The Question of the Hour

Lots of inquiring  minds have asked "So what the due date for this new little guy?"  I'm still feeling out Chinese adoptions so I could have a lot of things wrong but we are hoping this will be a smooth, pain free process without a lot of hiccups.  Compared to Haiti which is infamous for its every changing ways, China seems to be fairly efficient and predictable.  (Things Haiti was not.)  It's actually a bit opposite from Haiti in that a lot of the paperwork that must be done to ensure the child is in need of a family is done before you are even matched.  And the dossier assembly will take longer than Haiti because you have to have a form approved by immigration before you can submit your dossier to China but once your dossier is to China it's very straight forward with each step sticking to a fairly basic timeline.  We are optimistic that we will be traveling 9-12 months from now.  (Which sounds like an absolute dream given the length of our last two adoptions.)    It is possible that it could be even sooner than that depending on how long it takes to get our dossier together but we'll go with 9-12 months.

Here's the process and estimates on timelines:

Submit LOI (Letter of Intent) to China that identifies a child you'd like to adopt.  

Wait 1-4 weeks for Pre Approval (PA)

Complete homestudy and start assembling dossier (3-4 months)

Send dossier to China
Wait for LID (log in date) which is China acknowledging that your dossier has been received (1-4 weeks)

Wait for LOA (Letter of Approval) which is China formally approving you as parents for your child-52 days is average wait

File I800, I864 (US immigration paperwork)

Wait for I800 approval (3 weeks)

Have I800 approval cabled to US Consulate in China (2 weeks)

Wait for Article 5 (2-3 weeks)

Wait for travel approval (TA), 2-4 weeks

The orange parts we have already done.  And the blue items we were working on at the same time as the orange items so we are actually already started on doing those things.  We just had our last homestudy visit Tuesday night and have been working on getting items in for the dossier.  So hopefully it won't take us 3-4 months to get our dossier finished; hopefully it will be sooner.  That leaves all the steps in black which are about 6 months on the long side.