My fellow adoptive mom friend asked me to share what all the steps in the China process means. I forget that not everyone knows the lingo for adoptions, and all country lingo varies.
For China: China now does Hague adoptions which means that a Hague treaty was signed between the US and China making for more steps which are suppose to ultimately protect the child being adopted by adding more screening and immigrations checks.
So far we have gone through the following steps to adopt our son from China (depending on whether you adopt a healthy young child or a special needs or older child the steps may vary:
1. We found our son online and applied to
CCAI via application. Once we were approved we submitted an
LOI (Letter of Intent) which was sent to China telling them we want to adopt our son.
2. China reviewed our papers to make sure we met all the requirements and sent us back a PA (
Pre approval) which allowed us to lock in his file so no one else could adopt him and we began our paperwork process.
3. New steps for the dossier require a background check from every place you lived since you were 18. For us this was a pain because as retired military folks we lived a lot of places. One state - MD - took us two months just to get a response. These documents along with many more (Birth certificates, marriage certificate, financial statements etc) have to go through a three step process. Notary, state certification and Chinese consulate authentication - all which takes some time.
4. Once the dossier is complete and to our agency they send it to China called
DTC (Dossier to China)
5. Once the dossier is
received in China it gets an LID (Log in Date). Then China reviews it, translates it and then sends you a
LOA (Letter of Acceptance) which you signed and return.
6. Then all the immigrations part take place...I800, another PA, Article 5 and TA (travel approval)...these are new steps to me and will take 3-6 months to complete.
So
that's it for now...hope that helps:)
4. Once our dossier was complete
