Getting warmer...

Got an email this morning from our agency - they believe the Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption has mailed some travel approvals, and based on the date our Article 5 was submitted they expect that ours is one of them!  Hopefully we will know for sure tomorrow - the suspense is killing us! - but in the meantime, our agency has given us some possible travel dates so that they can be ready to request our consulate appointment just as soon as they have our travel approval in their hands...

We might leave around July 6-8 and return around July 20-23.  Or, if our agency is unable to get consulate appointments that will work for those travel dates, we would leave around July 13-15 and return home around July 27-30.   

So for now, the uncertainty remains, but our agency is so professional we have to believe there's an awfully good chance our travel approval will arrive in the next couple of days or else they wouldn't have suggested otherwise.  We won't truly know our itinerary until our consulate appointment is confirmed and we can book our flights.  If our travel approval arrives at our agency's office tomorrow or Monday, we could have a confirmed consulate appointment by the middle of next week.  Then the real craziness begins. 

It's almost hard to believe that it's actually going to happen.  In less than a month!

Any day now...

We've entered the third week of our wait for travel approval, so we could receive an email from our agency any day letting us know that it's arrived and that we can request our consulate appointment.  Once the consulate appointment is requested it is usually confirmed within a day or two, and then the trip itinerary is planned around that date.  Things seem to be back to normal following the Chinese holiday a couple of weeks ago, but I have to admit that this part of the wait has been particularly hard.  We know we're leaving soon, but we don't know when.  We haven't been able to get any updates on Ellie.  The logistics of planning a trip to China, being away from the boys for two weeks, and preparing to take custody of a toddler with a medical condition who has never laid eyes on us... it all feels a little overwhelming at times.  But we're enjoying the summer, and it's going by fast.  This is Patrick's last week of camp, and this one's a full-day camp - so things are blessedly quiet around here while Samuel naps.  It would be much more enjoyable if it weren't so nerve-wracking.   

Ellie is 17 months old today.  I hope this is the last milestone she passes without us.

And then there was no news...

Haven't heard of any travel approvals being received in recent days, probably due to the national holiday that was celebrated in China earlier this week (known as the Duanwu Festival in China, often referred to as the "Dragon Boat Festival").  So if that's the reason for the slowdown in travel approvals, it shouldn't last long.  Hopefully those just ahead of us in line will start receiving theirs later this week or early next. 

A few people have asked whether there's anything that could be done to speed up the process.  The short answer is, "No."  Other than rare exceptions for urgent medical problems, every adoption in China follows essentially the same timeline.  Ours has been much faster than the non-special needs program (which now has a wait time of more than 5 years), but only because we received a quicker match.  We've done the same basic paperwork, which has worked its way through the same bureaucratic labyrinth as that of every other family who is adopting from China.  The process is governed by Chinese and U.S. laws, as well as the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.  It is tedious almost by design, because corruption has been the downfall of many international adoption programs over the years. 

I've seen a few disturbing articles recently accusing Chinese family planning officials of engaging in illegal practices related to the placing of children for international adoption.  These accusations stem from incidents that allegedly occurred several years ago.  They have not been connected in any way to Ellie's province (which actually is relatively new to the IA process), nor have they apparently involved any children with special needs (of which there are many in China, in fact constituting the majority of children living in orphanages and the majority of Chinese children currently being adopted by Americans).  Unfortunately, there is no perfect human endeavor under the sun, and whenever money is involved it has the potential of bringing out the worst in people.

Adoptive parents do pay fees for the privilege of adopting a child, which causes some people to assume that the process is automatically corrupt - but social workers, agency employees, translators, government bureaucrats and travel guides don't work for free.  Neither did I when I was teaching - does that make me some sort of evil opportunist taking advantage of the ignorance of young children?  Is it wrong for a doctor to accept fees for taking care of sick people?  Or a lawyer to be reimbursed by the state for representing an indigent client?  We all have jobs to do, some of them in the helping professions - but other than the work that we do for our families, most of us expect to get paid.  Many of the fees for Ellie's adoption have gone to government entities to cover the cost of processing of our paperwork.  Should other taxpayers foot the bill instead?  Our agency has received payment for doing our home study (which is mandatory for any adoption, domestic or international, but the requirements vary and the social worker spends many hours gathering information and writing her report), and for reviewing and translating our dossier.  Very specialized work, to say the least.  The largest single expense will be the trip to China, much of which goes to the airlines and hotels.  A "child-rearing fee" is collected at the provincial level, which is personally my least favorite aspect of the fee structure - but there is an appreciable difference between orphanages in China that participate in international adoption and those that do not, in terms of the care the children receive and the resources the staff has to do their jobs.  Can we be certain that every dime of the child-rearing fee is used to care for the children who remain institutionalized?  No - but we do know that the process of matching children from orphanages is handled at the national level in China, so there is a record of how many children from each orphanage have been adopted abroad and therefore how much money each orphanage should have received.  The fee itself is standard throughout China.  Chinese parents who adopt domestically pay a fee as well.

What's interesting is that most orphanages in China don't even participate in international adoption - so if it's supposedly so financially lucrative due to widespread corruption, why don't they?  And why has China decreased the number of referrals in the non-special needs program and not adjusted the fees all that much, even though there is a line of dossiers stretching back several years?  If they're only in it to make money, well, they're certainly not doing a very effective job.

We chose the China program in part because it's been a relatively stable program over the years, and because it has an orderly, centralized process for placing children for adoption.  So through the labyrinth we chug along, and we are happy to do it.

News from Guangzhou!

Our agency's staff in Guangzhou sent notice yesterday that they've picked up our "Article 5" letter from the U.S. Consulate and sent it off to Beijing.  This means that the U.S. government has approved our adoption of Ellie and determined that she is eligible for a visa as an adopted child and soon-to-be U.S. citizen, and that all of the necessary paperwork is at the consulate awaiting our arrival.  While we're in Guangzhou (the second week of our China trip), Ellie will have a medical exam at the consulate, then we will have another appointment there a few days later so that we can take the oath for Ellie's citizenship.  So we're not completely done with the U.S. side of things, but the Article 5 letter lets the Chinese government know that we have everything in place to bring Ellie home, other than Ellie herself.  :) 

So now our agency is officially waiting for a document known as Travel Approval, which comes from the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption.  This usually takes 2-4 weeks, although recently I've seen people getting them as quickly as 10 days.  We will go ahead and assume, however, that we will not be on that lucky end of the travel approval spectrum, and maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.

Another bit of good news is that we will likely travel with a group, as there are currently several other families with our agency who are adopting from Henan province and also awaiting travel approval.  Group travel is less expensive, and being around other families will be a lot more fun than being by ourselves.  If we do end up with a group, we will leave on a Wednesday if we opt to tour Beijing, or a Friday if we opt not to.  We're leaning toward not touring Beijing, because as much as we would love to see the sites while we're in China, we want our time away from the boys to be as short as possible.  Someday we will return to China as a family and learn more about Ellie's birthplace - but for now, our priorities are to get Ellie, complete the adoption, and get back home as quickly as possible.  We'll still have about a week in her province and a week in Guangzhou, most of which we'll spend waiting for various paperwork to be completed, so there will be lots of down time to experience a little of the Chinese culture.  Whether we tour Beijing or not, we will receive Ellie on the same day the rest of the group meets their children - so for us, the extra days in Beijing are not all that important.  We'll meet the group in Beijing on a Saturday, then fly to Zhengzhou (probably the next day) and likely meet Ellie on a Monday or Tuesday.  And then she'll be ours.    

Visas?... Check! Potty training?...

...Well, we're working on that.  Samuel is really doing great for a 26-month-old boy.  It wasn't a specific goal of ours prior to the China trip, but he started showing some interest and some control so we decided to go for it.  It would be great to only have one child in diapers when we return.  Also gives me another reason to be glad we aren't planning to bring the boys with us, because from what I hear about the public restrooms in China...  let's just say I'd rather have a toddler in diapers than one who needed to use a "squatty potty" in a big hurry.

Our passports arrived back today from the Chinese Consulate in Houston with our travel visas stamped inside.  They're actually very cool-looking.  I've never traveled to a country that required a visa to be issued in advance - I actually remember being rather disappointed during my first couple of trips to Europe that I acquired so few stamps in my passport.  Customs agents in European countries practically yawn when handed an American passport.  The stamps they give (when they bother to give them) aren't a whole lot more exciting than the due-date reminders I remember receiving in my library books back in elementary school.  The Chinese visas, on the other hand, are quite pretty and very official-looking - nice mementos of our upcoming journey, permanently affixed to our passports.  (They also were not cheap, which is, of course, the flip side.  Apparently, China increased the visa fee for U.S. citizens in response to the U.S. State Department charging Chinese citizens more for American visas.  Ah, isn't diplomacy grand?)

Expecting our Article 5 to be issued by the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou on June 2nd or so...  travel approvals are taking just over 2 weeks right now... we're getting very close - and I realized just the other day that I don't think we have ANY MORE PAPERWORK to fill out prior to our trip.  Other than updating our wills.  And signing power of attorney for the boys' medical care over to our parents while we're away.  Gulp.  Those are the things I don't like to think about.           

Cabled!

We received an email today letting us know that our file was sent from the National Visa Center to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.  The letter was dated yesterday, and the files are sent electronically ("cabled") - so this email means that our agency's staff in Guangzhou can now hand-deliver our remaining paperwork to the consulate and the consulate will issue our Article 5 in two weeks.  (The Article 5 letter is the consulate's official documentation that our immigration paperwork has been approved for the adoption and that Ellie is eligible to receive a visa to come to the U.S.)  The Article 5 letter will be picked up by our agency staff, overnighted to Beijing, then delivered to the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption Affairs.  Our travel approval will (hopefully) be issued 2 - 3 weeks later.

We should have our own travel visas soon, and we're starting to think about the best way to book our flights.  Ideally we would use our Delta Skymiles - at least for an upgrade on the way there, when we'll be flying child-free and might actually get some rest - but we may not have enough advance notice to be able to do that.  The Asian airlines generally have a better reputation for service, accomodations, etc. - Korean Air in particular is well-liked by people who've used them to travel to China.  Korean Air and Delta do "partner" on certain routes, so we'll have to see if we can take advantage of that.  We won't purchase a ticket for Ellie on the return flight, since we won't have a car seat with us anyway - so the priority will be trying to reserve the "bulkhead" seats at the front of the coach cabin, which are coveted by families traveling with small children because there is a lot more space and no risk of incurring the wrath of the travelers seated in front of you due to your child's restless feet bumping the seatbacks.  :)  (People who've never traveled with young children don't realize how hard it can be to keep those little feet away from the seat in front of them.  Especially when you're using a car seat (which we have always done when traveling with a toddler, because it is safer and, in spite of the hassle of lugging it on the plane, in my experience it generally makes things much more sane once you're settled) - those little feet are mere inches from the seat back, and once a child figures out how much fun it is to kick that seat, you literally have to hold their feet down to keep them from doing it.  Which often produces the equally-annoying screams of protest.  For the record, though, we have gotten a lot more compliments when flying with our children than we have dirty looks, although I have found - mostly from observing how people react to other people's children, even before I had kids myself - that some passengers are determined to be annoyed as soon as they see a young child sitting near them on the plane.  And, of course, there are those parents who do little or nothing to try and prevent their children from being a nuisance to those around them.  It's a tricky situation, because you don't want to ruin someone else's flight - but if your child is crying inconsolably or writhing uncontrollably there's often not a whole lot you can do at 35,000 feet with the seat belt light illuminated and the flight attendants blocking the aisle with the beverage cart.  Except, maybe, you can buy drinks for everyone seated around you - and two for yourself.  :) )

It's going to be interesting...

Provisional Approval

We received an email from our USCIS officer letting us know that she was approving our I800 application effective yesterday (May 9th), and that the National Visa Center should have our file by the beginning of next week.  From there, our information will be forwarded electronically by the end of next week to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.  Once the consulate has our information, we should receive travel approval about 6 weeks later.

I'm relying a lot on incredibly detailed charts kept by amazingly conscientious and tech-savvy adoptive parents who painstakingly record timing stats submitted by the rest of us, who sit anxiously by hanging on every approval (whether it's ours or someone else's).  The funny part is, it's pretty darn close to what our agency has been telling us all along - we'll travel 11-15 weeks after our I800 was sent.  It's looking more and more like mid-July!