The last step!

Well, our Article 5 document was signed, and has been sent to the CCAA. They will give us our travel appointment. This is the LAST thing we wait for in the process. The next thing we hear should be when we actually get to leave. The holiday in China starts on Thursday and run through to the next Thursday. So an entire week will be blocked out that nobody will be processing dates. So basically we could get some info between Sunday and Wednesday, but its not very likely, the average wait for a TA is 2-4 weeks. We will anxiously wait out the next few days to make sure something miraculous doesn't happen, and then we have a week off of obsessing and wondering about "When?". It took us right about 16 days to get the Article 5 signed, which is good, the average is 2-4 weeks. We have a "Toddler Shower" on Oct. 3rd, and then head to Disney World from Oct 22-29, so our month will be busy enough that we should not go completely insane.

Cyber Stalking

I've started the stalking process of the Guangzhou Consulate. I waited just over a week for the cabled file to be there. Our other paperwork is already there as well, per the agency anyways. So now I'm asking about the status, which they will likely tell me they can't give out. I've seen other people say that if they are persistent that they will give them the status, I can do that, :P Also, I've started to get a little nervous. The agency said the Article 5 document takes about 2-4 weeks, but I have seen some people getting them turned around in as few as 5 days, WOW. Given the quick nature of all our previous steps we think we will get Article 5 fast. That would put us into "Your going to China within 1-5 weeks" mode. The averages put us going in November, but the JnJ averages could have us there in October depending on a multitude of things we have no control over.

ALSO, we did get pictures back of the Birthday Party! Ann over at Red Thread got some pics of the cake and the party, we were very excited!





Really nice cake, and everyone seems to be having fun. I highly recommend using Red Thread, Ann has been exceptionally helpful, and almost always gets us pictures. She has sent us several pics, and measurements for Mei-Mei 2 or 3 times now. The agency JUST sent some to us a few days ago, *shrug* I know thats not the agency's purpose, but it'd be nice to get something from them about the little one every so often.

File Cabled

Today I called the NVC to check the status of our case, and they let me know that it had been cabled to Guangzhou today! One more step down, just a couple left now! I believe what we wait for next is to have our Article 5 document signed. THEN we get to wait for our TA(Travel Arrangements) which is when we actually get to leave. I talked with our agency last week, and asked about travel. Our fingerprints expire 1/31/10, so I wanted to make sure we didn't need to look into renewing them. The agency rep assured me that unless something "crazy" happened we wouldn't need to do that, and we should get our TA dates sometime in late October or early November. I'll give the NVC a day or two, and then I'm going to start emailing the consulate for updates, :)