Inside China Travel Itinerary

Yesterday we received our inside China travel itinerary which is:

Thursday December 2:  Arrive in Beijiing, staying at the Kuntai Royal Hotel for 3 nights.

Our agency coordinator in Beijing will be "Shirley".

Tours arranged for us while we are in Beijing include the Great Wall, Summer Palace, Forbidden City and an Acrobatic Show Friday afternoon.  Sounds like a lot for just a few days.



Lobby of Kuntai Hotel




Forbidden City



The Great Wall



Summer Palace



Acrobatic Show



Sunday December 5 we fly to Nanchang in the morning and will stay at the Galactic Peace International Hotel ... and "GOTCHA DAY" is scheduled for the afternoon at the hotel!



Nanchang



Monday December 6: Looks like a full day of paperwork starting with the Civil Affairs Bureau and then delivering to Notary Office.

Tuesday - Thursday December 7-9  Optional tour / free time while we wait to pick up notarized paperwork.  It looks like we may be allowed to visit the orphanage during this time.

Friday December 10:  We pickup the babies passports and fly to Guangzhou where we will stay at the White Swan Hotel for 6 nights. The White Swan is the hotel most adoptive families stay in during their time in Guangzou and where the traditional red couch photos are taken.



White Swan Lobby



Saturday December 11: AM All the babies have their visa pictures taken and medical exams.

Sunday  December 12:  Optional tour / free time while we wait for Visa to be processed.

Monday December 13:  AM Our agency coordinator submits the babies visa application documents to the US Consulate.

Afternoon:  We take our group-oath at the Consulate (no pictures allowed in the consulate but I've read on some blogs that the number of Americans taking this oath can be 100+).

Tuesday Dec 14 & Wed Dec 15 AM:  Option tour / free time while we wait for Visa to be processed.

Wednesday December 15 afternoon:  Our group receives our babies visa's at the Consulate which means we can come home.

Thursday December 16 AM:  Fly from Guangzhou to Beijing (4 hour layover), Then fly to Chicago.  Once we make it through customs in Chicago Audrey will officially become an American.





Fall 2010 additions to our garden

 The picture above is a Forest Pansy Redbud ('Cercis Canadenis').

 Close up picture of this type of Redbud's leaf.

 Over the weekend John bought this Pansy to plant in our garden with Audrey in mind.  He planted this tree in the bed we where we previously tried to grow vegetables. 

 I was very little help to John in planting this tree.

 The doll's arm John found buried in the soil when he was digging the hole for the redbud.  When we landscaped our garden in the Spring of 2006 the landscapers found lots of relics like this all over the backyard.

 Today I planted 260 more bulbs.  Tulips in the patio area. 

 Chinodoxa Lucilae with the hostas.  These will naturalize.

 Bluebells (scilla siberica) and daffodils ('dutch master') around the redbud.

and Dwarf Iris in the courtyard area.

TA's arrived today

For Non-Hague adoptions (ours) after referral you typically wait 3-5 weeks for TA's (Travel Approval) issued by the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs).  Here is a recap of my morning today:

 At 9:54 am my blackberry buzzed with this email from our adoption coordinator:

Greetings!

          We have received Travel Approval (TA) for all families.....

           For the families that I have a current CIS approval in hand, I will be able to request your consulate appointments.  I expect your travel to be...

SO,  now our problem with USCISstill not processing our I-600A (Pre-Approval to adopt a foreign orphan form) which they received 9-29-10 (also the day we received our referral) was even more critical.  I immediately emailed our agency to ask if we got our I-600A approved today could we still travel with our group.

Minutes later the response came back "Yes, if you send it to me today, I will include you in my request to the consulate."

US Senator George Voinovich

SO, my next step was to call US Senator George Voinovich's office.  The previous night I had fax'd a request (with 5 pages of supporting documents) to his office asking for help with USCIS relative to processing our renewal.  The aide who answered the phone this morning was super helpful.  He not only found my fax, noted I had signed their required privacy act form and told me this was on the desk of the person who could address.  Then I told him I about the time sensitivity of this matters relative to the arrival of TA's.  I was so pleased with how intently he listened and then amazed by the subsequent action.  A phone call was made right away because at 11:06 am I received an email from USCIS with our approved I-600A attached.  I forwarded this to our agency who confirmed receipt at 11:37 am.  Later that afternoon another Voinovich aide called to see if the matter was resolved!  Fantastic!

A little background:
Voinovich is a ranking member on the subcommittee on Oversight of Government Mangagement for Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and according to his website:

He is commited to making sure the federal government has a well managed, quality workforce and the taxpayers are getting the best "bang for the buck".

We are so grateful to Senator Voinovich and his staff for their help and really quite stunned too!

The Assistant Stork delivered our Visas October 14

Front entrance of Chinese Embassy

We applied for our Visas the same day we sent our referral acceptance paperwork  back to our international agency (who then returns them as a group to China). The Visa application was an interesting process.  First of all the application must be hand delivered to either a Chinese Consulate or the Embassy in DC.  Since we had a good experience with the Assistant Stork in '06 getting our dossier documents authenticated we decided to use their services again.  This meant getting our Visas from the Embassy.  The husband partner of Assistant Stork (a husband and wife team) sent us detailed step-by-step instructions on how to fill out the forms and how to mail our passports so they wouldn't get stolen.  Yikes.  Even the description of how to classify your occupation needed explanation.  Basically most professions are considered "businessman" BUT if your are clergy or media you need to call the Assistant Stork because there is more for them to explain.

So I tracked the applications online and saw they were delivered and then I received an email from the wife Asst Stork who gave me the same detailed instructions on how to send the applications.  Turns out she was traveling and did not know her husband was already at the Embassy applying for our Visas.  But for just a brief time I thought " oh no our passports might have been stolen."  They say international adoption is not for the faint hearted.

So now after waiting all this time, having a referral and being able to show people her picture the next question everyone asks of course is "When do you travel?"  And like always we have to still answer we don't know.  We really do seem crazy, but here is the deal.  After China receives our groups acceptance packets they typically respond in 3-5 weeks with a "TA"  which stands for Travel Approval.  Once we have our TA our agency can request our consulate appointments in Guangzhou.  We need this appointment to get the exit Visas for our babies. At that point we can book flights ... as long as we have our USCIS paperwork renewal (4th one thank you very much) and subsequent updated fingerprints because they expire every 18 months.  AND USCIS has changed their system and is really backlogged (they are quoting 7,000 - 10,000 pending cases) so it takes extra pleading.  So rather than explain all this we have started to say we expect to travel mid to late November.   No one is that interested and surely we will forget these details very soon.

Cincinnati Walks for Kids

Today we participated in the Cincinnati Walks for Kids at Coney Island.  This is the 5th year for this Children's Hospital fundraiser for  and a much bigger event than we anticipated.  We never found the IAC (International Adoption Center) Team to walk with but we know a lot more for next year.  This event has raised over $2.5 M for our Children's Hospital.  I believe the bigger fundraiser for the IAC is next month, The Passport to Forever.  Next year Audrey will be able to participate in the Passport's big event...the fashion show.

                                               Some teams wore coordinating shirts.

Coney Island is really quite beautiful, and historic too.  It is 125 years old this year.

After the walk we went to Evans to pick up firewood for the winter.  Notice the gloves.  We still have to be fingerprinted 1 more time for USCIS and yes you can fail your fingerprints, even though they have 3 previous files on us.  Never mind the fingerprints we have on file with FBI and Ohio BCI.  It's not that we are particularly suspicious characters.  This is required of all adoptive parents and everyone of our travel mates is or has recently completed their last prints too.  Speaking of travel mates... we are starting to learn more about the other 8 families we will be traveling with to China.  Several from Indiana, 1 from Maryland, 1 from Texas.  Also here are the first names of babies: Chloe (2), Lily (2), Natalie, Isabella Grace, our Audrey and 2 babies we don't know their names yet.

A big project completed prior to travel. 

Today we recieved updated info and photo!

Today we received this updated photo from our international agency.  We think this photo above is current (8 months old)  and unsure when the referral pictures were taken but it seems possible around 4 months old.  Her hair is longer and she has lost some of her chubby cheeks.  Sigh ... this does make the wait tougher, however we are so thankful for the update.  In fact quite surprised it came so soon. 

Here is how we got this news.  I came home for lunch like I usually do and just as I was getting ready to head back to work I checked my cell phone for messages as I had it on mute because of this morning's staff meetig.  There was an email from FTIA which said "J___ and R___ - Please find attached an updated picture and measurements for Audrey ... she's beautiful!"  We could not believe we already received an update and we certainly could not get my laptop to boot up quickly enough. 

Later in the day we received an email from our coordinator that other families received 3 photos and they are checking with the Beijing office to see why we did not receive more photos.  FTIA thinks it was just a mistake on the part of the person emailing.  So we have reason to hope for more! 

Translation Day

Audrey's referral picture and the newspaper from the same day!

Friday October 1st was Translation Day when we received her file.  We celebrated with dinner at one of our neighborhood restaurants. Here are a few things from the report:  "she enjoys music, smiles when entertained, is very active and outgoing.  She likes busy and noisy place.  She likes bath and is a deep sleeper.  Also she can roll from supine to prone position."

Saturday we made announcement and party invitations.