NOT "The Call"

We left for Disney World last week on the 22nd, and REALLY expected to hear back from our agency this past week on TA dates. I logged into some of my forums that I follow to see if anyone had been getting TA's, RQ has got to be the best bet when it comes to telling if anything is happening. Unfortunately nobody in the forums had heard anything about TA, that means no agency has gotten anything, which means that CCAA hasn't sent ANYTHING, booooooooooooooooooooo. Late this week we heard that the CCAA Director had stepped down and a new person was taking over, and this is why we haven't seen any TA dates. We got back into town on Thursday the 29th, and still the same news, nobody has seen any TA info, just rumors that we will get them 'next week'.

Friday at work my phone rings and its the area code my agency is in, so my heart rate shoots up, and it is my agency's travel dept. She asks me several generic questions, and asks about our visas, and if we sent in all the paperwork to them and if we had checked on flight prices. At this point I just had to stop and ask if we were going to China or what, but she just kept moving through the questions. Finally she says they don't have any TA packaged=s, but they are long overdue, and were told to expect them next week. They are trying to basically make sure everyone they believe to in that TA package is ready to go and won't need to get together any last minute documents. She said they have 2 dates set in mind, but they are just estimates based on what they get next week and if they can get Consulate appointments. Nov 18 - Dec 4 with a CA on Dec 1, and Nov 25 - Dec 11, with a CA on Dec 8. Of course she said these are just best guesses and not to make any flight arrangements, but she recommended getting quotes and itineraries setup so we can get an idea of what to expect. So hopefully next week I will have something exciting to post, :)

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, :)

Happy Birthday Mei Mei!!!

So, yesterday was our xiao Ying's birthday - she is officially 2 years old! We can't wait to bring her home, we have so many people praying that she will be here with us for the holidays. We hope that she had a wonderful birthday, and we hope that it will be her last birthday without a family of her own. If we are lucky, it will be her last holiday without us period!

I800 Approved!

I called earlier in the week and was surprised our I800 hadn't even been delivered to the USCIS office, it had been almost 2 weeks, but I called today to check and they had already processed it and sent it off. Now it goes to the National Visa Center so they can scan it in and send it off to the Consulate in China. Now we wait for a couple other checkpoints so we can get a scheduled travel date!

Sending Off More

We are sending off the last batches of paperwork today....I think. Our Visa applications and passports are in the Fedex envelope now ready to be sent off. We are using a courier service, Dependable Adoption Courier Service, to expedite the visa process. They should be done this week, or early next week, no hurry really, we aren't leaving for a few weeks at earliest. I also got our agency specific paperwork together and have signed and stamped it all. Lastly, we filled out the baby's Visa application to come here. Government forms are borderline insane, especially immigration related forms. There are so many questions, and sooooooooooooo much room for error, they seem designed to make sure you miss a field or mark something incorrectly. I think we are done with all the boring paperwork now, we hope so anyways. We have a few little benchmark dates to hit, but its mainly following the paperwork flow as it goes from agency to agency and gets approved.

We also got a note from our courier service in China! Ann at Red Thread has delivered 3 packages for us, she does an excellent job and we are impressed each time. The last thing we sent off was a "birthday package", cake, some toys, little things like that. We were hoping to get some pictures at the end of the month, after her actual birthday. Many other people get these little birthday party pictures when they send a cake. Some orphanages are strict and won't send anything but pictures of the cake, to basically show that they bought one. Some places take video and pictures of the party/event. We got 2 new pics today, I kind of hate them, :)




I can't stand the haircut. I've seen it before, and I always think its strange. Its definitely a Chinese "thing", some of the parents I've talked with say they do it because it will make the hair grow in better/thicker. I guess we will need to buy her lots of hats for when we get home, it will be cold!