I know not everyone wants to hear the details about the timeline of this whole process, but surprisingly it's one of the questions we are asked most often, especially by those who are also interested in adopting. This process has been a lot more grueling than I had anticipated. I wish I had kept track of how many sheets of paper we've printed, how many ink cartridges have been used up, how many stamps we've stuck on, how many envelopes we've licked, how many packets we've overnighted, the number of trips to the bank for notarizations, the number of photocopies, how many pages we've digitized etc . So many tears and stressful moments. I feel like my husband and I are pretty detailed people, but all the details involved in adoption paperwork is overwhelming. Luckily, our adoption agency, CCAI, was amazing and helped us through it all. Our social worker for the home study, Maryanne at CHI, was wonderful as well. Thank heavens for them or we would have never made it through.
Once we accepted Naomi's file, we were told it would be a 9-12 month process. "No way!" we thought. "We'll defy the odds! We're going to work harder and faster than anyone else who has ever done this and do it in 6-8 months." We had high hopes. At the very beginning, our social worker told us we were breaking records with how fast we were completing things and we were feeling pretty confident we'd be over in China by early Spring. But after our background checks took 11 weeks to complete (yes, almost three months!!), we basically were back on track to the average adoption timetable. By the way, do you know why part of the reason it took our background checks so long? No, it wasn't that they found anything scandalous in our past... Beau's missing finger from our fingerprints was causing issues. Apparently they don't deal with missing appendages too often and it made him seem a bit questionable. ;)
Below is our timeline:
September 11, 2017 - Receive Naomi's file
September 18, 2017 - Accept Naomi's file
September 28, 2017 - Sent LOI (Letter of Intent) to China
October 2, 2017 - Receive Pre-Approval from China
October 2, 2017 - Begin Home Study Packets
October 26, 2017 - Completed Adoption Parent Training
October 30, 2107 - Begin Dossier paper chase
October 30, 2017 - Start I-800A application
January 15, 2018 - Complete Home Study packet
January 18, 2018 - Receive I-800A pre approval
March 6, 2018 - Dossier certified by Secretary of State @ State Capitol in Utah
March 6, 2018 - Send Dossier to courier in Washington D.C.
March 11, 2018 - Dossier is sealed at US Consulate in Virginia
March 16, 2018 - Dossier is authenticated @ Chinese Embassy in D.C.
March 20, 2018 - Dossier sent to adoption agency for critical review
March 30, 2018 - Dossier translated into Chinese and sent off to China
April 2, 2018 - LID received (Log in date that China entered our paperwork in their system)
June 8, 2018 - Received LOA (Letter of Approval) soft copy
June 11, 2018 - Received LOA (hard copy)
June 21, 2018 - Sent off packet of Travel Packet II documents
June 28, 2018 - Received I-800 provisional approval
June 29, 2018 - Received NVC letter, Submitted DS-260 VISA form, all forms submitted to Guangzhou to the US Consulate
July 4, 2018 - Article 5 documents dropped off to US Consulate
July 6, 2018 - Submitted all paperwork for VISAS
July 17, 2018 - Article 5 picked up at US Consulate
(to be updated....)