Authentication and Dossier to China (DTC)

Catching up a bit: On Saturday, March 2nd, I over night mailed our documents to Denise Hope, our courier, to take to the US consulate in Chicago.  She got them on Monday the 4th and delivered them to the consulate on Tuesday, the 5th.  We paid for 48 hour service since Denise doesn't pick-up on Wednesdays.   She picked them up on Thursday, March 7th and put them back into the mail to us.  We received them Friday, March 8th and I mailed our entire dossier out to our agency that afternoon via over night mail.  Our agency received our dossier on Saturday, March 9th at 12:16 (my birthday).  Monday I was able to confirm that they received it and today, Tuesday, March 12th, we are officially Dossier to China (DTC)! 

 It is such a huge step and a sigh of relief.  Now we just have to pray that it gets translated and logged in quickly.  Once we are logged in, we can start the count for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) wait.  Once we have the LOA, we'll have a better idea of when we'll travel.  It is usually 2-3 months to travel once you have your LOA.  The wait for LOA is all over the place though.  I've seen as little as 20 days and as long as 150 days.   This year it seems 50s and 60s are average (it was 71 days for Lena's).   This week I saw LOA's ranging from 33 to 75 days, with many in the 30's and they were not even medical expedites.  We are trying to expedite for medical purposes so we are hoping we'll be on the quicker end, but their is no guarantee.   I have a fairly good feeling about it.  All we can do is pray!