Time line

It has been 1 week now that we are waiting for LOSC. Only about 11 more weeks to go! UGh. Things just take so darn long. I am trying to put a time line together in my head of how long each paperwork phase is going to take. I really shouldn't though because it is unusual for international adoption to go according to your plans. It just leaves you disappointed when more time passes than you expected. I am anticipating sometime this summer for travel but we will see what happens. Here are a list of things that still need to happen before we can bring our Little Lily home............

LOSC - Our agency has sent our LOI(letter of intent) to China stating Lily is the specific child we want to adopt. We now wait for their reply(LOSC-letter of seeking confirmation). This could take on average about 3 months! This would bring us to the end of May. I am hoping China will send us our LOSC sooner because our dossier(paperwork) has been in China for about 7 months already but I am not holding my breath.

USCIS- Once we receive our LOSC we then have a few forms to fill out and send them to USCIS(Unites States Citizenship and Immigration Services) with our LOSC. This should take about 4-5 weeks for approval. This would bring us to the beginning of July. Then this approval and other paperwork gets sent back to China and we wait for TA(travel arrangements).

TA - This could take about 6 weeks to get. So that brings us to the middle or end of August. To think we have to wait to the end of the summer seems far to long to wait. It is soooooooooo far away. I know we can do it but the wait will not be easy!