New picture of Maddison

June 26, 2012

 Another child from the Hebi City SWI  joined his forever family yesterday.  Praise the Lord!  Little Kia became Pierre-Luc, our little French speaking Canadian.  To the best of our knowledge, Wen Kia and Wen Jia (Maddison) have been together in the same room since she was five days old minus any days the two children were in the hospital for surgeries.  Therefore, we think,  they are pretty close.  Pierre-Luc's mom was so sweet to take a picture of Maddie for us.  Maddison is the first child being held on the left side, wearing a yellow-orange tank in the front row.  She still has short hair, but it does seem to be growing out just a little.  Maddie looks healthy and well.  Praise the Lord, our little one is doing great!  
~ Robin

NVC Letter Arrives (PDF format)

Today we received an email from the National Visa Center (NVC) with a copy of their approval letter.  We forwarded this on to our adoption agency this morning who sent it to their office in Guangzhou. CCAIs office in  Guangzhou will deliver our DS-230 paperwork to the US Consulate where it will take approximately 2 weeks for our Article 5 to be issued.  Once our Article 5 is issued it will be mailed to CCAI's office in Beijing. They will deliver it to the CCCWA (Chinese government for adoption) and they have 2-4 weeks to issue our travel approval. Once we have our travel approval and a confirmed consulate appointment we will be on a plane to China in 10-21 days.  Mid to late August looks possible!!!

I-800 Approval

Robin and I have been wondering if we have been approved by immigration.  I have been looking on-line and it looked like everyone who submitted their I-800 the first of June had been approved.  Most folks were getting emails stating they had been approved - not us!  I got home from work today and went to the mailbox.  What do you know, we had a letter from Homeland Security with our I-800 approval!!!!  They had approved us on June 15th.

So here's the list from a previous post that I promised I'd update.....

• Receive LOA (DONE!)
• Send I-800 application to USCIS (asking US immigration for permission to adopt the child we were specifically matched with)  (DONE!)
• USCIS forwards our approval to the National Visa Center (NVC) to petition visa (DONE!)
• The NVC forwards the approved visa petition to the US Consulate in Guangzhou China 
• The Consulate reviews the visa application (the DS-230), makes sure it meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa, and then signs off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed.
• The approval is forwarded to the CCCWA, which issues our Travel Approval!

Getting closer!!!!

Received Letter of Action from Lock Box

Today we received notification that USCIS had received our I-1800 application June 5th.  Hopefully, they approve us quickly!  It appears from what I am reading on blogs that it usually takes 21 days to get approval :(.  With our luck, it will probably be the whole time!

LOA Arrives

The day started off with us having to take our dog Mandy to the vet for a checkup at 9:00 AM.  We weren't sure if we had to sign for the FedEx delivery, so Robin's dad, Bill, came over on his way home from a Gideon meeting to "watch" and "wait" for the delivery.  We made it home around 9:45 AM, and nothing :(.  We sat down for a couple of minutes and then Bill saw the truck pull up.  Robin went to the door to get the package, and by the time I got there, the FedEx gal was on her way back to the truck!  Oh well, the package is what we wanted anyway!

Missed taking a picture of the FedEx Gal!

The "Cherished" Paperwork

Opening the Package

Reviewing the Documents and Completing Additional Paperwork

This is what our Letter of Acceptance looks like!!  We waited 116 days to receive this VERY important piece of paper.... and had it in our hands for less than 3 hours!!  We had to check a little, tiny box that said "We accept this child" and then sign/date it.

LOA

 

Back in January, when we accepted the file for Maddison, we had to write a Letter of Intent (LOI) to the Chinese Government (CCCWA) stating that we wanted to adopt her.   We sent our LOI to CCAI, our adoption agency.  They translated it and put it onto the official forms.  These forms were in the FedEx envelope along with the LOA.   We had to write "WE ACCEPT DANG, WEN JIA" on the Chinese and English versions of this form and send them back to our agency!

We got the LOA, LOI(s), the I-800, Supplement 1, and the I-864W all filled out, signed/dated, and pictures taken.  Next, we had to run to the UPS Store to make copies of all our paperwork.  Once this was completed, we came back to the house and put together our package to send to CCAI.  Back to the UPS Store we went and our package was shipped by 12:44 PM.  It should be delivered to CCAI by 10:30 Monday morning.  The LOA will be sent to China and the remaining paperwork sent to USCIS for our I-800 processing.

L O A !!!!

We received an email this afternoon notifying us that they had our LOA from the Chinese government.  They are sending it to us overnight and we should have it in our hands tomorrow.  We have to sign the LOA and send it back to CCAI along with our I-800 and I-864W paperwork.  They will send the LOA back to China and forward the other paperwork to our immigration for approval.  We should be traveling to China to get Maddison in 10-14 weeks!  Praise the Lord!