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.

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.