Team Twenty One is DTC!
Nope, not Darn Tootin’ Crazy (although that seems fitting, too). We are now FINALLY Dossier to China! Insert big, breathy sigggghhh of relief, with quite a few happy tears! There is now a small reprieve from all the paper-pushing. Our dossier was sent to Beijing yesterday, May 8th and will soon be picked up from the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA). Once there, it will be reviewed and we will receive our Log In Date (LID), which can take up to a month.
So now what?
We wait. Yup, you read that right. But no sweat, because God has given us allllll the grace we need to continue doing this waiting thing well and with great joy in our hearts.
What are we waiting for now?
First, the LID. This is basically like getting our number in line and means we are officially in the system to adopt. There a China will match us according to our LID.
Up next is the referral! The precious phone call and email that will likely forever change our lives. Our agency will work to match our profile with the CCCWA’s Shared List. The Shared List is a secure list of all adoptable children with just enough details about each child to match a child to our profile. There are identified team members at our agency who will be reviewing this list and looking to match it to our profile. When they find a file that they’d like to show us, they “lock” the file for our review. Once the file is “locked”, no other agency or family can review the file at the same time. There is only a 72-hour time frame in which we need to review the file with an International Adoption Pediatric doctor, make a prayerful decision, and then submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) for our son/daughter.
Our profile indicates that we are open to either gender (yaay, we still get to do a gender reveal celebration!), age 0-2 years old (although it’s incredibly rare to receive a referral for an infant), and the medical conditions we are open to. Yes, China’s adoption program is what they call a Special Needs program, and I can tell you when we share this bit of info with others it’s almost always met with eyes of concern. So I would love to expound on this and uncover some of the myths about what this does and does not mean in a future post. Stay tuned…
So how long do we wait?
Not a clue! The call could come any day or it could be several months. I even changed my ring tone on my phone so that when my friend from the agency calls I can know right away and make sure not to miss the call! Then, keep in mind, there are still a few more time-consuming steps in the process before we could even be ready to prepare for travel (think at least a year out, at least). We trust that if God wants it to be a quicker time-frame then He will make a way.
Our Current Prayer Requests. Please be praying alongside us for…
The safe arrival of our dossier (all of our prayers, sweat and tears on paper) to China.
That we would receive a timely log-in date (LID).
For God to be preparing our hearts while in the wait for our son/daughter’s file and that He’d work all the details together for a smooth referral process.
With most thankful hearts we hug your necks for joining us in grateful celebration.
Joyfully in Christ,
