LID is a Logged In Date. This is the date when China says they have officially received your paperwork. Lifeline let us know we were DTC - Dossier (paperwork) To China on 6/10.
Some adoptive families (with different agencies) were getting their LIDs within 4-6 days of being DTC. So we waited...
Then we got to Day 14 (the top of the average wait for families with our agency), still nothing...
I emailed every other day to check on progress... nothing...
Day 18, our caseworker checked, China had received our paperwork, but it wasn't officially accepted.
THEN TODAY HAPPENED...
We are doing the happy dance and dreaming of LOA (the next BIG step)!!
It felt like a VERY LONG road... but we FINALLY made it!!
It started with our homestudy taking an extremely long time to get approved. We found that we were missing a huge number of documents.
I worked like crazy, signing, printing, scanning and all of them were returned within a few hours.
Then, we waited forever for our doctor to finish one last form. We ended up delaying our paperwork so long and our i800a approval came so fast, that it was all sent together. Usually you send other documents ahead to save some time. We also had Memorial Day and other delays that seemed to take forever.
I was tracking timelines and was so surprised that the paperwork hadn't made it to the Consulate (final stop before being sent to China). It was still being notarized and state sealed. (Though I am very thankful for all our agency does for us!!)
We finally received the news that it had been sent to the Consulate! Even that process took longer than the social worker and I expected. She checked in with her team, realizing it should have been received a couple of days earlier, and emailed back that it was finally finished!
All that was left was for the agency team to check over the paperwork one last time and send it to China. This takes a few days, but she promised they were working as fast as they could. Well, guess what? We got an email the NEXT DAY that we were DTC!!! Meaning our paperwork was sent to CHINA!!!
Now, we wait for our LID (Logged In Date), sort of the official receipt date from the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption).
Then, the REALLY BIG wait happens!! The next step after receiving a LID is LOA (Letter of Acceptance). This is a HUGE milestone! This is when Mark and I go out to dinner and celebrate!! The wait for LOA varies TREMENDOUSLY! It can take 30-150 days. After this step, the rest of the process is fairly predictable.
(Doesn't Baby Girl have the best expressions?? I can't wait to meet her! She's going to be a hoot!)
Where are we at now?? SO CLOSE to the next big step!
Our agency is getting all of our paperwork ready to be sent to China. This includes getting the important documents notarized, state sealed, and authenticated. This process can take anywhere from 3-4 weeks. Our documents started the process last Tuesday and are at the last step! HOPEFULLY, they will be ready on Monday, June 6th (though I would take Friday)! ;)
After this, our agency looks over all of the documents to be mailed and makes sure everything is in order. Then, the whole stack gets shipped to China!! This is referred to as DTC (date to China). We wait for the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) to officially accept our paperwork. This is referred to as LID (logged in date). Then, the big wait for the SUPER important step of LOA (letter of acceptance). This is like the turning point of the adoption and is the biggest step for HUGE variations in timelines.
Can't wait to be able to continue along this process!
