Getting Closer!

On Friday we found out some wonderful news - our I800 has been approved!

Now, I know that doesn't really mean much to most people :)  So I thought I'd share about the *few* remaining steps in our adoption process.  I hope I get it right - this part is confusing to me and totally different than Korean adoption.

Our I800 was basically an application to immigration here in the US asking them if we can adopt Hannah.  Now that this is approved, we are almost finished with the US side of paperwork!

Hopefully in the next few days, our approval will be mailed to the National Visa Center (NVC), where our info is entered into their system.  Within 1-3 days, NVC will email our file to the US Embassy in China.  I will be emailing NVC later this week to hopefully be emailed a copy of the letter that shows that this file has been sent to China.  Once I have this letter, I will email it to our agency...then we are done with paperwork!

Still with me?

Phew!

When our agency receives this letter, they will forward it to their in-China representative.  This person will take the letter, along with some other paperwork, and drop it off at the consulate in China.  This is called our "Article 5".  These can only be dropped off on certain days.  It will be processed and picked up again exactly 2 weeks later.  Once it is picked up, we begin our wait for TA (Travel Approval!).  Our agency says this can take 4-6 weeks, but I have seen it happen more quickly...so that's what we're praying for!

Taking all this into account, I think that we will be starting our wait for TA sometime around the beginning of the year.  From there, I really don't know much!  There is a holiday in China in February that closes down government offices for a few weeks, and we may have to wait a couple of extra weeks because of that...but truthfully, what is a couple of weeks when we have waited almost a YEAR!  It will be so wonderful to be able to book flights and hotels, to know when we're going, to start to prep the boys...oh boy, oh boy!  We will be in China for 2 weeks, so this is no small trip to be packing for!

Getting closer every day...