Shopping for the trip to China!!

So, we are hopeful that we will be traveling to China sometime in the next 4-5 weeks.  We have started to think about the things we want to bring with us and we have both come to the sad conclusion that we don’t have enough clothes!  So that means shopping!  We have been looking for shorts and other “cool” clothing because we know it’s going to be very hot in Hong Kong.  At the same time, we are preparing our luggage and making sure everything will fit and still be underweight.  China has a weight limit of 44 pounds for rail travel, so because we are not sure how we are going to be traveling while in China, we are trying to keep our luggage below that threshold.  We are definitely going to be doing laundry while we are over there.  We are also packing one or two “nice” outfits just in case we have meetings that require more professional/nice clothing.  Chris just rolled his eyes at me.  At least we don’t have to worry too much about shoes.

We are also experimenting with which kinds of snacks/crackers we both like.  This way we have something to munch on while we are in the air for several hours at a time.  So far, goldfish are the running winners!  It’s all I can do not to pack all my clothes now!  I know if that happens I will end up unpacking and repacking at least three or four times.  So I am holding off as best I can!

Paperwork to US Consulate in China

We received the receipt from the National Visa Center on Friday, June 11.  We thought we would be waiting about a week for the official approval letter.  The one we got was not very “official looking”.  While I was away in Las Vegas for training last week, our agency asked if we received anything from the NVC.  I told them that we received the receipt, but nothing else.  They had me send a copy of the receipt and said that was the letter they needed to send all of our documents to China for travel approval and a Visa appointment.  I wish we had known that!  So the final portion of our paperwork went to China on Friday, June 18.  We should have travel approval sometime in the next two weeks.  We are not going to make the early July deadline, and therefore, my sister will not be able to travel to China with us.  We hope to be traveling in late July or early August.  We are feeling much happier that we are on the downslope of the all of the paperwork and this whole process.  We really can’t wait to  come home with our little girl!

Happy Father's Day!!

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.