Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Wheels of the Bureaucratic Train is a Churning…ever so slowly…

It never seizes to amaze me that this adoption process is so slow.   There is an orphan   ---many orphan children that are waiting for their forever family, and the US Government is processing a file to approve me so that we can travel, etc.  Adoption families get very frustrated because all we want is our children.
Let me explain.  At the beginning of this process I had to file a paper called I800A with Homeland Security, because International Adoption is under that agency.
 Basically the I800A is a   pre-approval to Petition to classify an adoptee as an immediate Relative.  – OK, fine, they want to see homestudy, and the license of the agencies, that they comply with the Hague Convention, and a pile paperwork  to deem that we are following the Hague guidelines—I get it. 
The Hague Convention is something that is in place for   countries to follow for International Adoption. This created  many more steps and hoops to jump thru.   I won’t bore you, but you can read all about it at http://adoption.state.gov/hague_convention.php
Now China has approved me, and we file a I800 – basically same information plus the approval from China.   It took them 10 days for Homeland Security to approve me.  Everyone I dealt with at in this department was extremely nice and had lots of empathy.  My assigned officer kept telling me that she sees it in the system, but it had not gotten to her yet….     It took 10 days.
  So my I800 was approved on June 26th.  This information is cabled to NVC( National Visa Center)  and they issue a GUZ #, which is then sent to the embassy and China officials (as far as I can tell).  This allows us to get a consulate appointment with the US Embassy in China to be sworn in. –This is the last day of our time in China. From there we work backwards and we work with our adoption agency in the states to get travel dates, and the appointments with the Chinese side of the fence…… WHEW…. It actually sounds a lot more complicated than it is.  It is a well oiled machine that rarely falters.
At this point, every day seems like an eternity.  I have been working on this since end of September 2011, and I am ready to have this little one home.   I am taking bets…. My thought is we will have our Consulate Appointment (or CA as we call it) end of August.  This means we need to travel around the 2nd week in August, because the schedule looks something like this:
 Beijing for 3-4 days, and then….
  
Sunday--Arrive Hefei, Anhui Province

Monday--Gotcha Day

Tuesday--Apply for Adoption Registration/notary/Chinese passport

Wednesday--City tour (optional, additional fee)

Thursday--Visit the orphanage (optional, additional fee)

Friday--Fly to Guangzhou

Saturday--Medical Exam/TB test

Sunday--Paperwork review for the consulate appointment

Monday--TB Result

Tuesday or Wednesday--consulate appointment/swear-in ceremony

Wednesday or Thursday-Pick up immigrant visa (depart Guangzhou after 7 pm or depart the next morning)
SOOOOO... what is your bet?

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