Care Package for Meilin

We thought we would send Meilin another package. We sent this one through Ann at redthreadchina.com . She always does a fabulous job for us.

Beyond Frustration!

Our Article 5 should have been issued by now, even with the Holiday. Other families with our same cable date(the step before Art 5), are receiving their Travel Approval (TA) this week. We were right on schedule to travel by the beginning of november. So what is happening? The darn US apparently has ONE person who signs these and that ONE person was not only away for the holiday, but he does not come back until today. I begged and begged the people at the Consulate in Guangzhou (not supposed to call), to look up my file last night. Not only is it not signed yet, they are hoping to have it ready NEXT week. NEXT WEEK, its only tuesday! AAAARRRGG!!! As another adoptive mom put it...don't they know each one of those papers in the stack is another family waiting to bring their child HOME! This darn Hague treaty, and the darn US Government.....I have had enough of them!

STILL WAITING

Once again, we are still waiting for the USA to do our paperwork. That seems to be the theme this time around. We are still waiting for them to issue our Article 5 which is the last thing we need so that China can give us travel approval. China's offices are closed until the 8th for their National Holiday, hopefully our papers will be ready by the time they reopen.

For all of you I-600 followers, enjoy it. The other family that has been on the same time frame as us every step of the way is travelling this week to bring home their daughter. We had the exact same dates for everything LOI,PA, DTC, LID, LOA. Just in case you are wondering, I am not a fan of the new I-800!

Cable date

We received a letter today that said our file was cabled to Guangzhou on Sept 19th. One more step checked off!

Priceless Photos!

Look what we got!!

We were told back in May that we would not receive any updated information or any photos before travel. This is the norm for Meilin's orphanage. We belong to an Internet group for parents who have/are adopting from here. On this group we found out that another family received an update on their child in August when they requested it after they received LOA. We had to ask again, sure glad we did! These photos are priceless! We also received the following updated measurements.

height：79cm；weight：9.5kg；head size:45cm；chest size： 49cm。

Meigan and Meilin nearly weigh the same, Meilin is 1 inch shorter

I-800 Approved!

Our I-800 has been approved!!! So now what? It's all new to us as this I-800 process is different than the I-600 paperwork we did for Meigan. So the next steps go something like this...

The National Benefits Center (NBC) will forward your file to the National Visa Center and the NVC will forward your file to the American consulate in Guangzhou. Your DS-230 (application for immigrant visa) has been submitted to the consulate. After the consulate receives your file from NVC, it will process your article 5. When the consulate signs the LOA, it will notify our representative in Guangzhou and she will overnight the signed LOA to China Women's Travel Services, CWTS will hand deliver it to CCAA. CCAA will then issue the TA.

Whew! Guess we do some more waiting!

LOA Signed and I-800 Sent

We finally got our LOA in hand(it's been at our agency), we signed it and sent it off. We also sent off a stack of papers to the USCIS for the US A's final approval to bring Meilin into the country. The USA has changed this process since we brought Meigan home and it adds another month to our wait. So glad to have these forms done and signed! A BIG THANK-YOU to Brian for doing most of it!