WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!

Things have been in a whirl wind since we got our travel approval! We are really going to China and we have so....much left to do to get ready.

It has been a real pain to get our travel arranged. We still haven't booked our hotels in Hong Kong. We are waiting to hear from David's friend in Hong Kong to see where we should stay that is close to his friend. We are going to get to see a Hong Kong fire station. That probably doesn't excite most of you, but we think it will be cool. We also have to leave a day earlier because we couldn't get airline tickets on the day we wanted them. We also have to stay another day due to the same reason.

Here is our itinerary:

May 10 - Leave for Dulles International Airport
spend the night near airport
May 11 - Fly to Beijing

May 12 - Arrive in Beijing

May 13 - Meet the rest of the travel group ( I believe there are 14 other families in our group)

May 14 - May 15 Tour: visit Tiananmen Square, Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Forbidden City, Hutong Tour (tour of Chinese houses) possibly go to a acrobatics show.

May 16 - Fly to Zhengzhou, Henan

May 17 - Gotcha Day! Can't wait to meet you Abbey!

May 18 - Go to Adoption Registration building and complete adoption paperwork.
Abbey is ours!

May 19 - Day to rest (other families completing their paperwork)
Happy 20th Anniversary for David and me!

May 20 - Tour (hopefully we can go visit Abbey's orphanage)

May 21 - Receive Abbey's passport in the morning, Leave Zhengzhou for Guangzhou

May 22 - Abbey gets her physical and some shots. The shots are a requirement of the US Government, Senators are working to change this. I hope they do soon! Poor Abbey. (Meigan didn't have to get shots when we got her). Also, preparing paperwork for our US Consulate appt.

May 23 - Free time

May 24 - Have Abbey's Tuberculosis test checked

May 25 - Free time

May 26 - US Consulate appointment

May 27 - Take oath at the US Consulate (promise to the US government that we will take care of Abbey and never abandon her)

May 28 - Get Abbey's visa to come to the USA

May 29 - Leave Guangzhou for Hong Kong on the train

May 30 - Site see in Hong Kong

May 31 - Fly home to the good 'ol USA!
(Hong Kong to Chicago to Dulles, drive home) or be too tired and stay the night at a hotel (the one our car is being parked at) and arrive home on 6/1

We got Travel Approval!

We got our Travel Approval on Friday, April 23rd! Since starting this process everything has been so slow. Waiting for each step of this process has been just torture especially since seeing Abbey's picture right before Christmas. T0 have received our Travel Approval in 11 days after getting our Article 5 is a record for speed.

After people starting posting on one of the Yahoo groups that we are members of that it was hard to get flights to China in May and that they cost more, I knew we would get our travel approval. Apparently May is a great time of year to visit China and for people who live elsewhere to go back home to China for a visit. The airlines know it. Can't book our flights for sure until our appt with the US Consulate is booked. We hope to know our itinery for our trip by Wednesday of next week.

Yeah, we are finally going to China!!!!!!!! Here we come Abbey!!!!!!!!
(here I go again getting weepy)

We got our Article 5!

WE GOT OUR ARTICLE 5! Our agency let us know this week that our Article 5 was picked up on Monday (4/12) from the US consulate in Guangzhou, China (who issued the Article 5) by an agency rep and sent to Beijing to another agency rep. The agency rep in Beijing has received it and hand delivered it to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) on Wednesday (4/14). Hopefully it will only be a couple of weeks before the CCAA issues our travel approval. Once we get travel approval (TA) we will go to China and get our sweet Abbey within a month of receiving TA. Our agency will call us when they get word of our TA and we will start making travel arrangements. We're in the homestretch!!!!!!!

For those who don't know what an Article 5 is, neither do I really. But it's the final approval from the USA that we have their okay to adopt Abbey and bring her home to the good 'ol USA. That when we come to China they will issue Abbey a visa to come to the USA (we have already paid them the fees for this). She will automatically become a US citizen as soon as her little feet touch the ground anywhere in the United States. OK, now I'm getting all weepy.

Will update our blog when we get any more news.

They found our $

Our agency found our money and documents. Said they were sorry. They sent them to China on 3/22. That was a 12 day delay in us getting to China. But at least they found them.

We are now waiting to hear from our agency that the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China has processed our documents (Article 5) and they are on their way to the Chinese government (CCAA) for them to process our documents and issue our Travel Approval. All this will happen probably in the next month. OMG this waiting is so slow!

Oh the drama.......

Here's one for the Bailey drama records!
Our agency lost our immigration paperwork and $5,160 worth of checks!
I sent this payment and paperwork to them on 3/10/10. I sent it Express Mail through USPS and requested that they sign for it. Thank heaven I did! They said they got some of the paperwork I sent them by an email sent to us on 3/11/10 (the travel portion part) but they emailed us last night asking us when we were going to submit our immigration paperwork (for Abbey's visa) and payment. The other stuff I sent them on 3/10! Of course, I open the email after business hours. so I have to wait until Monday to deal with them. Needless to say, I was not very happy. It took quite awhile before I calmed down. Still woke up in the middle of the night worrying about it. I just CANNOT BELIEVE THEY LOST IT!!!!!!!

This will most likely delay our travel, depending on how quick we can resolve this problem. I'm not very happy with them right now!

More OK's needed.....

If you look at the sidebar of our blog (to the right) I have created a timeline of milestones on our adoption. For this adoption we have to jump through many more hoops to get all the approvals needed for the Chinese government to issue our travel approval. It's the US government that's the hold up in going. We just got our NVC (National Visa Center) letter last week telling us that our I-800A immigration approval was sent to Guangzhou, China to the American Consulate for our next approval. But the American Consulate have yet to receive our 230 document from our agency in the USA. They need this document in order to issue our Article 5 that is then picked up by our agency representative in China and taken to the Chinese government (the CCAA) for them to issue our Travel approval. Have I put you to sleep yet? Could they have made this any more complicated? I think not. Will keep you posted on the status of all this hoop jumping.

FINALLY.... An American name for our daughter!

It seems as though it has taken forever to come up with an American name for our daughter. Almost every name Dave liked, I didn't, and every name I liked, he didn't. We tossed around more names than I can even believe we tossed around. Nothing seemed to stick, other than "Wennie". For those of you who like the name "Wennie", sorry. The name isn't Wennie. Some people have informed us that the name we chose is pretty, but there are tons of little girls with this name. She will be one of many with the same name in her class at school. Well, so be it. Having a last name that starts with a letter that happens to be close to the beginning of the alphabet she will most likely be #1 of this name. That works. Am I just dragging this out too long? OK, a drumroll please............... scroll down please........

Abigail Wen Bailey

(Abbey)