Day 37

Lately, I've had a few people ask me about where we are at in the wait for Ellie and when we think we will travel. Well, the answer is this:

"We are on day 37 of our wait for LOA, then when we get that, we'll file the I-800, then we wait for TA, then we can go."

But, because that sounds like a certain amount of jibberish to many people, I instead usually just say something like this:

"We're hoping to go in January."

So, that's where we are. The adoption process hasn't changed a ton since we started with Caleb's, although there are added requirements that do seem to make the whole thing go longer. We tend to wait at least a little while before announcing our new child to the world because the wait does seem long after that point. With the boys, we waited 8 and 9 months between the time we found out they existed until we actually met them in person. It's long, yes, and pregnancy is a similar timeline, but at least with pregnancy, the baby is already housed with Mom, not learning to walk in an orphanage on the other side of the world. That might sound harsh, but really, I don't have bitterness about it at all. I've come to accept that it does take quite a while for administrative purposes and communication. That's just how it is.

We're waiting for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA), which is a piece of paper saying that we are approved to adopt Ellie. We get this, even though it's already been pre-approved. Writing that down makes it sound like we really are on some type of paperwork runaround, but that's the system. The LOA usually arrives between about 50 and 100 days after our stuff is logged into China. We sign it and then send it back and then file the I-800, a form for U.S. immigration purposes. It didn't use to be this way. With Caleb's we got our LOA and then waited to find out when we could go. But, things have changed and it is for the better since the U.S. became party to the Hague Convention--a step that works to protect children from trafficking and such. So, the I-800 gets filed, which takes a few weeks, and then we wait for our Travel Approval (TA), the point at which they tell us we can go. Most people travel within 2 to 4 weeks after getting the TA.

So, for anyone still reading through that jargon, that is our timeline to Ellie. It might also be easier to say that we are expecting January because her timeline is following Asher's very closely, but we are also being optimistic. We received Asher's referral in 2009 on the same day that we received Ellie's in 2011 (June 3). We also were logged in to China at roughly the same time, 2 years apart in mid-August. And since we left for China in late February of 2010 for Asher, we are being optimistic that perhaps we will leave just a bit sooner this time around? I can always hope.

It's funny how things change. When we were waiting for Caleb, we didn't have children and the wait seemed impossibly long. We were members of a Yahoo! group with other waiting families from our agency, and I followed how everyone else was faring with the timeline. But now, 4 years later, sometimes I barely have time to check on things. I had to calculate that we were 37 days into the wait before I wrote this post, which used to be something I knew every day until we got our LOA. That's how it goes, I guess, so maybe if we don't actually go in January and it ends up being March again, that will be OK. It will work out, I know it.