AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE

Yeah – one more step closer to bringing home our children. Our dossier arrived at our agency’s office on Friday and they are mailing the documents to China today. For those of you new to the international adoption process, all countries require a dossier, which is a collection of papers giving detailed information about ourselves. The country examines the dossier and can deny or approve your adoption based on the information from the dossier. However, denial by the country is rare since most of the qualifying process is done by your adoption agency even before you start putting together a dossier. Every piece of paper in your dossier has to be notarized. China requires all dossiers be authenticated, which means the dossier is sent to the Secretary of State where they make sure all notary seals are authentic. Once authentication is complete, it now can be mailed to China.

Our hope is that by tomorrow, Mr. Li, AAI’s employee in China, will receive our dossier. He will then translate the entire file and hopefully get it to the CCCWA by end of the week. Once the CCCWA receives our dossier, we wait for a log-in date (LID), which usually takes about two weeks. A LID indicates that China has our dossier, it is logged in to their system and they are now working on getting our Letter of Approval (LOA). Receiving an LOA has been averaging two months right now for China’s waiting child program. Waiting for the LOA is where we pray China will expedite our file so we can receive our LOA in only one month or sooner. Once we have the LOA, we then submit it to U.S. immigration (USCIS) to get visa approvals for Joshua and Maelynn. Most likely the USCIS will expedite due to Joshua’s severe medical condition. Most couples that have a severe medical issue request assistance from their Senator or Congressmen to help expedite. This step usually takes three weeks, but with state politicians involved, it is usually shortened to only a few days.

The USCIS will submit an Article 5 letter, which states that the U.S. has approved the immigration of these two children. Once we have the Article 5 letter, we are able to start making travel plans. As you can see, we still have a way to go before we travel but having dossier authenticated and off to China is  quite a colossal step. We are still on track for travel by year's end, so please keep us in your prayers that China will expedite our file so we can get Joshua the medical help he so desperately needs.