Finally! Some good news!

After a couple months of waiting and many emails back and forth, I have a self-employment letter. It's even notarized! Some of the wording wasn't exactly what our agency had asked for, so I was concerned it would be a problem, but when I called this morning they said it all sounded good and to go ahead and get it certified. They also said we could send in all our paperwork we had finished and they could begin the critical review process.

So what does this all mean? Well, we have a very good chance of getting our dossier sent to China in June! Finally, after all these months we may be at the end of the paperchase! So many check boxes filled out on my dossier reference page.

The only things we have left to do are to gather some photos (we need pictures that are within the last 2 years, have both of us in them, and other family/friends. If you have any, send them our way! We need 8 total and only have about 3 so far), send our papers to a courier in D.C. so they can finish the authentication process, make a copy of the whole thing, and mail it off to our agency. If they can get it sent off to China in time, we may get a LID around the time of the June shared list.

Speaking of shared lists, May's list is being released tonight. Is this the last list we won't qualify for? Maybe. Allow me to explain a bit how the shared list works. About the 3rd Tuesday of the month, China releases a list of adoptable children to all the international agencies they work with. In addition to a shared list, they will send specific files to certain agencies to give them a chance to match the children with their clients. If no family is found within 3 months, that file goes onto the shared list. Because of the time-zone factor, that means that agencies in the US get access to the shared list on Monday evening. Here's how it will go down. Tonight, in a frenzy of epic proportions, agencies will scan the list for children that match the requests of the adoptive parents and "lock" the files that look like a good fit. Once a file is locked, it cannot be accessed by anyone else for 72 hours. The agency then calls the adoptive parents to inform them they have a potential match, and will email the child's information and pictures to the family. The 72 hours allows they to contact doctors, etc. to review the information and make a somewhat informed decision. If the parents wish to adopt that child, they send a Letter of Intent (LOI) to China. They will not be allowed to share the picture until a few days later when China issues pre-approval (PA) to adopt that child. They then spend the next several months going through more red tape to get visas and travel approval to go pick up their child and complete the adoption.

Many families will not receive phone calls tonight, and some families will determine that a locked file is not a good fit. If no LOI is sent, the child's file is released back to the shared list and another agency can lock it. Because of that, some people will receive the infamous call Thursday or Friday. Usually, most matches are settled by the end of the week.

In the case of families who have the same/similar requirements, priority is given to the family who has the earlier LID, at least that's how it is with our agency. They typically match about 30 kids each month. I plan on asking about the number of waiting couples in front of us once we have sent our dossier. We've been informed that it will probably be about 4-6 months before we are matched, but it could be longer or (fingers crossed) shorter.

As you can imagine, this is an exciting week in the Chinese adoption community. Kevin and I have talked a bit about the possibility that we could get a match sooner than expected and what that would mean for things like work, vacations, living arrangements, etc. We're supposed to be traveling with family in December, but what if we have a much bigger trip that month? What if we travel before then and have to scramble to get an extra ticket (or two...twins are rare, but they do happen)? Things are getting very real, very fast.