Provisional Approval from the USCIS

After more than 6 long weeks of waiting, we finally received our USCIS approval in the mail today!  We are so excited!  Now we can work on getting our travel approval from China and making a Visa appointment for Saiya.  Although we dont want to rush through what is going to be a very stressful time with tons of paperwork still needing to be done, we are hoping that we can still travel with the group going to China in the beginning of July.  We have a little over three weeks before then, so it is seeming more and more likely that we will be traveling at the end of July or the beginning of August.  But we are keeping our fingers crossed none-the-less.  In either case, we are set to bring home our daughter sometime this summer!!!

We are super happy and can't wait to hold her!!

News From the USCIS!!

I spoke with the USCIS this afternoon and they said that even though what we provided isnt the way it is supposed to be done, they are going to accept it and push our application through! YAY!! What a relief! So I'm hoping that in the next week or so we should have our I-800 approval. I am checking to see if we will still be on track for the July travel dates (provided we have no more hiccups along the way).

YAY!! Thanks everyone for keeping us in your thoughts!

Waiting waiting waiting... on the US Government

We received a note last week that China has come back and said that they are not required to collect finding/background information for the children that end up in the orphanages.  According to China, they are only required to collect information about the child AFTER they come to be in the care of the state.  They sent a letter to our agency who in turn, forwarded it to the USCIS.  The USCIS was not happy about China's response, but they are looking into whether or not that will be acceptable.

So right now, we are in a holding pattern waiting on the US government to let us know whether or not we will be able to adopt You Ai.  I am hoping that they come through and let us proceed with the paperwork that we have, which illustrates her social history from the time she arrived at the orphanage, but nothing prior to that.  And I hope that we get our approval soon!  It is almost the end of the month, which leaves us very little time afterwards to plan travel and book plane tickets.

I still dream about going to China every night.  Chris mentioned to me, that maybe, just maybe, You Ai dreams about us too!  I hope so...

Update on the USCIS…

So I hadn’t heard back from the USCIS regarding the email that I sent concerning their Request for Evidence, so I got together the packet of paperwork and got it ready to send overnight to the USCIS office.  I e-mailed Meg at CAWLI and she said I should wait to hear back from the USCIS before I send anything additional or they may get confused.  So, I waited about an hour and then decided I should call them.  I asked Meg what she thought and she said go ahead.  So I called the USCIS Hague Adoption Department expecting to be on hold for hours before actually talking to a real person or to have to navigate through those stupid automated menus for days.  Once the machine picked up, I selected “1” for the Hague Unit and someone picked up immediately!  She transferred me to our case worker and I spoke with her at length about our child’s name translation issue and she made a note in our paperwork for the American Consulate in China.  She told me that were missing the social history/finding information for our daughter and that was the real reason the application got hung up.  I called CAWLI and Meg stated that the NingXia orphanages don’t really have that kind of information (probably because they are relatively new to the international adoption process and don’t really have very good records of those things), and what we had in the referral paperwork should be more than sufficient.  I called the USCIS office back, and again, I was impressed with the speed at which I got to talk to someone.  I repeated what Meg told me and the USCIS officer said that she would contact my agency to figure out what we can do to get that paperwork.  After all of this, I sent another e-mail to Meg asking her to keep us in the loop.  She said that CAWLI has to send a petition to the CCAA in China for the additional information or clarification for the USCIS, which will go out today.  So right now, it is out of our hands, but at least we know it is being taken care of.  Now that the panic has worn off, I’m exhausted!

A big thank you to Meg and everyone at CAWLI who is helping us through this confusion.

Problems with the Language Barrier

Yesterday CAWLI sent me an e-mail telling me that the USCIS had an issue with some of our paperwork.  This came as quite a shock as I was hoping to have the I-800 Pre-Approval by the end of this week.  Anyhow, the root of the problem is that our daughter’s name is spelled two different ways in the paperwork sent over from china.  On the referral documents, her name is spelled Yuchi You Ai (with the exception of one page on which it is spelled Weichi You Ai).  I asked about this when we first received our referral and the agency assured me that it was the same child, but the Chinese characters for Yu and Wei are the same.  Often, it depends on the translator whether it translates to Yu or Wei.  Well, the Letter of Acceptance from China has Yuchi You Ai and the paperwork that we submitted has Weichi You Ai.  Now the USCIS is confused as to which child we are attempting to adopt.  They are requesting additional paperwork.  So I have printed out ALL of the original paperwork we submitted with the I-800 application as well as another copy of the application with her name spelled Yuchi You Ai so that it matches the Letter of Acceptance.  I can only hope that this will solve the problem.  I don’t know what else we can do to show that both translations are acceptable in China.  And unfortunately, with us so close to our travel dates, panic ensues…

Off to the post office I go.

Why is everything sold in the USA “made in China”?

So, we are supposed to be purchasing small gifts for the nannies, guides, and other people we meet in China who will help us along with our adoption.  These gifts are supposed to cost very little, but one of the constituents is that it should be “Made in the USA”.  It is so HARD to find items that don’t cost too much that are not “Made in China” here in the USA.  So, amid my wandering around on my lunch break, I was browsing through the dollar store, just killing time.  And just because I have been hunting for some suitable gifts for some time now, I was picking up things like candle holders, cute note pads, and a few other items.  I picked it up, turned it over, and BAH!  “Made in China”!!  I must have looked at everything in the store.  “Made In China”, “Made in China”, “Made in China”!  It’s frustrating.  My father keeps making fun that we are going to get over there, hand them a gift along with our gratitude and they look at it and say “Huh… I made that yesterday!”  Not very funny dad!  I was even getting desperate and figured anything NOT “Made in China” would work (for example, something made in India).

Anyhow, so here I am, about ready to give up, because hey, it’s the dollar store, what did I expect?  I wander into the glassware aisle and come across some really cute Coca Cola glasses.  I pick it up, turn it over, and huh… “MADE IN USA”!!!  Wow!  I was shocked.  I bought 8 of them and I figured we can put things like lifesavers and other American-made candy in them for the people over in china.  I am so happy that I finally found a gift that is truly “American” and actually “Made in USA”.  One less thing to worry about!

Weekend in Tampa!

We were in Tampa over the weekend for my sister-in-law’s wedding.  It was a nice break away from the stress of the adoption and the “hurry-up and wait” process that the last few weeks have been.  The ceremony was absolutely beautiful and they make such a wonderful couple.  Congratulations to them both.  While we were there, we stopped by the Museum of Science and Industry (where Chris spent a lot of time growing up).  We had a wonderful time.

Now that we are back, the time is passing so quickly.  We have a little over 6 weeks before we take off for China!  There is still so much to do and things to get ready, I’m not sure we are going to have everything done by the time we leave.  Right now we are still waiting on our I-800 pre-approval and travel approval from China.  So we are still up in the air with plane tickets and any solid travel plans.