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!