Adoption Timeline

I've received lots of questions about our adoption over the last few weeks so I thought maybe I'd try to fill you all in a little. I say a "little" because it is all still so new to us too, so I can't guarantee that I'll be sharing all of this info correctly but at least you will have a better idea of what we are up to. :)

We have been collecting oodles of paperwork for 3 different parts of the adoption...
1)Home Study
2)CIS application- I800A form
3)Dossier (packet of documents) for China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA).

The Home Study evaluates our family history and background (including multiple background checks on us and our children), our philosophy on marriage, raising children, education, how we have prepared for the adoption of a special needs child, if our home is safe/suitable for raising a child, required training courses, etc. The paperwork also includes many references from family and friends, our employers, financial statements, and medical exams. The process is time-consuming for sure...which is often why these beginning phases of adoption are referred to as a "paper pregnancy." It's exhausting! :)

Now that we have our part of the HS completed, we are waiting on the Home Study agency to review, revise, and finalize it. We've been told this process can take 4 to 6 weeks. Once we have the Home Study, we will send it in with our I800A form to Citizenship & Immigrat*on Services. This process will also include fingerprinting and more paperwork. Once we have USCIS approval...we can send our Dossier to China!!!

Sounds easy enough...except the Dossier requires some of the same, some similar, and some totally different paperwork. These documents have to be notarized, then sent to the Secretary of State for seals, and then to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for authentication. We are in the final processes of having our papers notarized right now and will hopefully be sending them to the Sec. of State soon.

Because we are on the Waiting Children list (special needs), the next steps may vary a little. We may actually identify our daughter on a list before we even send our dossier or we may have our dossier sent and wait, wait, wait to be matched. But this is approximately what will happen...

Our agency will send our Dossier to China (DTC).
We will then be notified of its Log In Date (LID) with CCAA.
We will either find our little girl on a Shared list or be matched with a little girl. We will have a short time frame to review her file, consult with specialists, and pray over this little girl. If we choose to adopt her, we will send a Letter of Intent (LOI) to CCAA.
We will wait for a Pre-Approval from CCAA, which usually comes pretty quickly.
Then we wait for the actual Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China saying we can adopt her, which can take months.
We will submit our request to CIS again with a I800 form for the specific child we want to adopt and they will cable our information/Visa request to CCAA (not sure exactly what all happens here.)
Once we finally receive Travel Approval (TA), our agency will set up all of the arrangements and we will travel to China to meet our newest daughter!

It doesn't feel like the time will come soon enough, but we are trusting in His perfect timing and enjoying our sweet girls at home while we wait. They have been practicing some Chinese and learning more and more about the culture. We will not be taking the girls with us for 2 reasons...1) It's so expensive. 2)We want to focus on bonding with our new baby. We will miss our girls so much though as we have never been away from them for 2 whole weeks before...thank God for Skype!!

Our little girl will have a Chinese name but it will be our choice of whether or not to include this in her American name. We do know her first name will start with a B for sure. :) We have been tossing around a few names and I know we'll know for sure once we see her picture.

Thank you for your prayers for our family and our little China girl!