D is for Dossier

This week we received "official" notification from USCIS that our I800A application and supporting documentation was received and sent off for further processing.  We now await notification of our biometric appointments where we will have super duper fancy fingerprinting done in Cincinnati, OH (the closest processing place for us).  Our social worker indicated the I800A approvals are ranging in the 60-90 day time frame right now.

While we wait on all of that, we are gathering all the documents we will need for our dossier.  Last weekend I started gathering each item we would need and discovered we lacked very few!  What is a dossier?  According to the dictionary, it is a complete file containing detailed information about a person or topic.  The dossier contains "official" documentation about our family that we will send to China so they can get a good understanding of who we are.  Here is a glimpse of what we will send:

1. Certified copies of birth certificates of each adoptive parent
2. Certified copy of marriage license
3. Original signed/dated medical exam and letter of approval for each adoptive parent
4.  Signed/dated original statements from law enforcement of criminal background clearance for each parent
5. Financial statement-signed/dated in original form
6. Employment verification-signed/dated in original form for each applicant
7. Our home study
8. USCIS Immigration approval

The list also includes "other" supporting documents:

1. 7-10 photos of family, home, and lifestyle--mounted and with captions on all
2. Photo copies of passports
3. 4 passport photos of each applicant
4. Signed/dated reference letters in original form

I am pretty sure I missed a few things on the list, but this is just to give you an idea of what sorts of documents we are chasing.  I am happy to report that as of this moment, we lack only the mounted family photos and the 4 passport photos of each of us!  We hope to knock it out this weekend!

You will notice this list includes lots and lots of things in "original" form or "certified" form.  This is where I will be on pins and needles the day I drop the envelope full of all this hard work in the mail to our social worker! It cannot get lost in the mail!  This represents weeks and months of time and effort and a good bit of financial investment as well.  Once it arrives to our social worker, she will check all of it to ensure it meets the requirements for China.  She will hold it until our immigration approval arrives and once we receive that, she will begin the authentication process for us (we are so blessed our agency authenticates our dossier for us--saves us lots of work and running to Frankfort--and ensures it is done correctly!!).  Once authenticated, they upload it to China's system and mail it.  Once the upload is complete, we are considered D-T-C (Dossier to China).  We are eager for that to happen, because then we can be LID (logged in date) and start waiting for that referral!!

So....timeline?  All rough estimates:

• USCIS approval-Our application was received on May 30th, so about 60-90 days from then....August would be the latest.  Our social worker will have our dossier in hand prior to receiving our approval.
• Dossier authenication-It takes about 2-4 weeks the way our agency handles it....so about September at the latest.
• Upload to China and DTC- late September at the latest.
• Logged in Date-about 3-4 weeks after DTC, so October at the latest.
• Referral wait......it ranges and depends largely on our requirements and whether or not we accept our first referral.  A very rough estimate is 6-9 months after LID.  April at the earliest is my guess.
• TA-I have no idea once we get our referral how long we'll wait for travel authorization.  Trying hard not to let myself look too far ahead or put too much weight in a timeline.  All indications are a finalized adoption in late 2015 or early 2016 at this point, but we all know nothing ever goes according to plan.  God may shock us in this department!

Pray with us now that we can quickly assemble the few remaining documents we need and pray that our documents will arrive without issue along the way.....no lost or missing documents!  Pray our immigration approval comes sooner than 90 days!

I get excited just thinking about it!