Day 49 of a 49 day wait!

Just coincidence that our "official referral" for Darcy arrived at our agency without warning today ~ on day 49 ~ just two days after our "referral-a-versary" for Kylie? I think not...

Short version of the story:

Our LOA arrived today at day 49! So now this stage of waiting is over and we wait for our TA so that travel can be planned. We're boldly praying to be able to travel before Chinese New Year, so things have to move at record speed.

Long version of the story:

Last night I had this overwhelming urge (almost burden) to finish up the ten page I-800 (Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative), the four page DS-230 (Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration), and the one page I-864W (Intending Immigrant's Affidavit of Support Exemption). Sometime after midnight when I was finished I emailed Karla to ask if we could set up a phone conference to review the forms as I still had a few questions. The OCD part of me made a list of the six questions I had to be prepared for our talk and then I finally felt like I could go to bed. I heard back from her first thing this morning and over the course of several emails we set up a time to talk next Thursday.

I did however end the last email with the following, "Just to be sure, 9 central is 10 eastern, right? And man would I be excited if we had to do an "emergency phone session" because the LOA came early. A girl can dream..."

Little did I know that a DHL package was on its way to her at that time!

So our LOA arrived at Lifeline (our agency) without warning today. Karla (our social worker there) called this afternoon to tell me the news. She started out with, "So I just wanted to know how you knew..." I think she was just as surprised as I was. Today was day 49 of the count and one that quickly is almost unheard of. The very fastest I've heard in recent news was 43 days, but frequently folks have to wait past day 100. Ours for Caleb arrived on day 87 last year.

In case you are excited because I am obviously excited, yet asking yourself, "what does that mean?," basically the LOA is THE referral notice from the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs. That means that they have officially said that Sun Qing You can be adopted by us. Now we wait for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve our form I-800 (a petition to classify a Convention country adoptee as an immediate relative). Once they do that, then they send our information to the National Benefits Center who will give preliminary approval for Darcy's Visa to enter the US. Then that approval gets sent to the US Consulate in Guangzhou where they combine that approval with a copy of our LOA to "magically create" the Article 5. At that point the Article 5 gets couriered to Beijing to the CCAA who will then grant our travel approval. Once our TA arrives at Lifeline, they try to have us in the air within seven days (much quicker than our last agency's standard 14 to 21 day notice. Right now I'm thrilled about the thought of flying within seven days of our TA, but when we're trying to book airfare I may be singing a different story...).

Sound about as clear as mud? Yeah, me too. I don't fully understand what happens at all the steps, or why they are now separate steps opposed to the much faster process getting a TA used to be, but that is the outline of the process. We're looking at somewhere between 40 to 60 days, yet another wait with an unknown end. Ugh.

The exciting thing though is that if it moves at the faster end of how quickly that has been happening lately, we possibly could travel BEFORE Chinese New Year. In order to do that, we need to leave at the latest by January 29, so please pray with us that everything comes through in time. If we have to wait until after CNY, we would be cutting it REALLY close to be with Darcy by her birthday. And while it is somewhat of a stretch, our LOA came much, much faster than anticipated ~ and I know that folks were praying!

And while we're at it, let's be praying that Traci and Adam move through the rest of the Taiwanese court process to get to Pierson and Maylin as quickly as possible too!

Darcy has no clue what she's in for (another post for another time ~ tonight there is immigration paperwork to finish) but we're over the moon excited to have ended that stage of the wait!