TIME TO START PACKING!!!

After a week of intense conversation with immigration to get our approval for Emily's adoption, we have finally received a consulate appoinment on March 31, 2009. We will be leaving March 18 and returning April 2. We will post the itinerary when we receive it next week.

Hannah gets 2nd place!!!

Hannah received 2nd place in the her school science fair this week for "Webby Web Web-How does a spider spin its web". GOOD JOB HANNAH!!! On the way home she said "Next year, Mama, I want to do-How a car works" UHOOHHHHH!!!!!

I-800 Approval received today!!!

Last night we found a ladybug in the house.
(Ladybugs are a chinese symbol for good-luck.)

I went to work today and told a friend that I had a dream last night that we received the I-800 today. At approximately 12:00 (noon) our Immigration officer requested information today from us. She was missing pg 8 of a 10 page form. So we completed this and waited ALL day to hear that the I-800 was approved. We received a fax of the approval at 6:45pm tonight. We scanned it and emailed it to our adoption coordinator by 7:00pm. We received an email stating it was on its way to Beijing!!! We are now awaiting for an appointment with the Chinese Consulate to complete the adoption in China. Once we know when the date is, we will know when we travel. We are hoping to make it on the next "adoption plane" out for Beijing on March 18!!! If we do not get to go with the March 18 group, then we can not travel until Aprl. Keep your fingers crossed (and say a prayer) that we will are able to make the March flight to bring our lil' Emily home soon.

Still waiting.....

Well, we are still awaiting our immigration paperwork before we can set an appointment with the Chinese Consulate in China. We were told that if we receive the paperwork and get it to our adoption agency this week-we may be able to travel on March 18, 2009. If we do not receive it-then we travel in April. In April there is a HUGE trade fair going on close to where we are going and the rates for flights and hotels are extremely higher in price and more difficult to get. Here's hoping we get a call tomorrow that the paperwork is ready. Our visas did arrive so we are readyto fly!!!

I-800a approval received today!!!

We received the I-800a approval from immigration. I told Hannah we received Emily's envelope today and she said "Is she in there?" If only she were!!! But-we are waiting for 1 more immigration form (I-800), which should be coming any day now. Once we receive this form, we can make our adoption appointment with the Chinese Consulate in China and plan our travel. Until then-woooohooooo!!!!! One step closer.

Paperwork update

There has been no word from immigration this week. We are hoping to hear something next week so we can get a final date of travel. Our visas went out today to be completed next week and we turned paperwork in for Emily to apply for her visa to come home to the United States. We are getting closer to getting our Lil' Emily!!!!

Updated information

We made contact with our immigration officer!!! She is working her magic and pushing our paperwork through as "priority". She said we should be able to travel the end of February, however, after talking it over, we decided not to travel until the 1st or 2nd week in March as we wanted to ensure the paperwork was received and completed correctly. At this point-we do not want to make a mistake. We also asked for an update on Emily and got a couple new pictures. Did you see her? She is absolutely beautiful. She looks healthy!!! We also received new measurements on her:

Height-78cm, Weight-10kg, Head Size-45cm, Chest Size-48cm, Feet Length-14cm, Teeth-12

Everyone is telling me she is going to wear a 3T, but I am thinking more like a 2T. I will probably take a few of each size to be safe. We are in luck because we saved Hannah's clothes that she grew out of.

We continue the wait

Well......
We did not receive a call or a letter from immigration today. So no news today. I did manage to leave more messages for our immigration Case Worker today though. Everything is on hold until we get our immigration approval. So, the wait continues. Maury from FTIA did send us over some instructions for those forms we need to complete next though. I am still lost but not quite as much now.

Rusti

Paperwork Blues

I am hoping to find something out about our I-800A approval from immigration tomorrow but today I am attempting to complete the paperwork in order to file our I-800. WOW-a college degree and I can not figure any of these forms out. How do they come up with the wording on these anyways?!?!?! Frustrated today is a good word for me. Guess I will call our adoption caseworker, Maury, tomorrow. UGH!!!

TRAVEL APPROVAL RECEIVED TODAY!!!!!!

China approves us to travel and adopt Emily!!!! We are still waiting for the official form from immigration to bring her back into the United States though before we can go. Our immigration caseworker was out of the office today so we could not inquire about where we are in the process. Here's what our adoption agency caseworker told us today. If immigration has approved our paperwork and it is sitting on a desk to be sent out then we can make our travel plans to travel around 2/20/09 (yes-2 weeks!!!!). However, if the approval is still getting approved and we won't receive sometime next week, then we are looking at travel around the sencond week in March-which is when we actually were expecting to travel. I guess we will know on Monday. Say a prayer for approval!!!