Category Archives: Travel

The Final Countdown

Posted on by
3

It’s the final countdown! (*insert music as appropriate*).

Wow, our departure is getting close–we’ll be on a very long flight two weeks from today. Our flights and hotels are booked, we’re installing car seats, and we’re waiting for our passports to be returned to us with China visas. Late last week, we also received our itinerary for our trip. Just in case you’re interested, here’s where we’ll be, and when:

  • June 19: Wheels up! We fly nonstop to Beijing (about 13 hours of flight time)
  • June 20: We arrive in Beijing and meet our first guide. We’ll hopefully start to get ourselves on China time (one time zone for the whole country!!!)
  • June 21 & 22: Tons of touring, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and lots and lots of other places. Families have told us we’ll be exhausted by the end of Beijing, but sounds fantastic!
  • June 23: We fly from Beijing to Taiyuan, Shanxi Province and meet our in-country agency rep for the remainder of our trip. We’ll want to rest up for our big day.
  • June 24: Placement Day! We will get custody of Alexander at the Civil Affairs office in the afternoon
  • June 25: We will return to Civil Affairs with Alexander early in the morning to register his adoption.
  • June 26: We’ll take our first family outing to Pingyao, an amazing UNESCO world heritage site.
  • June 27: We pick up Alexander’s passport, notary papers, and take a tour of Taiyuan.
  • June 28: We fly from Taiyuan to Guangzhou in the late afternoon.
  • June 29: Alexander’s medical exam
  • June 30: A day touring Guangzho, the Chen Family Academy, and Yuntai gardens
  • July 1: More city touring, and visa/medical exam report paperwork pickup
  • July 2: Our Consulate appointment. Alexander is approved to immigrate to the US.
  • July 3: Our guide picks up Alexander’s new US passport/visa. More local touring.
  • July 4: We depart Guangzhou via van for Hong Kong. We fly back to Chicago. With the time zone change and flight times, it looks as though we’ll arrive home in early afternoon and in plenty of time for Independence Day fireworks! We’ll clear US Customs, hand over all of the immigration paperwork we’ve been gathering, and Alexander becomes an American!

Aside from big things (like flights and formal appointments), our schedule is fairly flexible. We can’t wait to explore these cities with our new son!

Waiting not so patiently

Posted on by
Reply

The countdown has begun. In less than 30 days, we’re going to become parents to a 15 month little boy in a foreign country. Are we excited? Absolutely. Are we a little terrified? As if you have to ask!

We recently received an update on our little Alexander which has given us a lot of comfort. He’s gained a fair amount of weight and is now the height and weight appropriate for a 6 month old– a tremendous gain for our little guy. Armed with this update, we hit the stores to make sure we’ll be able to clothe our new son once we gain custody on the 24th. Brian spearheaded the efforts this weekend, and the photo above is indicative that no one will mistake Alexander for being anyone’s son except for my loving husband!

In the paperchase news, we drove our passports and visa applications to a courier this afternoon after much drama. Three trips to Office Max, two different UPS stores, and one FedEx later, our passports will soon be in the hands of the Chinese Consulate in order to be issued visas.

Though the time will clearly be flying by, we are blessed to spend the next two weekends gaining new Godchildren. Brian will be the Godfather for our dear friends’ daughter Allison Claire tomorrow afternoon, and we’re both blessed to be able to travel to Kentucky to be Godparents for our cousins Bart and Catherine’s newest daughter Aoife Frances next weekend. I know life tends to be a series of ebb and flow… I’m grateful to be in a period of such joy in new life!

The downpour continues!

Posted on by
1

Late last week, I had a text from Brian that read “Baby shower today!”  When he came into work that day, he was greeted with the following:

Apparently, they also glitter-bombed his desk, too. We’re still finding glitter in our house!

There was cake (really, really good cake!), snacks, and a lot of gifts and well-wishes from Brian’s generous co-workers. Brian also got to share in the fun experience of the amazing clothespin gift bag.

Here’s Brian beginning to open his surprise bag from shower-gifting ninja Sheryll (at right).

And to wrap up the event, Brian’s programming team took a “family photo” holding the baby clothes line gift. Everyone is quite excited about the arrival of our son.

The Computershare Programming Family– let’s hope Alexander is a Perl man, too!

In other exciting news, our flights are booked for China! Our agency is wrapping up our itinerary and hotel reservations, but things are continuing to roll along.

 

Time to Get Booking

Posted on by
3

Great news yet again today! Our agency secured our first choice for a consulate appointment, so it’s time to book our flights and apply for our visas. We leave Chicago for Beijing on June 19th (less than a month!) and fly home with our newest little citizen on July 4th– how appropriate! Our son will be greeted to a nation waving American flags and watching fireworks! Not too shabby!

Set for Launch

Posted on by
11

We received the news we’ve been eagerly anticipating…. our Travel Approval (TA) arrived today! As we’ve said many, many times on A Wide Sea, things are starting to happen FAST! We are so very grateful that our approval arrived today, as next week the CCCWA is completely shut down to upgrade their computer system.

So back to our travels to China to get Alexander! Our agency thinks that if we can get our consulate date confirmed (which usually takes a day or so), that we can be on a plane in a little less than a month. We still need to confirm travel logistics with our agency, but it looks good to us. In less than a month’s time, we’ll be on our way to our little boy! And to think, I’ll spend my birthday with OUR SON!

 

Please Stand By…

Posted on by
3

Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve posted any updates for you all. As we reach the final phase of paperwork and preparations, the reality that we’ll be bringing our little man home soon is sinking in!

Last Thursday (May 9th), we received an email from the American Consulate in Guangzhou indicating that all of our paperwork was ready for pickup. This paperwork, called the Article 5 letter is Our Government’s official stamp of approval for our adoption application. It states that we’re suitable adoptive parents and that Alexander will be allowed to enter the US and become a citizen. This letter is delivered to the Chinese government in Beijing, at which time they basically say “Come on over!” through a formal Travel Approval (TA) invitation. We are wrapping up day 8 of our wait for this TA; most families wait around 2 weeks, more or less. As soon as this letter arrives, we can book our consulate appointment (which is at the end of our trip), then count backwards to plan our flights to and from China. Unless a major delay occurs, we should have our TA before the end of May, and we’ll be traveling at some point in June.

 

 

A little update

Posted on by
Reply

Not too much to report, but we did get the official word that our paperwork arrived at the American Consulate last week and will be ready for pickup (exactly 10 business days later) on May 9th. Then it’s couriered to the Chinese government for our official Travel Approval. We also have our final travel meeting on Monday night with our social worker to complete our visa paperwork and talk about the various interviews we get to have with various levels of the Chinese government once we’re in-country.

Our guest bedroom is now starting to become a dropping-zone for our China gear, which we’re slowly learning how to use. The Burns family most kindly allowed us to use their son/our Godson to test out our baby carrier– success! Hunter, we hope our ineptitude didn’t scar you too much! (They say little kids bounce back quickly, right??) To add to the gear insanity, our good friends/neighbors across the street handed down many, many things to us just last weekend. We don’t know exactly where Alexander will be developmentally, but we do know that we have most, if not all, of the gear we’ll need when we get home.

The kindness, love, and generosity of our family and friends is such a blessing!

 

April showers bring… baby clothes?

Posted on by
2

Things are getting real.

We are now at the point in our paperchase where we don’t really have to do any more “work.” After checking in with my newest friend, the National Visa Center, we got word that Alexander’s application and our petition has been logged in and will be cabled to Guangzhou within the next two business days. (For those who need a map– our little man’s application was mailed to Texas, where it was forwarded to Missouri to the National Benefits Center, then forwarded on to the National Visa Center in New Hampshire (?), and will finally land at the American Embassy in China.) We’re incredibly grateful that with only one minor hiccup, our paperwork is still all together and headed onward. From this point, our agency and the American and Chinese Consulates take over– the end product being a formal letter to us inviting us to travel to China within a specific 90 day window (called a TA- or travel approval). So now, we just have to sit back, relax… and pace our home in anxious anticipation of our big adventure.

Back at Casa Kelly, Alexander’s room is beginning to fill with baby gear and clothing, almost all of which is the result of our generous family and friends. Brian’s sisters, neither of whom live in Chicagoland, hosted a baby shower in honor of Alexander last weekend at the home of one of Brian’s cousins. Family and friends drove and flew in for the occasion, and we were truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for the little man waiting for us in Shanxi Province.  We can’t wait to share with him the stories behind all of the thoughtful and handmade gifts he’ll be surrounded by once he comes home.

I thought about posting a photo of my first attempt to wear our new soft baby carrier (compliments of my good friend Teresa), but it was just too embarrassing. I tried strapping in a stuffed polar bear unsuccessfully. I think Brian and I have several hours of reading instructions ahead of us before we attempt with a human!

 

 

Progress in the Paperchase

Posted on by
1

Good news today! We received an email from our immigration officer indicating that Alexander’s immigration has been given provisional approval and his paperwork is now on its way to the National Visa Center (NVC). We have one final round of paperwork to submit to our agency along with Alexander’s visa photos– then the rest of the paperchase is officially out of our hands. Once all of our forms are at the NVC, papers and documents will start flying between officials and consulates. The end product will be a letter to us granting approval to travel to China.

Just a quick comment about our dealings with USCIS– I have to applaud the officers who handle Hague Convention adoptions. All of my conversations and correspondence with them has been downright pleasant and incredibly timely.  I’ve dealt with a fair amount of bureaucracy and paperchasing, and DHS/USCIS has been one of the most pleasant parts. Go figure!