Info about waiting child adoptions

Before I start throwing around terms and acronyms that most people will not know, I'll give a brief overview about adopting a waiting child.

A child could be classified as a waiting child because they are over 6, or have some kind of physical condition or ailment, many people also would call a waiting child a special needs child.

The process for adopting a waiting child is a little different than with many other adoptions. You can either pick an agency, sign up with them and keep looking at the waiting children that they are given to place until you find the child that you want to be part of your family, or you can look through the photo listings of many different agency's and pick the child, then sign up with that agency. That is what we did, we saw Lei in the photo listing and chose him from a picture with a description and medical report. When you decide that you want to adopt a WC (waiting child) you will fill out an LOI (letter of intent) This is pretty much what it sounds like. A letter asking China for permission to adopt a certain child, this will also include a rehabilitation and nurture plan for the child. The LOI will be sent to CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) which is the governing agency of adoptions in China. Once the CCAA processes your LOI, in approximately one month you will receive your PA (pre-approval) which is pretty much their way of saying that yes we will allow you to adopt this child. Once you have PA, as soon as you have your dossier ready then it can be authenticated and sent to China. At this stage you are DTC (dossier to China) A more important date is when you are LID (log in date) The LID is important because this is the date that they have your dossier logged into their system and that is when you start counting the days until you receive your TA (travel approval) The TA is when they say yes, you can come and adopt your child and usually you will travel in just a couple weeks to get your child and complete the adoption. Currently the trip is taking about 2 weeks in China.

For us, we are LOI 5-22 and PA 6-15. We turned in our I600A on 6-28, which is the form for USCIS(United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval to adopt and bring a child into the US. This takes approximately 2 months to receive.

Hopefully that is a good enough background to the process.