She's Super Kalifragilistic!

She won't show up here until we meet her on July 22.
She has a cleft lip and palate and lives in Dianbai, China.

Here is a not-so-brief account of what has happened so far:

Homestudy —  09/27/2012

Addendum done 10/09/2012

I-800A —Our approval arrived  12/05/2012

Dossier —This is a BIG stack of papers that we compile for China.   So once that last piece of paper is notarized, certified and authenticated, we will send our dossier to our agency, who will then send it off to Beijing.  01/18/2013 was our dossier to China (DTC) date.

Log in (LID) — Within a week or two of our dossier’s arrival in China, it will be “logged in.”   Our LID is 01/22/2013-we found out about this date on 02/06/2013.

Referral — Once our paperwork is logged in, we wait for a call from our agency saying that they have matched us with a child.  We received our referral on 02/26/2013.

Letter of intent (LOI) — After reviewing whatever medical information is available, we sent a letter requesting to adopt that particular child and outlining how we plan to take care of her that same night, 02/26/2013.  And now the hard part of the wait begins.  She has a face.   She needs a family, a full belly and a warm bed.  All we can do is hope things move quickly so we can bring her home.

Letter of approval (LOA) — This is the biggest deal of all the paperwork steps.  This is China’s ok to adopt our child.  It usually takes anywhere from 1-3 months after PA for this letter to arrive and for me to breathe a little easier. LOA on 04/11/2013.

I-800 was received in Texas on 04/15/2013. Forwarded to Mo 04/17/2013

I-800 — More American side paperwork.  This is our application to adopt a specific child.  We need our LOA to file this application.  Our approval arrived 04/29/2013.

NVC letter — Once our I-800 is approved, our information has to be sent to the American consulate in Guangzhou, China.  We received our letter on 05/06/2013.  This allowed us to submit our article 5 paperwork.

Article 5  – It usually takes 2 weeks once our agency sends the necessary paperwork to Guangzhou for the consulate to issue our Article 5.  Our Article 5 was picked up 05/22/2013 .
Travel approval (TA) — Once our agency delivers our Article 5 to Beijing, the good folks there can issue our travel approval.  This usually take 2-3 weeks.  Ours arrived 06/17/2013. This could have been faster too, but they were upgrading their computer systems, and then we hit Dragon Boat Festival holiday.  Wouldn't have been bad if the next step hadn't had a snag too...

Consulate appointment — When our agency receives travel approval, they request an appointment at the US consulate in Guangzhou.  This date, towards the end of our stay in China, determines the rest of our travel dates.  Our CA will be on 07/30/2013.  This could have been much sooner, but the entire Embassy is moving.  Really???  REALLY??

GOTCHA DAY — After reading all that mess above, it’s hard to believe anyone ever gets to this point.  Adoption really is a miracle.  We will meet Kali on 07/22/2013.