Process

I told myself I was going to blog regularly while I was here....that hasn't really worked out so far. Four children take up a lot of time! Plus Cora requires that I hold her 99.9% of the time including while she sleeps. That doesn't leave much free time for typing. Oh well.

I thought I would shed a little light on the process in country. The first full week is in Zhengzhou which in the capital of Henan province. All four of our kids are from Henan so their adoptions are finalized there. Every adoption process if fairly similar in country which makes things smooth and predictable. The ZZ side is to finalize everything on the Chinese side. On Monday we met the children and signed paperwork to take them with us until Tuesday. This 24 hour period is called the harmonious period in which you can decide if you want to move forward with the adoption. More people turn back here than you would image. On Tuesday we finalized their adoption along with 10 other families in our travel group. Next came visits to the notary office to make things official official. The notaries work hard over the next few days to generate all of the paperwork we will need to return home - adoption decree, birth certificate and abandonment decree in both Chinese and English. We received three sets of each. The final steps in ZZ are to acquire Chinese passports for both children. That includes getting acceptable passport photos of two one year olds. You can imagine all of the fun included with that. The last stop is a visit to the passport office to apply for their passports. The officials in ZZ have been very adoptive family friendly over the years and agree to process these items much faster than they would for a typical client. Chinese citizens wait weeks for their passports but they are able to issue them for our children in just two days. The visits are very official and much different from a US appointment. Our passport meeting was videoed from multiple angles and also photographed for the official records. We are so thankful that they allow for a smooth process for our kids.

The next full week is spent in Guangzhou for the American side of the trip. We completed medical exams for both children which allows us to move forward with their US visa interview. The medicals consist of general screenings, height, weight, ENT, discussion about their special need and a TB blood draw. If your child is cleared then they are given the green light to attend the US Embassy visa appointment. That is our final step and will be tomorrow. If all goes as we hope we will receive Colin and Cora's visas on Friday which allows us to leave Sat morning. Prior to coming to China we completed multiple forms to lay the groundwork for this appointment. Between each official appointments there are also meetings with our agency guides to complete additional paperwork and make sure we are prepared for each step. CCAI does a great job making sure we are completely ready for each scheduled appointment. They hold your hand every step of the way.

Our travel group has 11 families who have adopted 13 children! It's a huge blessing to us all.

Zhengzhou Visit

Colin lived at Zhenghzhou SWI (Social Welfare Institute). He spent the first eight months of his life in the Lily Orphan Care Center section of ZZ SWI that is sponsored by our agency. We were able to visit with the ayis that work there who all appeared to love him. This was the first stop on the eating snacks around ZZ SWI tour! Colin enjoys a good snack and these ladies were happy to hook him up. We also visited the therapy floor which consists of PT, OT, acupuncture, traditional medicine and a few other rooms I wasn't sure what happened in. Colin ran from room to room and was scooped up by many of the staff. Once again he seemed to be very loved. They, of course, filled him up with more snacks. At the end we were able to meet his foster family. They have cared for him since he was eight months old in their home. ZZ SWI has between 600-700 children at any given time. Once section of the property is for foster apartments where 3-6 children live in a home with a mother and father. He has been with the same family the entire time in foster care. He walked right in the apartment and immediately requested a snack! His foster mother quickly provided him, and us, fruit. She seem so kind.

We were able to visit AnYang SWI in 2013 which is said to be one of the poorest orphanages in Henan province. It was...it was a hard thing to experience. ZZ SWI was much different. Our guide reports that it in one of the best in Henan. There are classrooms, therapy rooms, playgrounds, outdoor space and activities. I think the thing that stood out the most was the number of adults involved in care taking and that they seemed happy to be there serving the children. We were happy we were able to spend time in his home of 23 months.

His foster family in their apartment.

ZZ SWI outside, play area and his apartment building

The Lily Orphan Care Center

The therapy rooms and two of his therapist

For my PT/OT people they had BWSTT, tiny little arm bikes, gait trainers, standers, mat table, tiny stair climbers and more!

Colin was happy to be scooped up by all of his friends from ZZ but at the end of the day wanted to go with us. That makes me happy and sad all at the same time.

Family Day

It has been a few days since I have had time to sit down and blog. We left Biejing on Sunday to head to Zhengzhou which is the capital of Henan province. We took the high speed train which was an experience to remember. The train station is very very busy and you need to say goodbye to personal space. We had to navigate the train station with our luggage making it even more exciting. Once on the train we cruised to ZZ at 190 mph. In ZZ we made our way to the hotel before a quick trip to Carrefour. We are staying in a hotel away from the group (since we can stay for free) so they booked an Uber for us! Carrefour is similar to Walmart so we made a quick stop to pick up diapers, snacks, formula and a few other things.

October 9 was the big day. We loaded the bus at 9:30am to drive about 20 minutes to the government office where we would meet the kids. Cora was already there with her ayi from Beijing. Her ayi is so sweet and took such good care of her. They brought us enough of her special formula to last until we get back to the US. She was very nervous but we had time to play before leaving since there were 13 adoptions that morning. Colin came in about 15 minutes later and was very happy to play on all of the toys. He had some good snacks and was ready to go.

The first days together have gone as expected. It's a lot of change for Colin and Cora. They are making progress everyday and we are starting to see their little personalities. Ayla and Isaac has been amazing on this trip. They are flexible, happy for the most part and being very kind to their new siblings. With that said they do enjoy time in the "big kid only" room.

We are now the Duncan 6!

Day 2 and Day 3

Day two and three have been excellent and very long. We spent day two with our agency guide. We went to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City which were about 20 minutes from our hotel. They limit the number of people who are able to visit....to 80,000 people a day! Our guide said that they are often sold out by 9am each day. It is currently the end of National Day holiday in China so the crowds are said to be larger than typical days. National Day is Oct 1 and runs through Oct 7 every year. This year Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Oct 4 so the holiday week is extended to Oct 8. Following our visit to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City we took a rickshaw ride through the hutong (narrow alleys in Beijing) to visit a family for lunch. They are set up in a similar fashion as the Cuandixia village with families sharing a courtyard/common area.

On day three we went on our own to the Great Wall of China Mutianyu and Summer Palace. We left early to avoid the holiday crowds which are said to be the worst this time of year. We took a cable car to an upper section then made our way through six watch towers. It was a very cool experience and hard to really explain. The smog arrived the night before so it wasn't as clear as we had hoped but it was still amazing to walk on the Great Wall. We took the toboggan ride down which I am sure is what the builders envisioned! We then made our way to the Summer Palace which was the summer location for the Emperor. It was also beautiful and very crowded. There were about 40,000 people there when we arrived. They have an electronic counter outside of the main entrance that shows how many have arrived prior to you that day. There is a large beautiful lake that we dug BY HAND to allow for a cool breeze. We took a dragon boat ride across the lake to have a better view of the many buildings that were built throughout the property. There is so much history in these locations that it feels impossible to take it all in.

Other random things

There are yellow bikes EVERYWHERE. A few years ago a company created a bike sharing program that is all over the city. Each bike has a GPS and QR code on it. You can download the app, pay a $15 start up fee and then you are ready to go! You can use the app to find a bike by GPS, scan the QR code and the bike will be ready to use for one hour for 1 RMB. A few looked to have solar power panels on them. Following the use you can leave the bike anywhere. No need to return it to a specific location. They are absolutely everywhere.

Driving in Beijing

Years ago Beijing completed a large expansion of the highways and roads in preparation for the Olympics. They encouraged people to buy cars, get their drivers license and buy a plate. Beijing has boomed in population over the past 20 years so then it was determined there were too many cars on the road so the process changed dramatically. People in Beijing can drive between the ages of 18 and 65. At 65 you are deemed too old to drive so you are no longer eligible. In order to drive you must receive a plate (license plate) from the government. Once you have a plate you keep it for life and can pass it along to your children. Currently there is a lottery system. There are 1,000 plates issued every two months with approximately 500,000 applications. Our guide has been trying for over five years and has not yet been drawn. Maybe soon! He also said there are license plate sharing systems in place for those who want to drive but can't. There are also cameras everywhere in BJ that allow the police to send you a ticket, to your phone, within five minutes of violating the traffic laws! This includes texting and driving.

Education

Education is very important to families in China. Our guide talked about his four year old son and how much pressure there is to make sure he is in the right schools. He describes birth as the starting line. His four year old is in school, with homework at his age, along with four addition lessons a week including calligraphy. Every child will take a test at six year old to determine what school they are able to attend. The top scorers will attend the top schools. This format of testing continues up through college.

We have received many stares of people trying to figure out our family. I am sure that will just increase once we have four Chinese children!

I apologize the many grammatical errors as I am sure there are many. Jet lag is no joke.

We have arrived!

We arrived at the airport at 6:15am Tuesday for our flight to Detroit then on to Beijing. Everything was on time and seemed fairly smooth. The kids did AMAZING. They both enjoyed riding the train, moving sidewalk and escalator over and over and over. Whatever keeps them happy!

We were greeted by our guide in BJ and made our way to the hotel where we promptly climbed in bed. They say to push through to fight the jet lag but we just couldn't on day one. We were up super early for our first full day. Beijing is huge. Beijing extends past the city center to include farmland as well. We drove a couple of hours into the farm land area to Cuandixia village. This is a historic village dating back to the Ming Dynasty. The village consists of 92 families and a little over 200 people. No outside agencies or people are allowed to create a bussiness in the village, just the local families. Many of the living areas open to a shared courtyard that is shared by members of the same family. We were able to eat in the courtyard of a local family. The food was excellent and overall a neat experience.


This is the family home entrance. Women must step over the threshold with their right foot while men step over with the left. The height of the step represents their place in society. Each entrance has a threshold followed by a short walkway that always has a wall directly in front of it to hide/shield the family possessions from being visible to people walking by. The parents home is always placed at the north of the complex with the home of the son to the east, daughter to the west and guest/servant home to the south.

The food was excellent. Our guide described it as farm food but I can't exactly remember why. Next we were able to walk through the village and hike around the outside for a better view of the town.

It was a great first day.

Busy Busy Busy

A lot has happened in less than 36 hours! Our A5 (article 5, paperwork from the US Embassy in Guangzhou) was picked up August 31. This is the last US step in our adoption process until we are in China. That paperwork basically tells the Chinese government that all of our ducks are in a row and that Colin and Cora will be allowed to enter the US upon completion of their adoption. Once the paperwork is delivered back to the adoption authority in China they will issue a TA (travel approval) that grants us permission to come to China!! We received our travel approval yesterday morning. Receiving TA allows us to ask for a CA (consulate appointment) in Guangzhou which is required for Colin and Cora to be issued their visa's to enter the US. We received our CA this morning and proceeded like crazy people to book flights and hotels.

Flights are booked and we leave October 3! We will return home as a family of SIX on October 21! We will spend a few days in Beijing while our entire travel group arrives and then make our way to Zhengzhou. We will meet the babies on October 9 (evening Oct 8 US time). Last time we were able to leave much quicker but this time is a little different due to the holiday. Our family day would have most likely been Sept 25 but there are no family days Sept 25 or Oct 2 due to government closures to celebrate. We are glad we made the cut off for Oct 9 as Colin's birthday is Oct 14. We will be blessed to share it with him.

More details to come as we prepare to leave. Now we must pack....

Long Overdue Update

I have been a really bad at blogging this time around. I am totally going to get better!

A lot has happen since the end of July. We received official approvals from China to adopt Colin and Cora. Here comes some boring details so feel free to skip this part! The first notice comes via computer system to our agency and then shortly after a hard copy arrives at the agency. A signed copy of the approval letter was sent, along with additional immigration paperwork, to United States and Immigration Services (USCIS) for our final immigration approval. That arrived at the processing center in TX and then was sent....somewhere else, forgot what state....to the National Benefits Center (NBC). We received that approval 8/8/17. Once the NBC approved us the paperwork was sent to the National Visa Center (NVC). The NVC will assign your case a visa number related to the embassy you will be using. For us that is called the GUZ number. I had to email and ask very sweetly for the GUZ number to file our DS260. We received our GUZ number 8/14/17 and filed Colin and Cora's DS260 which is their US Visa application allowing them to enter the US. Once we received our GUZ number we emailed again and ask very very sweetly for your RTF (8/15/17). This is essentially a very bland unofficial looking letter that states your file was transferred from the NVC to the US Embassy in Guangzhou China. Our agency then took a copy of our RTF, along with supporting documents, and turned them into the US Embassy in Guangzhou. This is referred to as your Article 5 drop off (8/17/17). After 10 business days our agency will pick up the completed A5 and then we will be waiting for travel approval (TA)!!! We anticipate our A5 will be picked up tomorrow and we should be waiting for TA by Friday!

Well now that all the boring little details are out of the way! We are getting really close to traveling. There is a large holiday in China that will most likely delay our travel by a few weeks. I anticipate us being in China the first week of October and meeting Colin and Cora Oct 9! I hope to have our travel dates firmed within the next 1-2 weeks. Once China issues us TA we should be able to confirm our consulate appointment (CA) in Guangzhou. Once we have our confirmed CA we can book our flights and hotels. It's getting very real! We plan on spending a couple of days in Beijing before taking the train to Zhengzhou. Our agency prefers we spend a few days in Beijing before traveling to Zhengzhou to allow a buffer for any flight cancellations. This ensure you will be in China and ready to go for Monday family days. The few days also gives you a little time to adjust to the time change. It's 12 hours and the jet lag is no joke. We will arrive in Zhengzhou on a Sunday and meet the babies Monday morning! The week in Zhengzhou will be for the Chinese side of their adoptions - finalization, passports, etc. On Saturday we will travel to Guangzhou in southern China to complete the US side of their adoption - medicals, embassy appointments, visas, etc. We plan on squeezing a little fun in there too. I am really excited to go back to China. October is typically lovely weather so I am hopeful we can explore some new places.

Here are a few photos of the two cutest babies!

Colin

Cora