The Adoption Process

This post is for anyone who is completely confused with trying to keep up with the adoption process…my hubby, for one.

There are so many steps…so many acronyms…so many hands in the basket, so to speak, that it gets rather confusing…even for the adoptive parents.

This chart is a fun way to visualize all the steps we have to go through before the adoption is finalized.

I even marked the step we’re at currently…about halfway there.

Here are the most common acronyms used:

 
(unfortunately we’ve only made it through the top 2 of these…but we’re about a week away from DTC!!!)

To expand on these a bit…

LOI is a letter of intent to adopt a specific child. This is the “formal” letter you send after you’ve received a referral and decide to pursue the adoption of that child.

PA is pre-approval from China (usually comes within 2 weeks of LOI). Really doesn’t mean a lot except that they’ve received your LOI and that basically they will pull that child’s file & yours & not allow anyone else to pursue that child.

LOA is the formal approval from China. They’ve looked over your paperwork & the child’s and agree to the match. This usually comes anywhere from 35-100+ days after LOI, no rhyme or reason unfortunately.

Article 5 is the form sent from the US Government to the Chinese government telling them we have been approved to bring this specific child home.

TA is the official travel approval issued by China. It allows us 3 months to come & get our child.

CA is the consulate appointment where we take the oath of American citizenship & our child receives their visa to come to the US, where they will become a citizen upon landing.

Confused yet???

Here’s a few more that may have been mentioned or may be mentioned in the near future.

SW - Social Worker
WC - Waiting Child
AP - Adoptive Parent
SF - Special Focus
SN - Special Needs
NSN - Non Special Needs
USCIS - United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
NVC - National Visa Center
CCCWA China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption
SWI - Social Welfare Institution
CWI - Child Welfare Institution
Dossier - a series of documents, that you compile, that tells the CCCWA about you,
your family, your health and your finances
Cabled - where the NVC sends the Embassy in Guangzhou notice that the I800 has been approved, so that once the agency's person in Guangzhou takes the family's DS230 paperwork (the paperwork for the child's American visa to be created) to the Embassy they can match it with the cable of approval to start the Article 5 process.

 

So, as you can see it’s loads of fun :)  We should have all our paperwork back from certification/authentication early next week and hope to have our dossier sent to China (DTC) by the end of next week. From there we wait for LID so we can be eligible for a match off the next list released from China (there should be a new list coming out the end of August…we’re so hoping to be eligible for a match from that list!)