Timeline

• Late March 2006 - Application mailed to our agency
• April 2006 - I am at a McDonald's drive thru at the beach with the boys and my two cousins. Ryan calls to say our application to adopt has been approved.
• May 2006 - Ryan attends an adoption seminar held by our agency in Atlanta by himself. It was kind of expensive for both of us to go. I had always wanted to adopt and had very few questions about adoption in general. Ryan wanted more info so he spent the day learning about adoption. He came home late that night and talked and talked and TALKED to me about all of the exciting things he had learned. I remember him specifically stating how much he enjoyed meeting the families that had already adopted from China. It was on that day that Ryan decided adoption was for our family, not for me, but for all of us.
• May 2006-October 2006 - PAPERCHASE.....with any adoption comes paperwork, multiple social worker visits, multiple fingerprinting excursions, notaries, an ongoing relationship with the local FedEx facility workers, letters of recommendation, tax return info, medical exams, background checks, passport requests and pix, etc....it is BUSY work, it was not hard for us, just a lot of documentation, a lot of organization. I liked this phase.
• October 2006 - Our dossier (compilation of necessary paperwork) was mailed to China for recognition.
• November 13, 2006 - Log In Date (LID) China recognized us a family from the US who would like to adopt a non special needs child from China. The wait, we were told, was averaging 14-16 months.
• Late October 2007 - Our minds and hearts were opened up to China's Waiting Child program. We completed our Medical Conditions checklist with our agency. We prayed for what was meant to be.
• December 7, 2007 - Our referral call for Jiang XueMei, Mason-Kate. She was 10 months old.
• December 10, 2007 - Our Letter of Intent (LOI) was submitted. This letter stated to the Chinese officials that we wished to adopt XueMei.
• December 25, 2007 - Pre Approval (PA) was given to us from China.
• January 22, 2008 - Letter Of Approval (LOA) - This letter states that China approves us to adopt and we are officially going to be XueMei's family.
• Late February 2008 - Travel Approval (TA) - Honestly, for us, this was the hardest part. This was the equivalent to labor during childbirth. We had Mason-Kate's picture, we had clothes, we had a room, we had everything packed and ready to go....at this time, TAs were averaging 2-3 weeks for families to receive. Ours took over a month, but, alas, it did arrive and we were soon to be on our way.
• March 11, 2008 - Boarded our planes to CHINA.
• March 17, 2008 - Gotcha Day, Forever Family Day, Metcha Day - the day we met our little Mason-Kate.
• March 28, 2008 - Mason-Kate became an American citizen upon landing in Detroit, Michigan.