The Home Stretch

We are entering the home stretch of our adoption journey and although we still have some waiting to do, most of our paperwork is done (halleluiah) and we are getting so close!

After receiving our LOA and sending in our I800 we then had to wait for our I800 provisional approval which we received on 11/6. After granting us provisional approval USCIS sent our paperwork to the NVC (National Visa Center). The NVC replaced our original SIM number with a GUZ number and assigned our case to the appropriate US embassy (China). The NVC then cabled (electronically sent) our case and paperwork to the embassy (yesterday) and issued a letter (PDF) stating that they did so. NVC sent a copy of the PDF to us (today) and that was our cue to proceed with the next step which was forwarding the PDF to our agency and filling out the DS260 online (application for Justin's visa). Once they have the PDF our agency initiates our Article 5 drop off (this is when our agency's courier in China drops off our final paperwork at the embassy in China) which is scheduled for Monday.

Whew! So what could possibly be left you ask?! Well, we still have a few more steps :/  Our part of the paperwork is now mostly done except for applying for our visas which we will do in the next week or two. The remaining steps (which we have exactly zero control over) go like this:

1. Courier in China drops our Article 5 paperwork off at the embassy (and they give him a date to return to pick it up) - drop off scheduled for Monday 11/18

2. Courier picks Article 5 paperwork up at embassy and sends it to the CCCWA - approx. 12/3 or 12/4

3. The CCCWA processes the Article 5 and issues our TA (travel approval) - this step can take any where from 1 to 4 weeks with the average being about two weeks (please pray with us that ours will be in the 1-2 week range)

4. Once travel approval is received, our agency makes our consulate appointment, we make our travel arrangements, and then we go get our son!!!! (Our other prayer is that we will be able to travel before January 10 in order to miss Chinese New Year which would likely delay our travel until February.)

And there you have it in a nutshell!

So for now a little piece of my heart will be in China, but we are a little closer every day and for that we are thankful!

Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.  ~Psalm 106:1