Adoption Timeline

If you're adopting and you're like me, you're totally obsessed with timelines.  You spend your free time calculating the average number of days it has taken your 192 Facebook adoption friends to complete their dossiers all the while scouring the internet for LOA wait trends and wondering how many hours it took so-and-so's USCIS Officer to approve them and whether or not you'll get an officer who works faster.  (Yup, my life is pretty much non-stop excitement.)

So...since I love. love. love. adoption blogs with timelines, I figured it was about time I shared ours.  I've been meaning to do this for a while, but a timeline didn't sound like much fun when I only had two things to put on it.  Now that we've passed a few of the big milestones, I'm feeling a lot more motivated.  The items in bold are things that might be semi-interesting to everyone.  The lines in italics are for completely OCD mildly obsessive adoptive parents like me.

October 5, 2009 - Apply to adopt two children from Ghana
November 15, 2011 - Officially switch to our agency's China Waiting Child Program
November 28, 2011 - "Meet" our older son when our agency locks his file from the shared list
December 1, 2011 - Submit LOI (Letter of Intent) for our older son
December 6, 2011 - PA (Pre-Approval) received for our older son
January 12, 2012 - 1st home study visit
January 21, 2012 - 2nd home study visit
January 28, 2012 - 3rd home study visit
February 1, 2012 - 4th (and last!) home study visit
February 27, 2012 - "Meet" our younger son when his file is locked from the shared list
March 1, 2012 - Submit LOI for our yonnger son
March 1, 2012 - PA for our younger son (Yes, you read that right, we got PA the same day as LOI!)
March 23, 2012 - Receive final home study/Overnight I-800A to USCIS
March 26, 2012 - I-800A Receipt Date
April 10, 2012 - I-800A Approval Date
April 13, 2012 - USCIS Form I-797 arrives via snail mail
April 16, 2012 - Dossier certified and overnighted to Washington, D.C. for authentication
April 25, 2012 - Authenticated dossier arrives at our agency
April 25 - May 2, 2012 - I wait impatiently for something to happen
May 2 or 3, 2012 (I've heard both dates) - DTC (Dossier To China)
May 17, 2012 - LID (Log-In Date)
May 18, 2012 - Day #1 of our LOA wait
July 30, 2012 - On Day #74 our agency calls to say our LOA (dated 7/27) has arrived! 
July 31, 2012 - Receive LOA from agency
August 1, 2012 - I-800's overnighted to USCIS
August 16, 2012 - I-800's approved
September 24, 2012 - TA (Travel Approval)!!! 
October 10, 2012 - Consulate Appointment date confirmed (A week-long holiday and a fingerprint snafu caused this to take much longer than usual for us.  Most families receive their CA date within 2-3 days of TA.)
November 6, 2012 - Leave to China
November 7-10 - Fly By Knight Courtyard/Beijing (Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace)
November 10-17 - New Harbour Service Apartments/Shanghai
November 12 - Li'l Man's Gotcha Day
November 13 - Li'l Man's Adoption Day
November 16 - Li'l Man's passport ready
November 17-28 - The Victory Hotel/Guangzhou
November 19 - Li'l Man's Medical
November 19 - Li'l Dude's Gotcha' Day
November 20 - Li'l Dude's Adoption Day
November 21 - Li'l Man's TB test read
November 22 - Li'l Dude's Medical
November 23 - Li'l Man's passport ready
November 27 (8:30am) - U.S. Consulate Appointment
November 28 - Train to Hong Kong
November 28 - Novotel City Gate Hotel/ Hong Kong
November 29 - HOME!!! :)

??? December 30, 2014 - Start this crazy journey again :)

You can check out the rest of the timeline for our second China adoption by clicking the tab labeled "Adoption Timeline #2".  (Try not to be jealous of my creative page-naming skills.)