NVC, Article 5, TA, Cables, and Visas - Oh My

Now that I've managed to confuse you with the blog post title... here's alittle taste of all the different acronyms and approval forms we've had to file over the last few months...

• USCIS - United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
• CCCWA - China Centre for Children's Welfare and Adoption
• Hague Convention - an international agreement to establish safeguards to ensure that intercountry adoptions take place in the best interests of the child
• NVC - National Visa Center
• TA - Travel Approval - the official invitation from the Chinese government to come to China for the purpose of adopting your child

The process for obtaining approvals from China and the US is actually fairly well laid out - even if the process is arduous at best. At this point, we are expecting the notice from the National Visa Center (NVC) that our visa application for Mia has been cabled to them (the point in the center of the arrow below). Once the letter arrives, we should expect our Article 5 letter within 2 weeks after that.

Here's how the US State Department describes the Article 5 process and our remaining steps:

1. After review of the visa application, the consular officer will send the convention country's Central Authority notification or Article 5 letter that states you are suitable adoptive parents and the child is able to enter and live in the United States.
2. Once you have the Article 5 letter you may complete the international adoption of the child.
3. The Convention country will issue an Article 23 Certificate. It may be an adoption or custody decree and may be sent directly to the consular officer at the Embassy or Consulate.
4. The Embassy or Consulate will schedule the final visa interview. The child must appear before the officer if the child did not do so at the initial visa application review. Be prepared to present the valid adoption or custody decree.
5. At this final interview the consular officer issues you a Hague Certificate to certify that the international adoption meets the Convention requirements, as well as final approval of the I-800 petition and will issue your new child a IH-3 or an IH-4 visa.

So basically, once we have the Article 5 letter, that will then trigger China's official invitation to us to come over and get custody of our daughter. That invitation, called the travel approval (TA), comes about 10 days to 2 weeks after the Article 5 letter is issued.


Projected Approval and Important Dates

Another thing that I have been doing lately has been date modeling using other families timelines and their approval dates (go ahead... I enjoy the geek and nerd labels).

I think one thing that stood out to us initially when we saw the dates was just how soon they appeared, because we were thinking that travel would be later in the year. So, with that said, I took 4 families that recently adopted from China and applied their timeline to ours. If this holds (which it should be pretty close), it says we should expect our Travel Approval in early-mid October, with travel to China happening at the end of October / early November. So, this says we are 58 days away from meeting our daughter for the first time!!! Woohoo!!! We absolutely can't wait!!!