Chinese New Year

Last night we went to Linda and Victor's house for dinner, and we celebrated Chinese New Year (a little early). Victor cooked a multitude of delectable dishes, and we discussed various New Year traditions. It was a blast. I also found out that the entire family wants to come to the airport to welcome our sons when we arrive home from China. Of course, I did warn everyone that we will all be tired and probably cranky. The boys might even be miserable and not in the mood to meet anyone new. But it's sweet that the family wants to great the children upon arrival. Everyone is getting excited for our trip. We decided not to bring our cell phones to China and only communicate by email. I can check our email once a day from the hotel lobby or an internet cafe. If there is a true emergency, Linda and Victor will have our power of attorney to make decisions and take any necessary action. I also found out from Daniel that I need to buy a booster car seat for Ben. NYS law requires a car seat device up to 80 lbs.!! Yikes! One more thing to add to my list of things to do. I made a few copies of our house key today so that I could leave a few behind for people to check on the house. Unfortunately, the new keys don't work. So back to the hardware store tomorrow. All these little details take up so much of my time these days. I was on hold with an airline today for over an hour (really) to find out if they offer a discount adoption fare. The airfare roundtrip Rochester-Beijing-Rochester for each one of us is cheaper than a one way ticket Beijing to Rochester--and we need two one way tickets. I found out that yes, most airlines have adoption fares, but they are a percentage (65%) off the fully changeable fare. There is no discount off of the restricted nonrefundable fares. This means that the discounted price is still double the cost of just buying a restricted ticket. Bummer.

Getting ready to travel

Now that it's getting closer to our travel date (5 weeks and counting!), we are starting to dot the i's and cross the t's. For instance, today I spent 20 minutes on the internet researching the cheapest place to park our car for the 2 weeks we're gone. First, I debated if we should ask someone to drive us to the airport, or pay the exorbitant airport parking fees. Looking at flight times (6am departure, 11p arrival), I decided that we definitely need to drive ourselves. The next step was to research the various parking options. Should we stay at the airport hotel the night before the flight, and take advantage of the free parking? We would be close to the airport then for our early departure, but I never sleep well in hotel rooms, and we'll have two weeks of hotels. All these small things to consider. What should I wear on the plane? We were told to wear pants that do NOT have buttons or zippers; it will delay us in security. I guess I need to buy stretch pants for all of us. Ugh. Looking at the flight times, I realized that I should disperse the dogs and remaining children to their various temporary quarters the night before departure. Good to know. I spent another hour looking at various visa services. I can hire a visa service or drive to NYC myself to process the visas. It would save us a little money if I did it myself, but we have too much to do now!!

New photos of BingHui

We just received updated photos of BingHui (Ben)! He's grown a ton, and is such a cutie. We are thrilled to have current pictures, although a weird background was superimposed. At least now we can see how he has grown!! The last photos we had were from when he was maybe 3 or 4 years old, and now he's 6. I pulled up a growth chart online, and it seems that Ben is well within the parameters of normal height and weight. We previously thought that he was on the small side. Of course, our whole family is small, so it wouldn't matter to us. It's just good to see that he has grown quite a bit this year. We also received an email and a telephone call telling us that we can apply for our Chinese Visa now. Our case-worker is guessing that we will travel early in March. That is what we've been using as our target date since we applied to adopt FengHong, and we are happy we are still on track. The hold-up with the I-800 hasn't put us too far behind schedule. Even if we receive our invitation to travel in early Feb., we won't travel until March because of the Chinese New Year. All the government offices will be closed for at least a week mid-Feb., and then there will be a back log of paperwork, not to mention crowded hotels. As is stands now, our tentative travel is March 5-19. We are saying our prayers everyday, knowing God will guide our family. Connor and I attend church almost daily, and the entire congregation is praying for us now too!

Haiti

Jan. 12, 2010 there was a massive 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and the island is absolutely devastated. I am, naturally, drawn to all the stories of the orphans. There were 10,000 children in orphanages in Haiti BEFORE the earthquake. After the earthquake, that number will probably double. I know a woman from Connor's Chess club who was in the process of adopting an orphan, a 12 year old boy, from Haiti. The future of that adoption is now in limbo because the government buildings and records were all destroyed in the earthquake. The situation just breaks my heart. I can't imagine how the family must feel. After all the paperwork, and all the waiting, and all the preparing for our new sons, if something like this happened in China just before we were supposed to travel to complete the adoption... How awful! From what the news says, the US government has granted emergency visas to 200 children who were already legally adopted by US citizens in Haiti, but they were waiting for their entry visa. In China, we will complete the adoption, and then apply for the visa at the consulate in Guangzhou a week later. Adoptions from Haiti require the adoption to be completed in Haiti, and then there is a few months lag-time for the visa to be issued. Children caught in that loop are the ones that the government is now flying to the US on an emergency basis. All the rest of the children just suffer. There is an enormous outpouring of Americans who have offered to adopt children who are "for sure" orphans (children who were already in an orphanage prior to the quake), but no one is allowed to accept applications for these children at the moment. There is simply too much chaos. All this reminds me of the Tsunami in the Philippines 5 or 6 years ago. I kept watching the coverage on TV, and that is when I began to say that we should adopt. I could not sit idly by and watch children suffer, when we have the resources to provide a good home for them. It seems as if we came full-circle somehow with Haiti now on the news everywhere. If we weren't already going to China soon, you can bet I'd be on a plane or with some volunteer organization trying to help the Haitian survivors.

I-800 approval

We just received a call from the Dept. of Homeland Security, National Benefits Center. They processed our I800 with the copies that we sent of the original documents, and we are now approved by the US government for FengHong!! Hooray! She uploaded our file to the National Visa Center in Guangzhou, and hopefully they will send us a letter by the end of the week saying they received the file. It looks like we cleared another hurdle! We still hope to travel by March 5th, so that we don't have to extend our invitation to travel (for BingHui) that expires March 10th. On another note, we are still thinking about an American name for FengHong. David is worried people might call him Jackie Chan, who is a Chinese actor of martial arts movies. Back to the drawing board. The name for FengHong is always on our mind, and we want to make certain we find just the right name for our son. We decided that we want to pick a name with religious significance, since we feel God led us down this path. Cheng suggested the name John, since FengHong's surname is Jiang, and John sounds similar. John. Yes, that might work.

New caseworker

We received notice that our caseworker at WACAP is moving to the Russia program. We have a new caseworker assigned to our case. At first, I was worried about the change because I thought there would be more mistakes and delays. But yesterday I received an email from the Dept. of Homeland Security that they need a copy of our I800A application. For some reason, I couldn't find our copy. I emailed WACAP and within 30 minutes our caseworker had scanned in a copy and emailed it to the National Benefit Center. I was MOST impressed. Now, hopefully, the NBC can proceed with our I800 approval. I have my fingers double crossed!

No Progress--still

A week ago I called the National Benefits Center (Department of US Immigration) to ask about our I-800 approval, and I was told that they are waiting for our file back from the Visa center in China. I offered to mail copies of everything, and someone was going to get back to me. Well, still no word from the NBC. I called again on Friday and left a message. On Friday night, I received an email that our caseworker is moving to the Russia program, and we have a new caseworker assigned to our adoption. I hope that doesn't mean that more things fall between the cracks now. WACAP also asked me if I'd please send the signed updated photos and medical reports for FengHong. I sent all those over a month ago, before Christmas! Well, I guess I'm going to have to send them again on Monday. In addition, there has been a new step added now to the adoption process. This is the new step: Beginning January 15, the Consulate will be requiring WACAP to include a letter that families receive from the National Visa Center after the I-800 application is approved, so that they can submit the Article 5 Letter. After WACAP receives the I-800 approval, we need to watch for a letter from the National Visa Center and alert our case manager as soon as we have received it! The National Visa Center does not mail WACAP a copy of this letter. Additionally, the Consulate reports that they will now have fixed processing times for Article 5 letters. From now on, paperwork can only be dropped off on Mondays and Thursdays, and the Article 5 letter will be ready two weeks after the paperwork is submitted to the Consulate. The new process, AFTER we receive the letter of confirmation now looks like this:

1. Letter Seeking Confirmation and Article 5 letter are received by WACAP from the CCAA

2. Your family signs and returns the Letter Seeking Confirmation, I-800, and DS230 paperwork

3. WACAP submits your I-800 paperwork to USCIS, your signed Letter Seeking Confirmation to the CCAA and sends your DS230 paperwork and Article 5 letter to our representative in Guangzhou

4. National Benefits Center (NBC) approves your I-800 paperwork

5. NBC forwards your approval to NVC

6. NEW STEP: NVC will now issue a letter informing you when they send your approval to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou – please send a copy of this letter to WACAP when you receive it.

7. WACAP will send your NVC letter to our representative in Guangzhou who will then submit your paperwork to the Consulate

8. Two weeks after your DS230 and Article 5 letter are submitted to the Consulate, your Article 5 letter will be ready for our representative to pick it up.

9. WACAP representative sends the Article 5 letter to the CCAA

10. The CCAA issues your Travel Notice and sends it to WACAP

This whole ten-step process has been taking approximately 10 – 15 weeks.