Filing our I-600A!

Today, the USCIS (formerly known as the INS) received our I-600A application and required documents. This form is used to apply to bring an orphan from outside the US into the US. We will have to be fingerprinted by the US government before the application is approved. Eventually (I'm hearing anywhere from 3-8 weeks) we'll receive a I-171H in the mail saying we are approved. That is the last form we need to finalize our dossier.

Once that is done, our dossier consultant at GWCA (our agency) will get the final documents certified by the State of Texas and authenticated by the Chinese consulate. That can take 2-4 more weeks. So, our dossier could be in China anywhere from 5-12 weeks from now. I'm hoping it'll all be done by end of July.

What are the remaining steps before we meet Macey?
1. GWCA will send our Letter of Intent to adopt this specific baby to China this week with minimal paperwork to satisfy them that we are a good match for this baby.
2. The CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) will issue us a Pre-Approval or PA.
3. Our dossier will go to China (also known as our DTC date).
4. They'll log our documents in and we'll get a Log In Date (LID).
5. The CCAA will translate our docs to Chinese, review them all carefully, and if they don't have any issues, issue a Letter of Acceptance (LOA).
6. A few weeks later they'll issue our Travel Approval (TA) and we can start packing to leave.
7. We'll travel about 4-6 weeks after we get our TA.

Our prayer is just that all this happens before Christmas. What a joyous Christmas it may be!