So I have realized several times over the last few weeks that I am getting further and further behind on my blogging of actual milestones and process progress. So… I thought that I would finally sit down and get you all caught up on the paperwork side of things. I just looked back at my list of blogs and it has been over a month since I updated from this perspective (or any other, for that matter) so let me see if I can remember all that has happened.
When I wrote you last, we had our Log In Date (LID) of April 18 and were waiting for our Letter of Approval (LOA). Our prayers and hopes were that our LOA would arrive in just about a month, but as those of you who follow me on Facebook know, Day 30 came and went with no LOA. As well as Day 31, 32, 33 and so on. It was actually not until Day 43 that we finally got the call. Well, the email, but you get the idea.
On Tuesday, May 31, CCAI notified us that our LOA had arrived at their Colorado offices. After verifying where we wanted them to send the paperwork the entire packet was over-nighted to us for signatures. The Fed Ex man, who by the way was much less personable than the UPS men who brought us Jolene and Becca’s paperwork packets, made his delivery just before noon on Wednesday. I quickly called Dan and asked him to stop by during his lunch break so we could sign everything and get it back in the mail. Becca, Sophie, Ellie and I then hijacked naptime and turned it into FedEx time as we headed out to make copies and mail the signed paperwork, along with our I-800 application, back to our agency – all before 3 o’clock, thank you.
CCAI received our packet early the next morning and had emailed me by early afternoon that our I-800 application had already been sent on to the NBC. (That would be the National Benefits Center, NOT the television network. =) Then, on that front, we went back to waiting. We were told this wait should be between 2-4 weeks so I just marked the calendar and settled in for a couple weeks with my little plan to start bugging people come day 15.
All things were not halted to a wait at this time, however, as we had other paperwork CCAI was asking us to complete. The first thing on the list was our DS-230 form, also known as Jack’s Application for Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration. We were asked to complete and return this within 5 days so that once our I-800 approval arrived CCAI could immediately forward this form for us. We were able to turn that around quickly and mailed it back on Monday, June 6. Then, we went back to waiting.
Okay, maybe not just waiting. Waiting and working. Our next item of business was a much larger packet of paperwork due within three weeks of receiving our LOA. This included several notarized pages basically promising that Dan and I will not sue CCAI if we or anyone traveling in connection to our family is hurt, killed, lost, offended, scalded by hot coffee served hot, turned into aliens, or anything else that anyone could think of suing for. We also needed to turn in contact information for our social worker – in case she needs to be contacted while we are in China. (FYI – We did have this need when we picked up Jolene and the US Consulate said they did not have our homestudy on file. Yikes!) And we had a few other sheets for any travel companion traveling with me – the same “I won’t sue sheets”, medical permission to travel, etc. So, as you can tell, I was far from bored.
Well, the travel companion thing is a big long story that will someday be a blog of its very own, but all of this paperwork was completed and mailed back to CCAI on Monday, June 20. And then we went back to the whole waiting on the NBC thing. As it turned out, that got a little exciting about a week ago. Several weeks back CCAI had given me the unhappy news that they expected every family “from here on out” to fall under the new post-August 1 regulations and thus we were required to submit our owed payments based upon the new regulation fees (approximately $800 more than the old fees). We obviously did not like this news, but we weren’t really surprised by it so we wrote the needed checks. On June 20, however, the CCAI travel department contacted me regarding our I-800 approval stating that they believe we still have a slim chance of getting our travel approval before the August 1 deadline. They encouraged me to call the NBC and see if I could speak with our assigned officer and determine where our paperwork was in the process.
I called the next day and spoke with our assigned officer. She informed me our paperwork was in the building and being processed and that she would sign off on it as quickly as possible once it hit her desk, hopefully that day or the next. True to her word, when I called her back on Friday afternoon she told me she had just finished with our file and it would be on her supervisor’s desk on Monday morning. Hurray!
And that brings up to last week. Whew!
We began the week waiting for our I-800 file to clear the supervisor’s office so our letter of approval could be sent to us. That letter arrived on Thursday - a GIANT step forward. I quickly had my neighbor scan the needed document so that I could email it to CCAI and mark that off my list of things to do. Then, on Friday morning I called the National Visa Center (NVC) to verify that the same paperwork had been delivered to them for the next step of processing. It had. Yeah! Their copy arrived the same time ours did so now it is a matter of waiting for them to input the information into the “shared computer” so it can be accessed by the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. The woman I spoke to on Friday said that this should be done “today or Monday” so right now, at 2pm on Monday, I am waiting once again – hoping that the “DONE” email will show up in my inbox before I feel the need to call them back later this afternoon. Whew! Again. =)
And there you have it, you are all caught up. Oh, wait! One more thing…. This morning I made one final early morning run to the State Department to have our adoption Power of Attorney authenticated so that I can sign all of the necessary paperwork in China on Dan’s behalf. Before he deploys Dan always provides me with a general POA which allows me to do just about anything here in the States, but apparently to adopt in China I must travel with this very brief, very specific version. Needless to say, I am asking no questions and will simply do as I am told. And now you really are caught up.
I apologize for the dryness and length of boring details in this blog, but it is basically just a chronicle of the hoops we’ve jumped through over the past five weeks. Not a whole lot of action perse, but many steps in the right direction. I promise the next posting will be a bit more personal – and hopefully fun - so stay tuned. Until then…
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