Timeline

Several people have asked about this.... so I thought I'd clarify what the next steps will look like. It may feel like this is taking forever but in the world of international adoption this has actually moved fairly fast. This week is one year to the date that we first walked into lifeline and turned in the initial application. It'll be about 15 months total from start to finish. To compare, if you are adopting off the healthy child list from china, it is more like 7-8 years!

Ok, so here is what we are looking at....

1. LOA- Dec. 14th.

2. LOA was overnighted to US Immigration with an I800 application (to allow her to come to the US-- we were already approved to bring a child but this attaches her name to ours.) Dec. 15th

3. The application sits in a lock box for a little over a week, then moves to an officer for review and then we get I800 approval. (Hopefully early Jan.-- the holidays could throw this off a bit)

4. NVC Cable (National Visa Center)-- Basically our petition to adopt Mei Sims is cabled to the US consulate in China.-- this takes exactly 2 weeks to get NVC letter back

5. Article 5 pickup- letter basically saying everything is in order for the adoption (about 2 weeks)

6. TA (Travel Approval)- China tells us we can come so our agency secures a consulate appointment, we buy plane tickets and then

7. Go to China (about 2 weeks from TA)!!

I'm pretty sure that is the general timeline of things-- all these steps and abbreviations can get confusing for even me! But it all adds up to probably very end of Feb. or beginning of march travel. And the best part.... 3 of my dear friends got their LOA the same day (gals from my coffee group), so it is highly likely that we will all go to china together!! I could never have dreamed that I'd be there with girls who are like sisters to me! I hope china is ready for the coffee group!