True Book Title: "Cooking With Pooh"

As in Pooh Bear, who is shown on the cover making cookies.  And it's still just...grody.  Recently found that little gem amidst old teaching materials and all I have to say is yikes. 

Anywayyyy....

We sent our little L a care package this week.  It's really hard to decide what to send to prepare an almost-3-year-old for what's coming.  In the end there really isn't any way to, and we know that....but we tried.  So we included:
*Lil People cars--the few pictures we have of him all show him playing with various vehicles so this seemed logical.
*A recordable book called Under the Same Moon.  It's a lovely book, and at least he'll hear our voices.  And yes, it's in English so this idea may be moot, but it's worth a shot.
*A teddy bear--we really should have sent a black dog and three orange cats, but there's time enough for him to learn that he's moving into a virtual petting zoo.
*A picture album--including his room, toys, us, us holding his picture, Maggie, and the cats (Tripper, Dee, and Goose).  I used an online translator to explain each picture, so hopefully it makes a little sense and doesn't turn "Our dog Maggie is nice and gentle!" into "Our dog Maggie has large, slavering teeth and eats little boys for breakfast!". 
*Some stickers to share with his friends.

In other news:

• Our Article 5 was picked up today and forwarded to Beijing, so we are now officially waiting on travel approval.  This should take 2-4 weeks, but as of tomorrow I will be back to checking my email roughly every 20 seconds, you know, just in case. 
• Visa requirements for us to enter China have changed as of August 1.  We are trying to figure out what this means, but it looks like we will need confirmed hotels and flights before we can apply for a visa (no longer available through a rush service), which will push everything out further, as we now need a visa to enter China before applying for a Consulate appointment in China (kind of a major part of the process).  US embassies/consulates seem to have different information, however, so it's all a bit up in the air. There is a chance we can apply for a visa with unconfirmed travel, which is what we are attempting with our travel agent.  One more set of instructions to follow and things to figure out...but it still feels pretty darned awesome to actually be talking about travel.   To China.  To pick up our son.  Holy moly, that feels good. 
• We celebrated our 5 year anniversary last week.  We went diving for Dungeness crab in the beautiful, hot Seattle weather.  The Pacific Northwest may actually redeem itself this year.  We cooked 'em up right on the beach--very fun.  I got pretty crispy, as my gleaming white skin was touched by the sun for more than 30 seconds, but it was totally worth it. 

Come onnnn, travel approval!!!

Cabled!

This morning we received notice that the National Visa Center forwarded our I800 visa information to the US Consulate in China.  The Consulate will review the visa application, and then issue a document that states that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed.  This document is called the Article 5. 

It takes 10 business days for the Article 5 to be completed.  Therefore, since our information will be dropped off tomorrow, it will be picked up on Wednesday, August 15, and then forwarded to Beijing.  After that, we wait for travel approval!

One step closer...

I800 Provisional Approval

One more step down!  We received our I800 (visa for L) provisional approval today--phew!

The next step in the process is to have the National Visa Center cable this information to China to begin paperwork processing there.  While the term "cable" has an official ring to it, this is basically an emailed PDF with a hard copy to follow.

In the next 1-2 weeks, we should receive a copy of the letter that is sent to China, and have chosen to receive it via email rather than waiting for the hard copy.  We still get a hard copy, but an email will shave a few days off, and the faster this can happen, the better.

In the meantime, we are prepping away, trying to view our home through the eyes of a 2-year-old, which means things like moving medications to high, locked areas, reorganizing our pantry to get rid of rickety, old shelves, etc. We're trying to spend lots of time with the furballs, whose lives are about to go to hell in a handbasket.  And, of course, enjoying summer, as the sun is slowly deciding that maybe we are worthy here in Narnia the Pacific Northwest. 

What Now?

We are ready to hop aboard a plane for Xi’an right now, but there is still a lot that needs to happen.  The next step in the process is our I800 approval.  Back in March we were fingerprinted for a general I800A, which is essentially the immigrant visa that brings L home (he travels home on a Chinese passport, and becomes a US citizen when he crosses through Customs in the US).  The original approval was for a child between ages 1 and 5.  Now that we have approval from China for a specific child, we need the US to approve a visa for him in particular.  This should take 3-5 weeks at current timeframes.  Our paperwork was submitted on 7/10. 

Most likely we will travel in October.  L’s birthday is 10/15, and I admit I’m pretty fixated on being there by that date, if not sooner.  We’re not sure that will happen, but have hope.

So, we’re good.  Waiting is hard, but at this point everyone who got to have an opinion on our ability to parent little L (our agency, the Dept of Homeland Security, and the Chinese government) have made their decisions.  The rest is just processing, and so far seems to be a bit easier to take than will they or won’t they question. 

In the meantime, we are re-motivated to finish our library of parenting and adoption-related books, getting our condo ready for a toddler, and figuring out leave/work issues for when the time comes (we both work for teensy companies, so don’t qualify for any leave time per FMLA.  Tricky stuff.) 

Thank you all for your kind words and emails.  It means so much to know we have folks in our corner. 

J

El Oh Aye

LOA.

Letter of Approval.

We got The Call yesterday, and are officially approved to adopt our little boy.  I left work for the day--it's hard to type when your hands won't stop shaking and your brain has turned off.

Then we were emailed this form:

(Identifying info removed as this is on the internet 'nstuff)

which makes it all very, very official.  His name and birthdate are on it, as are ours. 

It's hard to wrap our minds around, really.  After the road we have been on, to actually think about planning for him...it's wonderful and amazing. I really don't know what to say beyond that. 

Fortune has smiled upon us. 

We are so, so very lucky.


 

Out of translation

We are officially out of translation.  We are now waiting on our letter of acceptance, or LOA, which can take 1-8 weeks.  The LOA document will mean that in the eyes of the Chinese government, we will be Little Guys parents.

So, you know, kind of a big deal.

We're waiting on tenterhooks over here.  It's scary.  And wonderful.  And scary.

But wonderful.

A Quick Update (of pretty much nuthin')

I’ve had a few emails, etc, so just an update to say we are still waiting, waiting, waiting.  There are two steps to this particular part of the Great Wait for Approval: translation and LOA.  We are currently in translation, which means our dossier is, well, being translated into Mandarin.  Once that is done, our agency will notify us, and I will begin biting my fingernails again, because that is the actual LOA (Letter of Approval) wait.  The time between translation and LOA is usually 3-4 weeks—could be more, could be less. 

So, for now, we are doing our best to keep as busy as possible, and honestly are doing all right with this part of the wait.  So far.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d hop on a plane tomorrow if I could, but ‘tis not an option.  Another month and I’ll be climbing the walls, but for now, just hanging in there.

 So…how’s that for a boring update?  

J

The Finding Ad

We received something truly amazing in the mail yesterday. 

Virtually all adoptions in China are abandonments, so “finding ads”, or ads placed in newspapers that identify found children, are required before a child is placed for adoption.  This should give families a chance to find their children if indeed a child was lost or taken.  Of course, as with many aspects of adoption, the horror stories of finding ads being placed far away from a child’s hometown or after a child has been adopted out of the country are forefront in everyone’s minds. 

We hired a researcher to look for Little Guys finding ad, and he found it fairly quickly.  We received it in the mail yesterday, with a translation.  A few things stood out:

*We received the actual newspaper containing his finding ad.  The actual newspaper, not a copy.  And it’s a national paper, from his hometown, and printed about 3 months after he was found.  Holy cow.

*The story in the ad absolutely matches up to what we were told. 

And the big one.  Huge.  Enormous.

It contains a picture of him as an infant.

Be still, my heart. 

We now have an infant picture.   We never thought we would have something this important. 

We are so, so happy and so, so fortunate. 

LID

We are officially logged in!  Our LID (Logged In Date) is today! 

Next steps?  In the next 2-4 months we will (hopefully!) get our LOA, or Letter of Approval.  I can't think much beyond that. 

Until then?  We have lots of money to save, lots of things to get ready, and lots of books to read on toddlers, adoption, special needs and all things pertinent to Little Guy.  We will continue to spend inordinate amounts of time talking about him, wondering about him, and planning for him. 

And, of course, hoping for fast and careful bureaucratic processes.

DTC

We are officially Dossier-To-China today.  This means that our paperwork was approved by the powers-that-be in the US and was re-approved by various Chinese Embassies here in the States.  We are taking this as a good sign.

Next step: our paperwork is “logged in”, meaning that it is officially there and the officials in charge of adoptions are starting to work on it—getting it translated, etc.  After that, we hope for an approval notice.  This will likely take 3-6 months.

And so we wait.

And, just a little bit, to hope.