The final steps

August 19, 2010

When we adopted Leah, adoption regulations were such that once you received LOA, you signed it, returned it, and then waited for TA (Travel Approval). TA is the official invitation to come to China to complete the adoption. Typically, the wait between LOA and TA was 3-5 weeks.

Since that time, the US has signed onto an international treaty which defines how international adoptions should be processed. The treaty defines several steps, all of which are designed to help reduce the chance for corruption and child-trafficking.

The unfortunate thing for us at this point, is that the changes have impacted the process between LOA and TA. There now is an average of 2 - 3 months between LOA and TA... a big change from last time. The following are the steps we need to walk through before we can be issued TA and finally get to our little boy:

- Receive I800 approval. With our dossier, we submitted our I800A, which was a pre-approval to immigrate a child into the US. Now that we've been matched officially with this specific child, we submit more paperwork, along with all of Jack's referral paperwork and other items from our agency, in order to get I800 approval which is specific approval to immigrate this particular child into the US. The snafu in this step is that our LOA arrived and had a typo with our son's birthdate. Its highly likely that USCIS will be unable to issue our I800 approval until we receive an updated LOA with no errors. Hopefully, this arrives sooner rather than later. I800 approval has been taking about 2-3 weeks lately.

- Have Information Cabled to Guangzhou. Once the I800 is approved, our information is forwarded to another division of immigration which will handle forwarding our information onto the Consulate in Guangzhou (which handles the final issuing of Jack's visa to come into the US). This has been taking 7-10 days lately.

- Get Letter Confirming Cable. Once the information has been cabled, a letter is issued to document this. This letter needs to be included in some paperwork needed for the next step. Folks have been waiting anywhere from 0-9 days to get this letter (some folks have had luck getting it emailed to them... others have to wait for 'snail mail')

- Article 5. Once all the previous paperwork is gathered, it will be hand delivered to the US consulate in Guangzhou to get what is called the "Article 5". This is the US government approval of the adoption and confirmation that the child will be able to enter and stay in the US. This paperwork can apparently only be dropped off on a Monday or a Thursday, and is ready for pickup exactly two weeks later.

- TA (Travel Approval) Once the Article 5 is picked up, it is delivered to the Chinese Adoption Officials who can now finally issue our Travel Approval. This step has been taking 1-4 weeks lately.

- CA (Consulate Appointment) Once our agency receives notice that we have TA, they will contact the US Consulate in Guangzhou in order to schedule our Consulate appointment. This is the appointment at which Jack's visa paperwork will be reviewed and approved. The CA date drives the entire timing of the adoption trip, so until this is scheduled we won't know when we need to be in China.


So, there are a lot of changes that we need to get familiar with... and a lot of steps we need to pass through before we can go get Jack. Hopefully we can work through those quickly... We want our little boy home for Christmas!