we informed our
adoption agency that we wanted to begin the process to adopt again. It started with the home study, which took a
few months to complete and required a lot of gathering of information and
documents to prove all that information.
It included things like birth certificates (yes, we were born), marriage
certificates (and married), proof of employment, physicals, fingerprints,
criminal history (or lack thereof), etc. etc. etc. Once all this information was gathered and we
completed the required interviews, our home study was complete. All the
documents were put with the home study and this compiled our Dossier. We were
DTC (Dossier to China) on February 25, 2013.
After DTC, we waited for LID (Log in Date). We received word
that we were logged in and eligible to be matched with a child on March
18. On March 25, we received our first
referral, but due to the severity of her needs, we had to decline the
referral. On April 1, we received a 2nd
referral. Unfortunately, her needs were also more severe than we felt we could
handle, so we had to decline that referral as well. We began to think we would never be matched
with a child, and we settled in to wait for another match, thinking it could
feasibly be two more months before we received another referral. But, wait… on May 20, we received referral #3.
A sweet little toddler – almost 2 years old.
We researched, read, and prayed, and on May 21st, we accepted
her referral. Happy, happy dance! The
next day we were LOI (Letter of Intent – a statement indicating our intent to
adopt this little girl). Or so we
thought. :( In the middle of our process, the CCCWA (China
Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption – even the Chinese have acronyms)
implemented a new database. What was
supposed to take one week to switch over and implement took months. We were caught in the middle and there was absolutely
nothing we could do. I’m not sure of the
exact date, but somewhere around June 11, our agency informed us that Zoe’s
file had been lost in the database switch.
Fortunately, we did not have to wait long, and on June 18, Zoe’s file
was found and our LOI was officially submitted.
The next step we needed was PA (Pre-Approval). We received this on June 24 – record time considering
the database problems. We settled in for
the long wait for LOA (Letter of Acceptance). This is the golden document that
says you are officially allowed to adopt the child you have been matched
with. Due to the database switch (how is
it the hackers of the world cannot successfully complete a database switch?),
many families were waiting over 130 days for this piece of paper. The normal wait is 60-90 days. I tried not to
look at the calendar, and I did a good job….for about 3 weeks! Then I started
counting, too. Day 27, Day 34, Day 37,
Day 45, Day 47, Day 53, Day 61, Day 64.
September 4….Day 71…. We got the much anticipated email – our LOA had
arrived. Fortunately, my social worker
is a “let’s be prepared” kind of gal, and I had already filled out and mailed
to her all the documents that had to accompany the LOA on its next
journey. All we had to do was sign it and
send it back. On September 10, our LOA
was sent to USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Services). Now you can go back to the beginning! :)