Acronymical

Just a quick note to update anyone out there in the world of the interwebs who might be interested... 

We received out I-797 approval on Monday. Technically it was approved last Thursday, but it was in my hands on Monday, and that's what actually gets us somewhere. Now, I was informed by a friend at church that every update I post (on FB) is full of acronyms, and he doesn't know what any of them mean. This is so true! So, here's what's what:

I-797 (or I-800A Provisional Approval... just to be even more confusing) is simply the US government giving us permission to bring an immigrant child into the country. This is important because it's the final document we need for our Dossier (that big packet of info about us that goes to China... all the paperwork we've been chasing since we started this process in March). 

So, right now, the I-797 is sitting on someone's desk at the Secretary of State's office, waiting on certification from them, and then it will travel to the Chinese Consulate for authentication from them, and THEN, we will be excitedly celebrating as we send it to our adoption agency, along with all our other Dossier docs. They will make sure it's all good, then translate parts of it, then bind it up all pretty-like, and then we will officially be DTC (Dossier to China... memorize that acronym... it's a biggie!). Once we're DTC, then we wait a handful or days... or weeks... to get logged-in to the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption... not the Central Citrus Council of Western Australia, thank you , Google), at which point we will be given an LID (Log-In Date). Once we have an LID, we will be eligible to receive a match file. That could take a while, but because of the medical conditions on out checklist (MCC... now I'm just having fun throwing letters at you... but MCC does really stand for Medical Conditions Checklist), i.e. we will take a boy, we could potentially be matched very quickly. 

After that, well, it's a whole new round of paperwork to approve the match and make that official, and then back to US Citizenship and Immigration to get that child approved to enter the country... then all the travel-related visas and docs... and another bunch of letters and numbers and acronyms (I-800, LOA, A5, etc). The time to explain all that part is not now, however, as you may already want to huddle in a corner and cry from confusion and acronymical overload. I made up a word again. Acronymical. I like it. 

So, all that to say, things are moving. And for anyone considering adopting from China, if I just scared the wontons out of you by trying to explain all that, please rest assured that although it is overwhelming to look at all at once for the first time, after a while it starts to make sense, and the fact that it's a fairly predictable chain of events makes the progress easy to track. This being the second time around for me makes all the difference in my head! 

In other news, we are signed up to host another EF Course Leader this summer. We did it two summers ago. There's a group of students from China who come here for language school for several weeks. We get to have their teacher stay with us. Last time the teacher's name was Liz. This time? Lizzie! Makes it easy to remember! We're excited to have this chance to learn more about Chinese life and culture, and to make a new friend!