Monthly Archives: May 2013

The downpour continues!

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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

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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

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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…

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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.