Timeline for International Adoption

 For those of your who do not know us, this is our 2nd adoption.  Our first was for a little baby boy from South Korea.  He came home to us 2005 at 4 months of age. He is a great kid!  We've decided to pursue another little boy, a brother for Z. This little guy is already 4 and lives in an orphanage in Ch*na.  He will be 5 by the time we get him home.  We do not yet have a name settled on.  Since he is older, we will most likely incorporate some or all of his given name for his American name. Here is an abbreviated timeline of our journey.  Thanks to Miss Courtney for typing this all out.  Here is her website  http://www.china-adoption-online.com/index.html which is VERY helpful and she has put together so beautifully! 

Timeline:

1) Select your adoption agency.  We actually selected little guy first, then went with this agency who had met him and was working with this orphanage in Ch*na. 

2) Begin your homestudy and start collecting all your dossier documents. During this time, you will want to begin notarizing, state certifying, and and authenticating your dossier.

3) Apply for I800A approval (takes about 2 months). Finish authenticating your dossier.

4) Certify and authenticate your USCIS approval, then send your dossier to your agency. You are now DTC (Dossier to China!)  This is where we are now; hoping our I800A has made it to the courier and will get to the Chicago Ch*nese Consulate today. 

If you work quickly, you can compile your dossier, receive USCIS approval, and send it to China in 3-4 months.

5) A few weeks after your dossier arrives in China, it will be logged into the CCCWA. The day your paperwork is logged into the system is known as your LID.

6) Sometime during this process you will be matched with a child. This could be before you are LID or afterwards depending on what kind of child you wish to adopt and how long the child has been on the shared list. When you and your agency have identified the child you wish to adopt, you will submit a LOI (Letter of Intent) to the CCAA stating your intention to adopt this child. We have already been matched with our child.

7) Once China has reviewed your LOI, they will issue you a Pre-Approval (PA) to adopt that particular child within 1-4 weeks.  We have already received our PA.

8) You will then begin waiting for your LOA (Letter of Acceptance). This can take anywhere from 1-5 months, with 2-3 months being the average (see the Waiting for TA chart in the SN room for more stats on that wait). Once your agency receives this document, you will sign it, copy it, and return it to your agency.

9) You must now file Form I-800 with USCIS (different than the I-800A you filed earlier). It will take approximately 3 weeks to receive I-800 approval.

10) Once you have I-800 approval, your officer will forward your approval to the NVC (National Visa Center). NVC will upload your approval into their system and cable (send) your approval the US consulate. Then the NVC will issue a letter stating they have done this. It takes about one week to be cabled, and another week to receive the letter.

11) Once you receive the NVC letter , send it to your agency immediately! They will deliver this letter to the US consulate in China.

12) Once the consulate has your NVC letter, they will issue your Article 5 in 2-3 weeks. The Article 5 is the consulate pre-approving your child for an immigrant visa. Your agency will have a courier pick up the Article 5 and take it to the CCAA.

13) Once the CCAA receives the Article 5, the Travel Approval will then be issued. This takes around 2-4 weeks. At this point, your agency will make travel arrangements for you to go to China and adopt your child.

And these are a few pictures of our little guy.  These are the first few we received.  Next post, I'll put up some more current ones which we received out of the blue!

  Blessings,  The Bowers