It's been 7 months.........

So now 7 months into our wait, and they just finished referrals for those logged in the month on November 2005. Yes, that is not a misprint, 2005! So the wait has been 23 months for those families. When they were logged in, way back then, the wait was 7 months. I really can't imagine thinking you would have your baby in 7 months, and it ends up being 2 years. We knew, this time around that the wait was going to be very long. Unfortunately, no one seems to know at this point, how long. At this point in our first adoption, we were leaving 2 weeks later for China.

So now we wait, & watch, hoping the CCAA speeds things up, although it does not look promising.

But we are going to try to do a few more posts here, since we've had 612 visitors with no posts being made!

We have our LID

I have to commend everyone. Contrary to what we originally thought, we have not been inundated with calls and posts about the status of the adoption. Knowing how people typically behave in cyberspace - where it is very easy to speak ones mind, say something inappropriate, or too convenient not to post a question, we consider this a big deal. So to all of the readers of this site: congratulations!

Now for some news. Today, we received the following e-mail from our agency:

Hi Christopher and Ileana, Congratulations!!

We received your LID of 03/08/07 today. This means that your dossier has begun it's journey through CCAA, heading for your referral. Right now, referrals are running about 16 months from LID; however, this can change with very little notice.

So that's it, another minor hurdle has been cleared. We'll keep you up to date as things progress. In the meantime, keep up the good work by not bothering us too much.

It's Official

We received an e-mail from our adoption agency yesterday telling us that our Dossier was on it's way to China. In adoption circles we say that, "we are DTC". This might confuse some people who may mistake us for "Danish Touringcar Champions", "Diversified Technology Consultants", or part of the "Delaware Theater Company". I have now become one of those dads that I am suspicious of because when people ever ask me my DTC date, I would reply, "February 9, 2007" (at least for the next week, until I forget the actual date).

Oddly enough, as much hullabaloo that people make about being DTC, my wife informs me that this doesn't really mean much because we still need to get logged in and get our LID (log in date) from the CCAA (I think I have already told you what these letters mean in a previous blog and since I can't think of that right now, you'll just have to scroll down to figure it out.)

We still have a lot of hurdles to get over - to get our LID and feel more comfortable that we will not be affected by the "New Regulations" - this will occur when our dossier is actually reviewed in a couple months. We willthen have the wait and finally get our referral. If it seems overwhelming, it is but I will explain it all as the story develops.

Regardless of the relative insignificance of this as a date, we celebrated at our favorite local Chinese Restaurant, the New Star. Actually, Ileana likes it more for the Mai Tai served in Tiki mugs more than anything else. At the end of the meal, we all anxiously opened our fortune cookies. Sophie's seemed to be the most appropriate. Ileana got the one about standing in her own light - whatever that means. Mine indicated that it may be in my best interest to come clean about my relationship with Anna Nicole.

Timing, Abbreviations, Acronyms and other fun stuff

The last time we adopted, we started our blog the day before we left for China. Since we are a little more seasoned at this now, we are starting it at an earlier stage of our process.

We submitted all of our authenticated paperwork for our dossier to our adoption agency on January 15th. To get to this point, we have already done a lot of work. This might be a nice record in the future but it is also something that people currently engaged in this process are dying to know.

We applied for our I600A on November 7th.
This is our official filing date with the USCIS.
We were fingerprinted by a private investigator for the state on November 11th.
We had medical examinations the first week in November.
Our home study was received by USCIS on December 29th.
We received our letter for fingerprinting on January 5th and were fingerprinted by USCIS on the 6th.
We received our 171H on January 27th.
The following will be updated but:
We hope to be DTC by February 9th.
We hope to be LID by March 9th.

During our previous adoption, I was always suspect of any father that could recite his LID or DTC dates (I was suspect even if they knew what this stuff was). To this day, I still don't know when we were DTC, LID, or even referred Sophie. This time around, I am taking a different approach and will actually educate myself a little more on this process. I still can't guarantee that I will ever remember these dates but at least I now have them written down so that I can check back for reference.

So what do these letters above mean? Here is a quick dictionary.
USCIS - United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
DTC - Dossier to China. The dossier is all of our paperwork.
LID - Log in Date. This is when all of our paperwork is logged in by the CCAA.
CCAA - China Center of Adoption Affairs, the government office set up to handle adoptions.

We hope to have our referral in 24 months - yes, you read that correctly, 24 months. So all of you who feel like asking us if we have heard anything before December '08, please don't. We have a long road ahead. Due to the new, more stringent requirements of the CCAA, we are still not sure if we will be allowed to adopt. This, coupled with the upcoming Olympics and the ever-changing geopolitical landscape, makes us a little apprehensive about shouting the news of our impending adoption to the world.

I don't know how often we'll be updating this blog. I guess it all depends on how arduous the wait is. Stay tuned.

-Chris

If you've made it here

If you are on this site, as you might imagine by the title, we are going to China again - or we hope to be going to China again. We are in the process of "paperchasing" for our second child. We hope that this journey will be as fortunate as our last one. Stay tuned for updates.