Ready to travel!

I should have posted sooner, but if have been a bit busy.  ;-). Dirk and I are sitting at our gate waiting for our flight to China!  There was some drama getting our tickets because the airline miles weren't redeemable as they promised, but we were still able to put them to good use and here we are.  I mean, we can't exactly back out now just because of an airline ticket, now can we?  

We left our kids at home with my step-mom and they are all having a blast!  I gave Daniel and Lila each a journal in which I had written them a letter each day we will be gone.  They both lit up when I gave those to them and I hope that helps them to feel connected and loved.  Since Nathan is much too small to read, I didn't give him one, but I spent a long time last night explaining what was happening so he wouldn't be surprised to wake up and find us gone.  We planned to leave at 5 am so I knew that once I tucked them in, it would be a couple of weeks before I saw them again.  I woke up a little after 4 and laid in bed wondering whether to get up or try to get a little more sleep.  Not long after, Nathan got up and turned his light on.  That is very unusual for him so I went to check on him and he was so sad it almost broke my heart!  He seemed happy to see me and stroked my hair (one of the things he used to do as a baby!).  I went and snuggled with him for quite a while and explained that we were going to leave soon but Grammy was downstairs and would play with him, etc.  he seemed much more at peace and I left with him saying, "I love you, Mommy!"  My heart went from broken to melted!  

While we were driving, Grammy texted me and said that when Nathan got up, he went into our room and asked where Mommy and Daddy were.  She told him that we were going on an airplane to China and he asked her, "to get baby sister?" And she said yes.  He then had a huge grin and jumped up and down clapping.  The other 2 have been great too, she said.  Such a blessing!!  I just hope they can keep this excitement and bravery up for a while.  It will be a long wait!

We will get to Guangzhou on Sunday night at 9:20 (Chinese time) and we will meet Mei-Lin on Monday.  Not much time to get over jet lag so I am hoping we can manage to stay awake and be tired enough to sleep through the night "tonight".  I have been feeling like I am getting sick for a couple of days now so hopefully that clears up as well.  I think it's some kind of allergies that I never used to have.  At least that's my guess.  It's just a ton of sinus drainage giving me a raw, sore throat and not much else.  Maybe China won't have whatever it is that is cause of this nonsense.... Hopefully!  ;-)

I will try to update as I can.  

TA!

I received a call from our agency that we now have our Travel Approval and our visa appointment at the US Embassy (the appointment determines when we travel).  We will leave on March 14th and I will come back on the 27th.  Dirk can come home as early as the 21st.  We're skipping the tours in Beijing to keep costs down, but I would love to do those again some day.  I'm super excited!!!  In just under 3 weeks, we will be meeting our new daughter!!  Since we already have our visas, all we need to do is book our flights and pack!  And our bonus miles have already been applied to Dirk's united account, so he gets to fly for free!  (Now we just have to hope he can get the time off work since it comes at a bad time for him)

Happy Birthday, LuZao!

Today (well, yesterday in China but I haven't had a chance to post until now) is LuZao's 6th birthday!  Even though we didn't bring her home, I will always remember her birthday.  I hope she got to celebrate in some small way!  We may go out for Chinese in honor of her birthday, but I'm not sure yet.  (We just had to buy a new washing machine out of the blue so the budget isn't looking too happy)

In terms of our progress, I have communicated with our agency but they didn't bring up the Article 5, so I assume that means it was picked up on the 13th as planned.  (No news is good news, right?)  We're sitting just over a week out so we could receive our TA (Travel Approval) any day, but it's likely to be another week or 2.  There was a bit of a backlog with the Chinese New Year and ours is at the tail end of that so I imagine it will be a little on the long end.  I am so ready to travel!  I'm not ready to see our bank account empty, but we knew about that part going into this.  ;-)  

Article 5 Ready for Pick-up

I got an email from the embassy in Guangzhou this morning that our Article 5 was ready for pick-up.  I haven't heard from our agency about whether it has actually been picked up, but considering it's just after midnight in China, I'm not holding my breath.  Perhaps they just haven't emailed me yet, but since they know how eager I am to know these things, I am guessing it hasn't been picked up yet.  There's no reason that it shouldn't be picked up tomorrow though.  At this point, what's 1 more day?  The thing I'm most eager about is getting our TA and hearing when we will be travelling.  My step-mother is going to come and watch the kids for us while we're in China.  They are SO excited!!  But, we're starting too get a little too close for comfort to a couple of major conflicts for her so I'm getting nervous about managing those.  I'm trying not to panic yet, but it's getting tough.

Small Delay

Our Article 5 will be ready for pick-up on Thursday, the 13th.  That was quite a delay due to the Chinese New Year!!  What is supposed to be 2 weeks took nearly 4!  I guess that's good for us though because a little more waiting just gives us more of a chance to redeem the free tickets that we have earned on our new credit card.  I just have to trust God's timing.  I really didn't see this delay coming, so I have to believe there's a reason.

Lila has been asking daily (often more than once per day!) when we get to go to China to get her little sister.  It's been tough not having answers, but that's just how it is.  I know better than to tell them anything until we have actual travel dates.  They've had too many rugs pulled out from under them as it is.  I am also anxious to start scheduling her doctor appointments so we can try to restore as much of her vision as possible, but I need to know that she will actually be here before I can do that.  Soon enough.

Happy Chinese New Year!

China is now entering the year of the horse.  Since horses are better than snakes, I'm going to take it as a good sign.  ;-)  We will celebrate tonight by eating Chinese food complete with as many noodles as we can get our hands on.  (The kids LOVE noodles!)  I don't know if we are going to decorate or make paper lanterns again.  The kids enjoyed that when we did it last year, but it wasn't quite as exciting for them as I thought it might have been.  We will watch the New Year's episode of NiHao Kai-Lan though!  :-)

Our Article 5 didn't get picked up yesterday.  No real surprise there.  When they say 2 weeks, they mean to the day.  Hopefully it will be ready when they open back up on Wednesday.  I really don't think it will make much difference though.  Either way the Central Authority in Beijing is closed until the 10th, so they wouldn't have gotten it until then anyways.  The silver lining there is that we signed up for a new credit card that will give us a ton of free airline miles so we can get a free plane ticket, but it takes 6-8 weeks for the miles to be applied.  Well, we didn't really sign up in time so this deal is cutting it a little close for comfort.  The extra 10 days for the Chinese new year help buy us a little time in earning that free ticket.  It's still going to be really close if we manage to earn the miles in time, but at least we have a chance.  (Unfortunately we can only use the miles for Dirk, otherwise the miles would give us access to a great family vacation or something equally beneficial)

We have nearly decided on a name.  It's down to 2 names right now that are both really similar.  I go back and forth with which one I like better, but it's Dirk's decision so I'm trying to be patient.  We don't actually have to have it picked out until we have our visa appointment from what I understand so that helps.  Last time we had to have a passport application filled out and notarized before we ever left Germany so we don't have that pressure on us this time.  I will still wait until we bring her home to announce her name just in case it does change again once we meet her.  :-)

Visas

I just received our passports back with our new visas in place!  This is the part where it feels a little more real.  Sort of like feeling the baby kick when you're pregnant.  You've talked about what's coming and you've prepared as much as you can, but it's a little closer to home when you have these visas in hand.  Our next step is to buy plane tickets!  Yikes!!!  (I almost put "last step", but who am I kidding.  Getting to China is really only part of the process.  There's tons of in-country stuff and then more reports, visits, etc. once we're home.  Does it ever really end?)

Taking a break!

Care package has been sent!  It should take 2-3 weeks to get there, but that's ok.  As long as she gets it before we get there, it's all good.

I received my letter from the NVC with my codes so I could fill out the next forms online.  It took the better part of a day for the website to let me do anything, but you can bet that as soon as it did, I was all over that!  It turns out we didn't need to know her American name just yet, so that was good.  We still haven't decided on one yet.  We have a list that ebs & grows, but we're getting there.  It's a little harder because her Chinese name doesn't lend itself well to any American names the way LuZao's did.  And we had the PERFECT name for LuZao (Lucy Rae), so we've got a high bar to reach.  Fortunately, we have more time to settle on the right name for Yang.

As far as the process goes, we are officially done with US immigration and everything else will be handled in China.  The courier in China will take our confirmation from the form I filled out today to the embassy.  They will then issue our "Article 5".  This takes 2 weeks.  We're hoping they can get ours done just a little early because it's already Friday in China and 2 weeks from today is the Chinese New Year, so everybody has the week off.  Well, the embassy might return on the following Wednesday depending on which calendar is correct, but there will still be a rush of people that our courier won't want to contend with.  Once that is picked up, he delivers it to the CCCWA in Beijing.  They turn around and issue our TA (Travel Approval).  That can take 1-3 weeks depending on their speed, but since it will be right after a holiday, they should be moving quickly.  Once we get that, we will be good to go!  Our passports are supposed to be picked up today and they will be mailed back to us, so we will have plenty of time to get those before we need them.  Everything is coming together smoothly this time around!  I don't know how much of that is because we have done it before and how much is us being stateside, but I'm enjoying the relative ease of it all!  Now if we could just agree on a name.... ;-)

Not much longer now!

We have a care package all ready to send as soon as we get the address.  This part of the process is probably my favorite (aside from actually meeting her, that is).  It's our only time to reach out and connect with her before we officially meet her.  I took a lot of hints from the last time we did this.  No giant build-a-bear with voice recorder this time.  That made the box huge (and expensive!) and we never saw it again.  I'm not sure if LuZao ever got to see it either, so it really wasn't worth it.  This time I will stick with a small stuffed animal that can be toted around, but won't be a huge deal if it gets "lost".  I am still sending a blanket, a shirt, and a jacket.  I am also including 2 disposable cameras again.  The last time we only got 1 back, but those pictures are still invaluable to me.  I am hoping this time we have at least the same fortune.  I am also sending some musical toys such as a rattle and a small tambourine since she loves music.  The kids helped me make a book of colors & textures that we're hoping she will enjoy.  Of course, I had to make her a hat!  I made a little ladybug hat that turned out super cute!  Lastly, I also included family pictures, letters for her and for her caregivers, and a small gift of lotion & chapstick.  I really hope they enjoy it!

I have also sent an email that should save us about a week or so of waiting!  The response should give me the information I need to submit our visa application to Guangzhou.  Our agency guessed that we could have our TA (Travel Approval) in about 6 weeks even with the Chinese New Year causing a delay!  It looks like we'll likely be travelling in March after all!!

Visas & I-800

I forgot to update that our passports are currently in Chicago awaiting their shiny new Chinese visas!  Well, they aren't really shiny, but they should be.  ;-)  Those will be picked up next week and mailed back to us.  I'm so grateful for a trustworthy courier so we don't have to drive to Chicago twice to complete that process!!  After this trip, Dirk's passport will be FULL!!  Lucky we aren't planning on doing any international travel anytime soon.

Today I received our I-800 provisional approval in the mail.  This is the form that says that our new daughter is eligible to be adopted via the Hague convention.  Yay!!  I had no doubt that it would be approved (are they ever really denied??) but it was a matter of time.  We can't proceed until this step has been done.  The next thing is to fill out an electronic form that will be submitted directly to the embassy in Guangzhou that will help them process her visa.  The trickiest bit about that is that we need to know her American name and Dirk hasn't figured that out yet.  (Not for lack of me reminding him....)  So, for now I wait.  But not for long!