Where's the I 800 approval?

It's been seven weeks since we received our letter of confirmation for FengHong, and I've been patiently waiting for our I-800 approval from US Dept. of Homeland Security. The approval should take 3-4 weeks. Yes, I realize there have been three major holidays, but even so I decided to do my own follow-up with the National Benefits Center. Yesterday, I called to inquire on the status of our case. Well, it turns out that the woman at the NBC had requested (at the end of Nov.) our entire file back from the Visa center in China so that she could issue the approval. She has not received it back yet. I offered to send her our copies of all the paperwork so that she can proceed. Apparently, a boss needs to follow-up, and I might need to fax everything over to the NBC. Of course, being me, I'm wondering why no one called me earlier to inform me of the reason for the delay. If it's just copies of paperwork they need, I have them all too. At least I hope I do. I've been careful to make photo copies of everything before I mail it, but it is possible I'm missing a document or two. The pile of paperwork is simply amazing. When the woman at the NBC asked me if I was calling about the I-800A, or the I-800, I had to pause. Honestly, I'm not sure of the difference in the two forms. But now at least I have the NBC looking at our file again. Slowly, slowly, slowly we move forward toward China and our sons. We just can't wait to bring them home!

Letters to China

Today I am sending out a New Year card to the care-givers of FengHong and BingHui. We've already sent two letters (and a care package) to BingHui, and one to FengHong. It's always a risk sending things because we have no way of knowing if they arrive safely. There are services that will send a care package for us, assembling the package and guaranteeing delivery, but they are quite expensive. For instance, for the service to translate a letter and send a photo they charge $58.00. We are fortunate that we have Cheng here to translate for us. We are able to send photos and a letter for less than $1.00. The package we mailed previously, which contained a disposable camera, jeans and a blanket, cost $54 to mail to China. If I have the service put together that type of package for me in China it would cost over $200.00. Yikes! Today I am just mailing another letter with a recent photo. I also included our email address in the hopes that the foster mother or nannies might contact us directly. It would be nice to establish more of a relationship with our sons' care-givers. They could give us more input on their likes and dislikes and fears. We haven't even received any recent photos of BingHui. He probably changed a ton in the last year, and I hope we can recognize him. We did receive recent photos of FengHong at least. As we wait, we look at the photos all the time, bonding with our sons more everyday.

Names

David and I have spent hours and hours and hours discussing what to do about the boys' names. First, we thought we would just keep their Chinese names. After all, it's a big part of their identity and heritage. But then we also want them to feel comfortable, and an American name might be easier for them in the long-run. It's not fun always having to correct people or have people stumble over your name constantly. In addition, having a new American name might be a nice transition, a way to signify that these children are our sons now. We even sent a letter to FengHong to ask him how he felt about having an American name. Then we sent an email to a man who has adopted eight times from China, and we asked him what he does about the children's names. He said that they do always give their adopted children a new name, but the middle name is their Chinese name. All the way to New York City, David and I hashed out various names. A month ago, we went out for our date night and brought a name-list with us. We quickly settled on Benjamin (Ben) for BingHui. It's close enough to his Chinese name that we thought it would be easy for him to adjust to the new name. However, even after we got the whole restaurant involved in the discussion, we couldn't come up with a decent American "F" name for FengHong. Frank was the only name we both could tolerate, but then we'd have Benjamin and Franklin. That is just too cutesy for us, naming our boys after one of our famous Presidents. Last night, Cheng (our exchange student) suggested we find a name that starts with a J, which sounds close to Jiang, FengHong's last name. Currently, David and I like the name Jackson (Jack). We can only hope that the boys LIKE their names, after we spent so much time trying to decide on the names. Sometimes children in China have already selected an English name for their English language class. If this is the case, then we might have to just go with their pre-selected name. In the meantime, we need to start getting used to calling them Ben and Jack, I guess. If we don't get used to their names ourselves, it will be difficult to feel natural about the name choices later. So, what's in a name? In this case, a whole lot of time, thought, and effort!

Mumbo Jumbo

Today I asked for clarification of exactly how long we would need to be in Beijing. I received the following instructions:
Sandy,
In Beijing, families usually take temporary custody at the orphanage on Sunday, complete the adoption processing at the Civil Affairs Office on Monday, and apply for the child's passport the same day. Sometimes the passport will not be ready until the following Monday, but the family will need to fly to Guangzhou on Friday in order to have the child's visa medical on Saturday (assuming that the family has a visa appointment on a Tuesday).
If this would be the case for your family, your guide in Beijing will express mail the passports to your guide in Guangzhou and she would receive it in time for the visa interview. If your family requests and the consulate confirms a visa appointment on a Tuesday, there should be enough time to receive both children's passports before the interview. The visa process takes 3 days now, so the earliest we advice families to depart Guangzhou is 3 days after the visa appointment, which would be Friday for your family (if the visa appointment is on a Tuesday). Following this travel plan, the trip would last around 2 weeks.

Yeah, now you know how very complicated this entire process is, and why we can't follow what is going on 1/2 the time. I did figure out that we should plan to arrive in China on a Saturday and leave on a Friday. That's good to know.

Travel Notice for BingHui

We did it! We finally received our travel notice for BingHui!! Theoretically, we could travel any time now; however, we are still waiting for the I-800 approval, article 5 letter and travel notice for FengHong. They will be rushing these things though (we hope) because our travel notice for BingHui expires March 10th. I've been looking at flights, and things look good for Jan. or Feb. My fingers are crossed that FengHong's paperwork is swift. We feel like we've been waiting for a long time now.

Article 5

We just received news that CCAA was sent the article 5 letter for BingHui!! Whoo hoo. We should receive the invitation to travel very, very soon. But, of course, we have to wait for the I-800 and article 5 for FengHong too, and that could be a couple more months. At least we know we're not forgotten.

Not Quite

Well, the package from China wasn't our invitation to travel. It was a package from Cheng's family (for Christmas). Drats. We did receive our referral packet for FengHong from WACAP though, and two more letters of confirmation. We had already signed two letters of confirmation for BingHui, and now we have another letter of confirmation for BingHui, and one for FengHong. We don't ask questions anymore; we just sign the forms and send them back. Of course we also make a copy of everything we sign, just in case. We still think we'll receive our invitation to travel any day now. Actually, we're waiting for another I-800 approval for FengHong, and then we should (hopefully) receive our invitation to travel (and article 5 letter) a few weeks after that. According to the wait time we experienced with BingHui, we should receive our I-800 approval for FengHong at the end of next week. Three weeks after that, most people receive their article 5 letter from the consulate. If that is the case, we might be able to travel the beginning of January or early Feb. The middle of Feb. is Chinese New Year holiday, and all the government offices are closed. So, it's either early Feb. or March. We're just taking one day at a time.