LOA Process

As most of you know we are just sitting around waiting waiting and waiting for the official LOA to finally arrive. Now the deal is that you really have no control over when it arrives. The average wait time recently has been around 90 days. Our 90 day mark will be Tuesday, Shelby's birthday! So as you can tell I am desperately hoping for this big birthday present. All I currently know about my LOA progress it that I was told about 3 weeks ago that my dossier was in the first room (Stage One). I haven't heard anything else about how far down the track it has gone since then. Yesterday a few people posted on Rumor Queen that they had received their LOAs and they all had dates right in my date range of LID 6/13/07. So everyone keep their fingers and toes crossed that we receive our LOA in time for Shelby's birthday celebration!

I've done a bit of research (actually I just stole it from this blog), and this is how the process to LOA works:

Stage One: Translation
The CCAA needs to make sure that all documents in a dossier sent are translated into Mandarin. The workers in the Translation Room make sure that all the parts of the parental dossier are translated in Mandarin. Our dossier (from America) was written in English and so all the paperwork needed to be re-written in Mandarin so that the CCAA workers could read it. Dossiers from other countries are sent in other languages - Dutch, Swedish, Spanish...they all need to be re-worded into Mandarin so that all the CCAA workers can read them. Parental dossiers have a lot of pieces to them and translating them can take a long time.

Stage Two: Review
After a dossier is translated, it goes to the Review Room. The CCAA has a set of rules that adoptive parents must follow to be able to adopt a child from China. These rules are there to protect China's children and try to make sure that only the most qualified parents are allowed to adopt. In the Review Room, CCAA workers read through the documents in hopeful parent dossiers and check to make sure that all the paperwork is in order. If there is a problem with a dossier - this is where it would be found. The CCAA would then ask for more information regarding that set of parents and sometimes decides that some prospective parents will not be allowed to adopt from China. Most parental dossiers that are sent follow all the rules and regulations of the CCAA and are approved.

Stage Three: Matching
In this final stage - families who have passed review are sent to the Matching Room. In this room are all the dossiers of children whose information has been sent by their SWIs to find them a family. The workers in this room have the very important task of matching the right family to each child. In the case of a special needs child, the match has already been made, so the matching room process is very fast. It is here they send the final LOA!!
Here is a blog with some pictures of the various rooms at the CCAA.