Waiting for Travel Approval and Adoption Traditions

Small update from this week:  I heard from our adoption agency this week, and their wish is for us to be in and out of China before May 1st or 2nd.  That's right!  Our agency does travel during the trade fair in Guangzhou, so no need to worry about waiting until May to travel!  Also, China celebrates their Labor Day on May 1st, so the government will be closed for a couple of days.  The agency would like for us to be finished and either on our way back on May 1st, or at least finished with paperwork in China by May 1.  That is, of course, as long as we get our Travel Approval in time.  

Another family in one of my Face Book groups that is one week ahead of us with paperwork actually got their travel approval last week and is traveling in less than 2 weeks!  So, it is entirely possible that we get ours this week, or next.  Now that, my friends, is crazy.  Hearing that pretty much sent me in to list making mode…..ok, ok, maybe I had already started a list or two….but seriously, I started making SERIOUS lists.  

We had a couple of family get togethers this weekend to celebrate a new baby on the way (Carla & Whit) and birthday (Tom).  We realized that this may be the last time everyone is together until they meet us at the airport to meet Olivia.  Also, a shock to the system!

Now on to traditions…there are three adoption traditions that I have been meaning to write about:  Ladybugs, The Red Thread, and the Bai Jia Bei.

Ladybugs are believed to be good luck in the adoption community, so whenever you see a ladybug, think of Olivia!  In fact, there's one in my office that stays with me most of the day.  :)

The Red Thread:  "When a child is born, invisible red threads extend from the child's spirit and connect to all the significant people who will be part of the child's life.  As the child grows, the threads shorten, drawing closer those people who are destined to be together."  This is an old Chinese legend that is still around today.  The Chinese adoption community has embraced it as a motto.

Bai Jia Bei:  To welcome and celebrate a new life, it is a tradition in China to make a Bai Jia Bei:  a 100 Good Wishes Quilt.  The custom is to invite family and friends to contribute a square of fabric and a wish for the baby.  Most of the square of fabric is made in a quilt, while a smaller piece and the good wish goes into a scrapbook.  The quilt contains luck, energy, and good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed.  We actually started collecting fabric and good wishes for Olivia back in 2006 when we started our wait. I still have the fabric and plan to have a quilt made for her. If you would like to send a piece of fabric, we would love to include yours.  Please message me for the dimensions needed.

That's probably enough for today.  Hopefully, you will hear from me again really soon!  As always, thanks for reading and for your prayers and support.  Have a great week!

Jill

Article 5 - ready to be picked up!

More progress!  We received an email this morning from the American Consulate in Guangzhou that our Article 5 is ready to be picked up!  We now enter the 4th quarter, the 18th hole, the 9th inning, the last kilometer, the last period, the F-I-N-A-L (You get the idea.) wait!!!  This means that we have passed all hurdles with the U.S. government (YAY), and now our paperwork is turned over to the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) for the Chinese government’s approval.  Once the CCCWA reviews everything, they will issue our TA (Travel Approval).  Wait times for TA range anywhere from 2 weeks to one month, and I am still unsure what the trade fair/convention in Guangzhou will do to our travel.  So, we will just wait and see.  The TA allows us to travel to China to finalize the adoption and pick Olivia up.  Once we receive our TA, our adoption agency will request an immigrant visa appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, and we will apply for our visas.  The CA (Consulate Appointment) is what the dates of our entire trip revolve around.  Our agency will submit 5 choice of dates in ranked order.  In the past, the agency would plan the trip for a group of adoptive parents.  Now that the wait has gotten so long, and there aren’t as many of us still waiting, we could be traveling alone.  We will still have a guide from the agency with us most of the time, but potentially no other adoptive families.  We are getting closer now, and we can see the finish line!

As always, thanks for reading and for your prayers and support.  We appreciate you!
Jill

Observations about Olivia

When we received Olivia’s referral, included was a standardized form with little boxes marked regarding height, weight, medical information, etc.  There was also a section about her schedule, eating, sleeping, motor development, language, sociality, etc.  I thought some of you might be interested in hearing more about her.  (Disclaimer:  this information was recorded in October, so when we get her, it will be almost 6 months later.  I’m anticipating that some of this will change by the time we get there, but this is probably all the information we will get.)

Amazingly enough, she is about the same size as Ansley was at this age.  Based on American growth charts, she is in about the 5^th percentile for height and weight.  I have been trying to estimate what size clothes/shoes she will be in by the time we travel.  My estimate is 18-24 month clothes and who knows about the shoes.

She is definitely on a schedule, which is not surprising to me considering the circumstances.  She eats and sleeps at the same time every day.  It says that she is a deep sleeper, so let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one!  They definitely feed her some interesting things at the age of 2, so the food transition may be challenging.  For breakfast, she has noodles or congee (similar to rice pudding), steamed bread, and milk.  (We aren’t sure if she is still taking a bottle; some of the adoption blogs I have read for children this age are still taking bottles.)  For lunch, she has rice, egg custard, and fish.  For dinner, she has rice, minced meat, and vegetable juice.  For “supplemental food,” (I’m assuming snacks or other foods.) she has milk, biscuits, and fruit juice.  It says that apple juice is her favorite, and I’m pretty sure that their biscuits are not like Southern biscuits.  :)

For motor development, it says that she can crawl on hands and knees, picks up a pill with her thumb/index finger, holds a pen with full hand and scribbles, and walks alone steadily.  The boxes about going up and down stairs are not marked, so Ansley will get to teach her how to do that.

For adaptability, it says that she can take a block in/out of a cup, bang two blocks together,  build a tower of 4 blocks, and turn over pages of a book twice or more.  The boxes for recognizing colors are not marked.

In the language/sociality section, it says that she imitates words, produces 3-5 words, knows what “no” means (This is funny to me.), responds to others asking for her objects, and is cooperative when putting on clothes.  The box related to potty training is not checked.  Most of you would probably not expect this to be checked when talking about a 2 year old, but in China, a lot of the orphanages start potty training VERY early. 

The personality traits that she demonstrates (my favorite part) include being timid, shy, quiet, active, restless, fond of listening to music (yay), fond of playing with toys (Ansley likes this one.), energetic, and obstinate at times (also known as stubborn – she’ll fit right in).  She is closest with her caretaker; her favorite activity is playing outdoors; and her favorite toys are ones with "fresh color and sound."

Many of you might be concerned about the language piece, but we are blessed in this area.  Not only do we have two of the world’s best speech therapists in the family, but we are also fortunate to have a teacher at the girls’ day care who is from China and is bilingual.  She has already helped us so much, and I know that she will prove to be invaluable to us through this transition.  She has friends in the area of China where we will be and is going to give us their phone number in case we need anything!  She is also going to teach us a few Chinese words before we go and is going to translate some questions that I have for the nannies at the orphanage.  My hope is that Olivia will be bilingual and can learn Chinese from her and English from everyone else. 

I am happy to report that our home projects are almost complete!  Philip has been working hard and painted Olivia’s room earlier this week.  The crib will go up this weekend.  Wow - it is becoming a little more real each and every day.

While it has been hard to see God’s plan over the past 7 years, I now know that He has put everything into place just as it should be.  Being the planner that I am, you all know that it is difficult for me not knowing a travel date at this point, but my estimate until last night was still mid-April.  I am a member of all sorts of Face Book groups related to China adoption, and one member posted last night that her Article 5 was just picked up (same timing as ours), so she thought she would be traveling in mid-April as well.  Unfortunately, she learned that her agency is not going to plan any trips to China in the month of April due to a large trade fair/convention happening in Guangzhou during April.  Evidently, it is very difficult to find hotel rooms (I know all about that.) and transportation during that time.  So…..it may be May for us, too.  Our China rep should pick up our Article 5 next week, and we will be on our way to Travel Approval!  Once we have our Travel Approval, we will apply for our Visas and should begin planning our trip. 

As always, thanks for the prayers.  I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Jill

Where in the world is Olivia?

Olivia is from the Hunan province (similar to a state) of China (population of 71 million-7^th most populated province in China), which is located in the south central part of the country.  Girls from Hunan are known as “Spicy Girls.” They say this is due to the heavy use of chili peppers in their food, but I'm wondering…..  The Xiang River runs through the province, and the traditional crops from that area are rice and cotton.  The climate is sub-tropical with short, cool, damp winters, very hot and humid summers, and plenty of rainfall.  There is a professional sports team in Hunan, the Hunan Billows F.C. (soccer team). 

The capital of Hunan is Changsha (population 7 million), where we will probably travel to meet our little girl.  To give you a perspective, New York City’s population is around 8 million.  She is not from there, but most adoptions in China are finalized in the capital of the province from where the child comes.  We believe she currently resides in or near Chengnan, which is in Ningyuan County, a couple of hours away from Changsha.

We will also travel to Guangzhou, which is where the U.S. Consulate/Embassy is.  It is located very near Hong Kong, also in the south central part of China.  Guangzhou is where we will finalize everything on the American side of things and will be the last place we visit.  Guangzhou is the 3^rd largest Chinese city, population 14 million.

We cannot wait to travel to see the sights and sounds of Olivia’s birthplace.    I want to “live in the moment” while we are there and soak it all in.  My wish is to be able to tell her about it someday when she is old enough and hope to be able to go back one day so that she can see where she is from.

I’m desperately trying to do a better job of “living in the moment.”  I am horrible at this!  I’m always marking things off a “To Do List” and thinking ahead of what needs to be done.  I told Philip just the other day to keep me in check, and especially on our trip, to remind me to enjoy it.  After all, it is a once in a lifetime thing.  So, for the next few weeks at least, I’m going to try to “Live in the Moment.”  I want to cherish these last few weeks that we have together as a family of 3.  Our lives will never be the same.  I want to make sure that Ansley knows how much we love her and for her to enjoy these last few weeks of being an only child. 

Thanks for your interest and for your prayers.  We hope you have a great weekend!

Good golly, GUZ#!

Happy Friday!  I hope you have had a great week!  I’ve been thinking a lot about this blogging-thing and realize that this is NOT one of my talents.  I worked really hard at finding a “catchy” title for this one……hope you like it!  Don’t get too used to it though; I’m probably one-and-done in the “catchy” department.

I work for a company that has a million acronyms, but I will say that adoption has its fair share!  Between DTC’s, LID’s, LOA’s, LSC’s, SIM’s, NVC’s, TA’s, and now GUZ’s, the adoption lingo is pretty crazy.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we have been waiting on a letter from the NVC (here we go again with the acronyms) before we could move on to the next step.  Well, we have our letter and a GUZ #!!  Thanks to the wonderful internet, adoptive families who have been through this before blogging about it (Thank you!), and email, I was able to speed up the process of getting this letter just slightly.  Instead of waiting for this letter in the mail, I was able to get an email copy and not have to wait for the mail before filling out the next paperwork.  Score one for us!

There is a GUZ number (I have no idea what this stands for.) and an invoice number on this paperwork that you have to have before you can even open the webpage to apply for the DS-260.  The DS-260 is Olivia’s visa application, which she has to have to enter the U.S.  (For those wondering, the application was pretty intense and asked some pretty tough questions.)  This milestone is also significant because more importantly, it means that our paperwork has been cabled/emailed to the U.S. Consulate in China.  We are one step closer! 

Early next week, a representative from our adoption agency will take our paperwork to the US Consulate as well.  The Consular Officer will review our paperwork and advise if anything is out of line (Please pray that all is well.).  If the officer determines the child appears eligible to immigrate to the U.S. and that the information provided indicates that we have complied with all rules/regulations, he/she will notify the Chinese government by issuing an Article 5/17 letter (Art 5 in adoption lingo).  This will tell the Chinese government that “U.S. competent authorities have determined us to be eligible and suited to adopt, and that the child may enter and reside permanently in the U.S.; the U.S. Central Authority agrees that the adoption may proceed.”  This process should take 2 weeks.  The consulate only accepts this type of paperwork on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, so hopefully they can get there on Monday.  Then we move on to the next step!   

Once our rep picks up the Article 5 and delivers it to the Chinese Government's Adoption Authority (CCCWA), it will take approximately 2 weeks for them to review the paperwork and issue our TA (Travel Approval).  Once we have the TA, we can schedule our appointment with the US Consulate and will know our travel dates!  (and apply for our visas to enter China) From my estimation, we are about 6-8 weeks from travel.  Yikes – that means that I better get moving on some things!!  We still have a lot to do!

Well, thanks for reading!  I'll try to come up with another "catchy" title for my next post.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Jill

I-800 Approved!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am happy to report that we received our I-800 provisional approval letter in the mail today!  That means that we will be anxiously awaiting our letter from the National Visa Center, so that we can file for Olivia's visa!  (It typically takes about 2 weeks.)

If you are wondering what the letter says, the provisional approval states that our specific child qualifies as a Convention adoptee under law. It goes on to say that this approval as been given to the US Department of State, and that we may not obtain custody of her until the US has notified her country of origin that she is eligible for immigration.  (We had to send them the report from China stating that she was an orphan and some other medical items.)  Our names are on the form, as well as her Chinese name and birth date.  It's becoming a little more real now!  

I've been wondering all day today if they celebrate Valentine's Day in China, so what do you do when you want to know something these days?  You Google it, of course!  So, for all of you wondering….yes, they do celebrate Valentine's Day in China!  I wonder if they had a "party" at the orphanage…..???

I hope you all felt loved today.  Have a great weekend!

Jill

Fingerprints complete!

Hello everyone!

It's been over a month now since we got "the call."  In some ways, it seems like yesterday.  In others, it seems like a lifetime ago.  That's probably because every day I see the face of that little cutie waiting on us to come and get her.  I can't spend a lot of time dwelling on what she is doing or how she is doing, or that would consume most of my thoughts….all.day.long.  So, I just have to have faith that all is well.  I can't wait for her to be safe and sound here…..in our home….

We received our "Notice of Action" forms from the Department of Homeland Security about 2 weeks ago.  These are the letters we had to take with us to get fingerprinted.  (Fingerprints are only valid for 15 months, and ours expire on 2/20/14.)  Many people are able to walk-in early at their respective fingerprint offices, but not in Nashville.  In fact, I have read a few posts from folks who drove hours to Nashville and were turned away because they were they were there before their actual appointment.  So, we waited….I would say patiently, but I'm not a very patient person at this point.

In the meantime, I have been able to mark a few things off my list.  I have finished a little shopping.  When we go to China, we take a few gifts with us for the orphanage director, the registrar and notary, and some of the orphanage workers.  I have read not to stress out over the gifts, but it is hard not to!  Evidently, in Chinese culture, they don't open gifts in front of people, and it's possible that they may give them to others, so "not to worry."  But how in the world do you give something to someone who has cared for your daughter for the first two years of her life?  How do you give something to someone who is the  only "family" that the child has ever known?  You stress out about it; that's what you do!  And, do you know how hard it is to find things that aren't made in China?  Very.  After a lot of thought, research, and suggestions from others (Thank you!), I ended up with some unique things to the area, and I'm proud of what I bought.  

We had a slight scare with our paperwork last week that just about sent me into orbit.  We received a pink "Request for Evidence" letter from the US government.  These RFE's are never a good thing.  This pink letter stated that we needed to provide them with an updated Home Study.  The reason why this was so exasperating is because an updated Home Study would take a few weeks/months to update, is expensive, and ours should still be valid!  All we needed was to be re-fingerprinted!!  Obviously, I had to get this straightened out. All of this paperwork we have done over the years is housed somewhere and is assigned to an officer, who approves/declines it, and I was actually able to obtain the information of this officer without too much investigation.   So, I called our "officer" in Lee's Summit, MO.  She explained that they requested a Home Study because of a Supplement 3 application we filed with our paperwork (as we were told to do so by our adoption agency).  Evidently, you don't have to file this form if you just need to be re-fingerprinted.  So, I kindly asked if we could withdraw the application, and she said, "Yes."  I followed that question up with something like, "If we withdraw this application, will any part of the particular adoption of said child be affected?"  She said, "No, just send me an email asking to withdraw the so-and-so, and that is all I need."  I asked her again a different way just.to.make.sure, and she came back with the same answer.  Whew!  I was so relieved.  I sent the email right away, stating the above again, so that I had it in writing, and she responded that it was withdrawn and that as soon as we were re-fingerprinted, to let her know, and she would approve our I-800!!  I am a big believer in having everything in writing, so it is HUGE that we can communicate in this manner.

We were fingerprinted today!  It took all of about 15 minutes, and we were one of two couples in the whole office.  Mark that off the list!  Now that is complete, we can move on to the next step - waiting for our I-800 Approval.  The officer claims that she will approve it "right away," but what is "right away" in her world may be different than "right away" in my world.  I sent her an email as soon as we got home to let her know that we were fingerprinted today and to please send a copy of the approval by email as well as by snail mail (which is standard practice for this approval).  

(This is kind of like a scavenger hunt or the Amazing Race.  One thing has to happen before you can go to the next step.)  The 800 approval is important for us to get to the next step.  Approximately 2 weeks after the 800 is approved, we will receive a letter telling us that we can apply for the DS-260.  This is what we will need to get a visa for our child to enter the US.  Once we get that approval, our agency lets their staff in China know, and they file our paperwork with the US Consulate.  This takes another 2 weeks for approval.  They then pick up that paperwork and send all of those documents to Chinese government arm for adoptions.  They then issue our "Travel Approval" within a couple of weeks.  Once we get our travel approval, we can then begin planning our travel and know when we need to be there.  Oh and somewhere in there, we have to apply for OUR visas to enter/exit China.  So, if all goes well (special prayers, please), we could be traveling in 8 weeks or so!  If all of this is a repeat for you, I apologize.  I just realized that I think I put a lot of this in the last post.  Oops!

Thanks again to everyone for praying and for asking how things are going when we see you.  It means a lot!!  Hopefully, I'll be able to post again soon when we get our 800 Approval.  Have a great week!

Jill