But it sure sounds like Greek when I talk about these steps to the adoption, right? If you aren’t involved in the adoption community it must seem like paperwork nightmare.
I have been asked to update exactly where we are. So here goes and I hope it all makes sense.
We were waiting for our LOA – letter of acceptance. This was China telling us that we passed review and that Wang Lei was matched to us and we could proceed with telling America we wanted to bring her into the country. That arrived on 11/15/2010.
We immediately applied for our I 800 approval. We found out that we were approved on 11/29/2010 via email and then received our letter last Thursday. This happened really fast and that was exciting.
Now we are waiting for the State Department to “cable” our approval to the US embassy in China. This can take up to 10 days.
Once we get that notification we forward it on to our agency and they drop off our Article 5 application at the US Consulate in China. Then exactly 2 weeks later they pick that up and forward it to Beijing.
THEN we are technically in the final line – the wait for Travel Approval (TA). That can take 2-3 weeks and then we can buy plane tickets and head off to China.
Why are we so concerned about this right now? Well, for one we don’t want Wang Lei to wait for us any longer than she has too! But Chinese New Year is 2/3 and if we don’t start our trip by around 1/16 and finish our trip by 2/1 we can’t leave for China until 2/11. So our trip would be delayed by a full month!!
For those who asked, did that help at all? I hope so. For those who have asked what to pray for – you can pray that our paperwork would continue to move smoothly. Thanks!
