LOA stands for Letter of Acceptance. This is a HUGE step! Parents wait and wait for this point in the process. This is when China asks you to accept your specific child and officially links them to your family. Currently, we have pre-approval. Up to this point, all of the approvals we do are generic and could be for any child. Our sweet baby girl is on a hold of sorts in China. When we get LOA, there is a mad rush to check that we accept our precious daughter, sign, and mail back that same day if possible! After we receive, sign and mail this important document, Mark and I always go out to dinner to celebrate!
This step is the most variable! Currently, it is averaging 30 days. It usually takes 2-3 months. Some families have waited over 100 days. There is no rhyme or reason for who goes quickly and who waits. Praying we are in one of the fast lanes! And that the quick timelines continue!
There are 4 stages to this process. At the end, LOA is issued and mailed to our agency.
1. Login
2. Translation
3. Review
4. Matching
Our agency generally checks on Mondays and will update us as we progress through the steps. There are going to be some long weekends and tears on Mondays, if we don't have any progress. ;)
Thanks for all of your prayers. We can't wait to get to this sweet baby girl!!
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!
Can I just take a minute and brag about my hubby?? He might say we
are done EVERY time we adopt. He might make me think it through, pray,
and seek God's Will each time I get that crazy notion in my head. He
may make me question and wonder if we really should be starting another
journey...
BUT... when he realizes that the obvious choice, God's
plan, is for us to add another amazing kiddo to this crazy crew... He
is ALL in!! I love how he tracks timelines and celebrates progress
with me! I can never capture how he holds me up when I doubt and
question, when times get rough with bonding, when the needs we signed up
for seem too great.
Lifesong put together a video from the footage taken by Chosen and
Dearly Loved. It gives a glimpse of Mark's faithful leading in these
journeys. It was just released/shared today.
Check it out (with article): http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/bl…/2016/…/best-thing-dad/
Just the video:
https://vimeo.com/166510689/af08e4e2ed
I am still in disbelief! Our agency received our documents for
authentication today. I expected MAYBE our i800a would be approved at
the end of this week and we MIGHT receive it in the mail the middle of
next week, IF we were LUCKY...
We aren't lucky... We are
BLESSED!!!!!!! It was approved the same day of our original fingerprint
appointment and arrived in the mail TODAY!!!! Celebrating over here
tonight!! We might be DTC (paperwork to China) before the middle of
June!
We have a loan to cover most of the cost of our current adoption. However, there will still be expenses above and beyond this amount. We have been blessed with matching grants and the amazing generosity of family and friends in the past. We will apply for another matching grant soon. I am also applying for multiple grants. We are prepared to cover many of these costs ourselves and take out more loans if necessary. However, I believe that sharing, having others join in prayer for these grants, and seeing how God fulfills this large need is one of the greatest joys of adoption. The bar at the side of this blog is not to be a discouragement, with the large amount it appears to require, but an encouragement to believe and see how God provides!
Our prayer is for:
$5000 in grants
$5000 in matching grants
$5000 in donations for matching grants
This would give us the amount we need at travel time. I will keep an updated list of the grants I apply for here, adding as we go, and modify to indicate if we are approved or not. Thank you for joining us in prayer specifically over these grants (many take months to get back with us, so we may not see results for awhile).
Applications sent to:
Help Us Adopt
Rollstone - $1000 GRANT!!!! Praise God!
Show Hope - $0
Global Orphan Foundation - $0
Gift of Adoption- $3500 GRANT!!!! Praise God!
Chosen and Dearly Loved/Lifesong -
$4500 MATCHING GRANT!!!! Praise God!
Families Outreach - $1000 GRANT!!! Praise God!
Katelyn's Fund Orphan Ministry - $0
Sowing Roots
Stone Family Adoption Assistance Fund
