DTC!!!! What does that mean? What's next?

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!)