not quite DTC

DTC = Dossier To China

Adoption is full of twists, turns, and delays. I know everyone wonders why the wait is so long when I tell them we are adopting a child who was waiting for a family. I mentioned the steps we still face in an earlier post. We are currently waiting for our dossier to be sent to China. Unfortunately, right now, it sits waiting for a piece of paper to be added. The second agency we are working with found out that China now requires this piece of paper, and so our dossier sits waiting for another week or two. Frustrating at times, but there's really nothing that can be done about it. So, we sit and wait some more.

Hopefully, sometime next week, I can tell you our dossier is headed for China. For now, we have plenty at home that needs our attention, and I am remembering that there are lessons to be learned in the wait.

Grant Approval!!!

We recently found out that we are the recipients of a $2,500 grant from a local church that has an adoption ministry! We are so excited! The church that awarded it asked us to let them know when travel arrangements are made so that they can send the check, so this will help pay for the big expense of traveling (almost a third of the adoption cost) when the time comes. Hooray!

Back to School!

I'm coming in a little late on this one. Getting the photos off of my camera lately is not too easy when you have someone climbing on your back asking to use the computer. ;)

Will's school is year round, so I don't have any "first day of school shots". He had a couple of weeks off in July and then back he went. I need to take some of him in front of his school here soon...perhaps when it is a bit cooler since he got a super cute back to school outfit from my neighbor and her mom.

Caroline started second grade last week. I can't believe it! I'm enjoying the time I have in the morning with just the littlest one, but man, my big girl is growing up too fast.

Approval!!!

Finally, it's here! We received our I-800A approval from USCIS on Friday.

I called my husband immediately who had the good sense to leave work was very thoughtful and came home so that we could get it notarized right away. After an entire afternoon of driving to the county and then to the state capital, it is now in the hands of our adoption agency! Hooray!!

For those who are curious about the process, the next steps look like this:

• Currently, we are waiting to hear about our DTC date. (DTC = dossier to China)
• From there, we've heard the LID comes quickly. (LID = log in date, a receipt of when China logs the dossier in)
• There are countless blogs telling family stories of waits to adopt from China. The current timeline seems to be 30-50 days from LID to LOA. (LOA = letter of approval; We received pre-approval from China, however, this would be official approval after reviewing all of our documents.)
• After LOA, we wait for TA. (TA = travel approval; I've heard there are a few, minor things that happen in between here and there...this part of the wait can take anywhere from a short time to a few months, it seems)
• From TA, it is usually 1-3 weeks to travel.

All of this puts our best guess at getting Eli in January. Well, January-ish. We'd love for it to happen more quickly, but trying our best to realize that it will happen on God's time, and not ours. In the meantime, there's plenty to do here!

Haircut time!

Who told her that she could go and grow up on me??

Progress is good, right?

That, my friends, is my basement floor.....

.....after Will dribbled the whole way to the bathroom. We arrived home and came inside through the garage. Will immediately began the potty dance and started pulling anything on his lower half down.

The end result was what you see with a bit of something making it actually IN the potty.

I admit, I had a good laugh about this one.

waiting....waiting....waiting

We were fingerprinted for USCIS on Monday. This was a blessing as my appointment was actually on Monday, but Jim's was not scheduled until next week! The people at our USCIS office are really kind and helpful....the same folks were there for Norah's adoption. They allowed Jim to get his fingerprints done anyway, and we are now waiting on our approval (I-797 for those in adoption land) so that we can send our dossier to China.

Now that we are close to sending things, the timeline is out of our hands and into the hands of Eli's birth country, and I have been looking at the average wait times lately. It looks like most are cases are taking about 4-6 months from LID (log in date) to traveling. The LID will come when we send our dossier to China and they send us a date saying that they've accepted it. We're hoping this will come this month, but could possibly come next month.

At this point, we're praying boldly and asking anyone who is willing to do the same along with us. We're praying that our approval comes very soon, as some have, and that our dossier gets logged in very quickly once it is in China. Above all else, we're praying that somehow, we fall on the short end of the estimated time frame so that Eli can be home for his fourth birthday on January 8th, or, at the very least, we will be with him on his birthday.

Thank you for praying with us!!