Dossier critical review

People ask us all the time where we are in the adoption process and what all these terms and abbreviations mean. This picture diagrams the process. 

We are between step 6 and 7 of 15, just waiting for our agency to approve the dossier we submitted and send it to China. (The dossier is composed of all the documents we spent months putting together, then notarizing, then county certifying, then state certifying and finally certified by the Chinese Consulate.) Now that the Atlanta office of CCAI (our agency) has done a critical review of our dossier and found everything to be complete, they will send it to Colorado, where they are headquartered.  Finally, hopefully in a few days, but more likely next week, it will be sent to China.  This very important step is known as DTC--Dossier to China.  Once the dossier is received in China and they log it in to the system, we are given a LID--Log in Date.  This date is what makes us eligible to be matched to our little girl, which is what happens between steps 7 and 8, so it's a pretty important step.

It has been a long two weeks waiting for our dossier to progress through the stages at our agency, but it has finally finished critical review and will be sent from the Atlanta office to the head office in Colorado today.  When I say it has been a long two weeks, I will admit that I have been doing a bit of obsessing.  Like all the moms in the Chinese adoptive process, I want to get to the next step as soon as possible because each step gets me closer to getting my little girl home to her family where she belongs.  But this step is a really big step and there is an unavoidable hurdle in my progress.  The Chinese Childrens Welfare (CCCWA) closes from September 29-October 7 for a holiday.  That means nothing is done that week.  I really hoped that our dossier would be in China when they were closed for the holiday.  At the beginning of September dossiers that went to the Atlanta office were sent within a couple days to the Colorado office and were DTC a few days after that.  So when I submitted our dossier on September 12, it seemed a real possibility, but I guess it was not meant to be.  

That may sound very dismissive, "it was not meant to be".  Despite the fact that I admit to obsessing a bit, stressing a bit, getting a little sad with this delay and a little frustrated, I truly believe that we will be exactly at the point we need to be at when our daughter's file is ready.  From the time of our LID, it could be days, weeks or months before we get a referral.  I am hoping for days, but the reality is that it will probably be months.  I hoped to know who our little girl was by this Christmas, eventhough I knew we wouldn't be approved to go get her until next Spring, at the earliest.  Now from all the indications, we might not know who she is by Christmas.  That makes me sad, I have to admit.  But I truly believe that must just mean her file won't be ready yet.  Her file will be ready, or we will somehow be directed to her, when the time is right.  So beside the fact that my human nature says that time is passing and we are getting older and our boys are getting older and we are ready and waiting for her, we will continue to wait until it is time.  

Feel free to kindly remind me I said that if I start obsessing again in the near future. 

(9/28/12 update: Due to the holiday, we have confirmed that our dossier will sit in the Colorado CCAI office and will not be mailed to China until 10/5/12.)

On Wednesday, September 12, we relinquished our complete dossier to our agency.  We hope we are DTC (dossier to China) within the next week, but that is probably pretty wishful thinking. Two weeks maybe?

This is an I800A, or I797, an Application for determination of suitability to adopt a child from a convention county. This would be a most precious piece of paper.  This paper gives us permission to adopt one child of either gender, 0-4 years old, healthy or who may have mild or severe medical needs from the Peoples Republic of China.  Immigration has a 90 day window to do this and ours only took 32 days!!  Yipee!!

I800A fingerprints

We have a receipt date for our I800A request of 7/19/12, but our appointment was not scheduled until today.  

 

We finally got our notices two weeks ago and I have wanted to walk in since then, as sometimes they will let you walk in early to be fingerprinted as long as you have the notice.  Unfortunately, the Atlanta USCIS office has not always let people walk in early, so on the chance that David would arrange his schedule to go down, only to be sent away, we did not try to go early.  

 

We arrived at 11:15 for our 12:00 appointment and had to wait in a line outside to get through Security.  David was not thrilled that he was not allowed to have his cell phone with him, but he did okay without it!!  :)  After the initial line, things moved quickly and we were out by 12:00.  David and I both had to have a couple fingers redone.  The agents were pretty formal, but once David's agent started to tease him about being too tense, my agent yelled across the room to the other agent that his wife was tense too.  They started teasing us both and we all loosened up a bit and were able to get the fingerprints done right. 

 

Now we just wait for the approval.  Could be up to 2 more months to still be in their 90 day window, but they have been getting approved pretty quickly lately, so I would love to get approval in a week or two.  Then all our dossier paperwork will go to get county certified, state certified and then to the Chinese consulate in Houston.  I can't believe we are finally getting close to DTC (Dossier to China.)

Home Study approved!!

What's new?  Well, it feels like a whole lot of nothing, but in fact, a lot of important steps are taking place.  We just received a call that our home study has been approved!!  Yeah!!  It has been done for a while, but we had to wait on my passport and our social worker was then on vacation.  She called about 15 minutes ago and said she is overnighting it to our agency tomorrow morning. 

 

I am actually heading to our agency tomorrow to get a bunch of our documents notarized.  Unfortunately I will probably miss the home study, but I have been told they should be able to notarize it and mail it to me and I should get it next week.  Then I will take all those documents to be county certified, then state certified, then send them all to the Chinese Consulate in Houston.  We already have the Chinese stamp on all of our birth certificates and our marriage license.  Those had to go someplace else, but are back safely.  After we get everything back from Houston, my end of our paperwork for the dossier will be finished and we wait.  

Somewhere in this process, our agency sends our request for I800A off and then in the next few weeks we will get an appointment to go get fingerprinted downtown, sometimes there is a long wait just for the appointment.  Then we wait for them to approve them and send us the approval.  Finally our dossier will be complete, but will still need translated.  

It's hard to know that it is early July and I have done all I can do on my end,  yet it will probably still be late fall before we have a log in date in China.  Still hoping to get a referral by the end of the year.  Only God knows, but we know he is in complete control and will somehow lead us right to our sweet little girl. All we have to do is wait...... and wait!!  :)

quick update

The sweet little girl we inquired about is already being reviewed by another family and there is a waiting list for her file.  It appears she will not be ours, but we are happy that she will not be an orphan for long!!

PS.  In early July I confirmed that this sweet little girl had found her forever family.  I'm so happy for her!!

Inquiring about a special focus little girl

We are inquiring about another little girl on our agency's special focus list.

http://www.chinesechildren.org/WaitingChild/Album_ChildProfile_Details.aspx?ChildID=10399

She has cleft lip/ cleft palate, but has obviously had the lip surgically corrected.  It is also listed that she has developmental delays, so we are interested to know what those are.  She is a little older than we were originally looking at, as she would probably be 4 by the time she came home to us, but we are interested and so we will see what they say.  We will only be allowed to review the file if no one else has inquired about her.  If others have inquired, they will get to review her file first.  Who knows?!?!