Visa applications were sent out by FedEx yesterday.
Our family photo album that we can send to Natalie was finished today, and her lullaby CD was purchased.
Stress level is going down and life is good!
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Visa Applications
This week I have been working on our visa applications to China. For some reason this felt like the most stressful thing I have done in this adoption process. It shouldn't have been that difficult, but I was about to scream my head off a few times!!! I think the added stress of Christmas right around the corner and my classes I am teaching just intensified the stress. With adoption papers, you always want to get everything mailed off as soon as possible because you never know how long the wait time is going to be.
In order to apply for visas, we have to hire a courier to take them into the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. (just like we did with our dossier papers) because you can't just mail them in. As I was trying to decide which courier to use, and reading Holt's instructions, I was getting so confused because they each said something different. I thought one said that you could hand write the applications, so I did that for all three of ours (Chad, me, my mom) only to find out that they had to be typed. These are the kinds of papers where everything has to be just right or China might reject them, so I think I quadruple checked everything I did. We also had to go get another set of passport pictures taken. Apparently the ones we took 7 months ago were too old. Good grief.
I had everything ready to go yesterday, hoping to get to FedEx before the big winter storm hit. There was one last document that I was waiting on, a formal invitation letter from the Chinese government to show that we had a reason to be in China at that time. I did not end up receiving that until last night due to the time differences in the work days between here and the west coast. I was so frustrated that I could not get out of the house to go send them off due to the blizzard. Chad does not understand that, he thinks there is really no difference between sending them one day versus the next, or even waiting until after Christmas. He is a little paranoid that they will get lost in the massive amounts of packages and mail going out this week, and it does make you nervous since you are sending your passports with it. What he doesn't understand is the huge relief I have just getting those things out of my hands and my house so that I don't keep looking at them and stressing over the details. I keep getting them out and looking over everything again, like the boogie man came in and stole some of my papers during the night. :) I am heading out later this afternoon to GET IT DONE.
In order to apply for visas, we have to hire a courier to take them into the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. (just like we did with our dossier papers) because you can't just mail them in. As I was trying to decide which courier to use, and reading Holt's instructions, I was getting so confused because they each said something different. I thought one said that you could hand write the applications, so I did that for all three of ours (Chad, me, my mom) only to find out that they had to be typed. These are the kinds of papers where everything has to be just right or China might reject them, so I think I quadruple checked everything I did. We also had to go get another set of passport pictures taken. Apparently the ones we took 7 months ago were too old. Good grief.
I had everything ready to go yesterday, hoping to get to FedEx before the big winter storm hit. There was one last document that I was waiting on, a formal invitation letter from the Chinese government to show that we had a reason to be in China at that time. I did not end up receiving that until last night due to the time differences in the work days between here and the west coast. I was so frustrated that I could not get out of the house to go send them off due to the blizzard. Chad does not understand that, he thinks there is really no difference between sending them one day versus the next, or even waiting until after Christmas. He is a little paranoid that they will get lost in the massive amounts of packages and mail going out this week, and it does make you nervous since you are sending your passports with it. What he doesn't understand is the huge relief I have just getting those things out of my hands and my house so that I don't keep looking at them and stressing over the details. I keep getting them out and looking over everything again, like the boogie man came in and stole some of my papers during the night. :) I am heading out later this afternoon to GET IT DONE.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Fortune Cookies
When we ate our fortune cookies after dinner last night, none of the fortunes were really all that great. On the back of each of them, there was an English word given, along with the Chinese version of that word so that each of us could learn a little Chinese. Here are the words that each of us got:
Luke: LEARN CHINESE - TV (this is actually very appropriate!)
Logan: LEARN CHINESE - Living Room
Jenna: LEARN CHINESE - Bowling
Tera: LEARN CHINESE - Family
Chad: LEARN CHINESE - Daughter
Chad thought it was amazing that out of all the words there are, that was the one he got! I have to agree.
Luke: LEARN CHINESE - TV (this is actually very appropriate!)
Logan: LEARN CHINESE - Living Room
Jenna: LEARN CHINESE - Bowling
Tera: LEARN CHINESE - Family
Chad: LEARN CHINESE - Daughter
Chad thought it was amazing that out of all the words there are, that was the one he got! I have to agree.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
LOA Arrived
Holt called with the good news that we received our LOA today!!!!! Once we were matched with Natalie on October 31st, we submitted a LOI (Letter of Intent) to China stating our intent to adopt her. After that, we were told that we would have to wait 1-4 months to receive our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China, approving the match and all of our paperwork. I read a lot of stories on Holt's China blogs about the length of time that others had waited for their LOA, but ours came in 6 weeks! This was a major factor in determining when we may be able to travel, and now they are saying that we should go in early MARCH. For the first time in this entire process, I feel like things are going really fast and I am thinking I better start getting a little more prepared for her.
Tomorrow once I receive our LOA from FedEx, I will be submitting our I-800 application to U.S. Immigration. Once we receive the approval from them, Holt sends that document to China and our final travel approval processing begins. We will soon be applying for our visas into the country, and hiring a courier in Washington to personally take the applications into the Chinese Embassy and get more authentications.
We are so excited to see light at the end of the tunnel now! I can't believe that we will be with Natalie when she turns 2 on March 25th. Amazing!
Tomorrow once I receive our LOA from FedEx, I will be submitting our I-800 application to U.S. Immigration. Once we receive the approval from them, Holt sends that document to China and our final travel approval processing begins. We will soon be applying for our visas into the country, and hiring a courier in Washington to personally take the applications into the Chinese Embassy and get more authentications.
We are so excited to see light at the end of the tunnel now! I can't believe that we will be with Natalie when she turns 2 on March 25th. Amazing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)