In case you missed our previous announcement, we’re adopting a little girl from China! We’re super excited and can’t wait to meet her. Thank you for all of your sweet messages. And for all of you adoption mammas, it was such a joy to hear your stories. Each story is intricately woven by God and I just love to hear the details of how He brought your little ones to you.
Adoption Timeline
Many of you have asked about our timeline. We are still several months away from traveling to China to pick up our sweet girl. It’s a long and tiresome process but our agency has done an incredible job to make the process as seamless as possible. Here is a breakdown of the adoption process.
- Formal Application approval from agency (CCAI) –
5 – 7 Business Days
- The Chinese government have their own requirements that have to be met in order for us to adopt a child from their country (Medical Conditions, BMI, Age, Income, Net Worth, Education, etc.)
- Home Study – 6-12 weeks
- Background checks
- Physical exams for every member of the family
- Home inspection for safety
- FBI fingerprinting
- Copies of every document (or at least that’s how it feels) – birth certificates, marriage license, driver’s license, vehicle registration, proof of insurance, etc.
- Two in-person meetings (lasts about 2 hours each) to discuss our reasons for adoption, learn about our childhood, marriage, parenting style, job, family life, etc.
- USCIS Approval – timeline varies
- A formal document (I-800A) from the United States government telling China that we’ve been approved to adopt internationally.
- Dossier – 5-6 months
- Thirteen documents that the Chinese require to prove that we meet their requirements. (medical report & letter from our doctor, financial statement, letter from place of employment, certified copies of birth certificates and marriage license, final home study report, Criminal reports from our state, USCIS approval, etc.)
- CCAI Dossier Review & Mail to China – 2 weeks
- Once all of the Dossier documents are ready, we will send them to our agency for review. They will translate everything and bind it with an agency recommendation. Once this is completed, it is off to Beijing.
- Child Match – most variable (6-24 months)
- The child matching could happen at any point. However, most matches happen after the Dossier has been received and accepted by the Chinese government. The wait time varies by the age, gender and medical conditions that we specify.
- Letter of Acceptance (LOA) – 3-4 months
- Letter generated by the China Center for Children’s Welfare & Adoption (CCCWA) within a few months after we have accepted a child and our dossier has been logged in.
- Travel to China – 9-12 weeks after acceptance of LOA
- We will travel to China to pick up our daughter. We’ll be there for 14-21 days.
I know it’s a lot! Is your head spinning yet?? The good thing about adopting from China, as opposed to other countries, is that they have their process down to a science. The Type A voice in me says, “AMEN!” I think this image that I found online (can’t find the original source, forgive me) , sums up the process beautifully!
Where are we in the process?
That’s a great question. We recently completed our home study and we are working to compile all of the documents needed for our Dossier. I’m hoping it won’t take us as long as they suggest, but so much of the timeline is us waiting for others to do their part. Based on the image above, we are working towards #3 & #4.
Our social worker (conducting our home study) is a rock star! Seriously, he is the best! If you live in Indiana and are needing to find someone to complete your home study – contact me! We already completed our first and second interview and our home tour (4 hours total). He’s working hard to write up our home study report based on all of the documents that he collected from us and notes from our time together.
In the meantime, Andrew and I are working to get our passports renewed! Mine expires in February and someone *ahem* already let theirs expire. We are also required to complete 12 hours of parent preparation and training. The following topics are addressed during the online training: 1) Overview of China Adoption, 2) Grief & Loss in Adoption, 3) Talking to Your Child about Adoption, 4) Attachment, 5) Assisting in your Child’s Development, 6) Being a Multicultural Family, and 7) Chinese Culture. So we are getting ready to train, train, and train some more!
Stay tuned, more updates to come…