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.