Smurfy's Blog

About 15 couples met at our Chinese coordinator’s house to go through our itinerary in China. I found out that many of us are at different stages of our adoption. One couple is leaving for China this Tuesday, another couple leaving next month, others waiting for their travel approval while some waiting on consulate appointment.

Even though we are at different stages of our adoption, our two weeks itinerary in China is pretty much similar.

Itinerary in child’s Province (in our case, our son is in Wuhan City in the Hubei Province)
Day 1) Fly to the Province where orphanage is located
Day 2) Meet your child
Day 3) Take care of adoption registration, apply for child’s passport and attend some interview regarding adoption
Day 4-5) Do some sightseeing while we wait for child’s passport
Day 6) Pick up child’s passport and other documents and fly to Guangzhou

Itinerary in Guangzhou
Day 7) Have child’s picture taken for visa and child receive medical exam
Day 8 ) Sightseeing and apply for child’s visa
Day 9) Visa appointment and do more paperwork
Day 10) Swearing ceremony at consulate
Day 11) Pick up child’s visa

While in China, the family will have a local guide and a driver.  The guide will meet the family at airport, take them to hotel, provide them with sightseeing places and help with paperwork.

Most families can leave Guangzhou after they have the child’s visa and passport. But my husband and I are planning to go to Hong Kong Disney with our son.

Once we have our updated I-171H, our coordinator will get our consulate appointment at Guangzhou.  Once we know our consulate appointment, we will be booking our plane tickets to and from China.  Our hotels, transportation, sightseeing, etc will be taken care of by China Women’s Travel Service (CWTS).

Yesterday we went to the Chinese Consulate in SF to pick up our visa.  At first I thought it would take weeks to get a visa but it wasn’t the case at all.  We dropped off our visa applications on Nov 03 and pick up date was a few days later.

This isn’t the first time we applied for a Chinese visa though.  The first time we got a Chinese visa was back in 2005 when we took a cruise to Asia.  However, it was our travel agent who turned in our visa applications for us and even picked up our visas herself.

When we dropped off our visa applications, I thought we would get interrogated with questions such as what is your purpose of going to China, how often do you travel to China, etc.  Once my number was called and I walked up to the booth, the only question the agent asked me was ‘please sign here’!?… then handed me a receipt.  Wow that was easy.

On Oct 14, BAAS (Bay Area Adoption Service) sent our updated homestudy to USCIS so we can get a new I-171H.  In order to adopt our son, we had to make changes in our homestudy to say that we will be adopting an infant male instead of infant female.  Since we made a change in our adoption, we need to have a new I-171H.

On Oct 25, we called USCIS to get an update on our paperwork.  The officer at USCIS told us that they haven’t received our homestudy yet.  On Oct 26, this officer at USCIS left a voicemail saying that they finally got our homestudy but did not specify if they will process a new I-171H.

Several days later, my husband called USCIS and left voicemail to ask whether they have processed our I-171H.  Unfortunately a week later, the office did not return our phone call.  My husband called the office again.  We were not surprised that USCIS did not return our phone call.

Without the I-171H, we cannot get our consulate appt in China.  Without consulate appt, we cannot travel to China.

Since USCIS has not been returning our phone call, we asked BAAS if there is another way to get in touch with USCIS.  The CIS coordinator at BAAS called NBC (National Benefits Center which is a central place where all international adoption paperwork are kept) to ask whether they have our new paperwork in their system.  The person at NBC said they do not have any new paperwork from us.  Our CIS coordinator decided to call USCIS.  Luckily, the BAAS coordinator got in touch with the person we were trying to contact.  In my opinion, BAAS should contact USCIS for us since I feel that USCIS would rather deal with businesses or agencies instead of  individuals like us.

After the CIS coordinator spoke with USCIS, she said that our I-171H has been approved and should receive the new form in about two weeks.  Our CIS coordinator said that even though our form is approved, a supervisor at USCIS still needs to sign it then mail it.  So this signing and mailing of our approved I-171H will take about two weeks??   This 1-171H is not coming from China.  USCIS are located in USA!  Since this signing and mailing may take two weeks, this means that we may not receive the I-171H until the week of Nov 15.

The only thing we needed to change in our I-171H is the text.  We just needed to have them change the Gender from Female to Male and Special Needs from No to Yes.  That is it!  Can’t believe that USCIS needs close to a month to get this processed!  It should not take them weeks to read our homestudy and make that change into the I-171H form.  We only changed about 1 or 2 short paragraphs in our homestudy.

Well we are not alone.  There have been other families who have been frustated with how USCIS process our paperwork.  This office pretty much does delay our adoption.  Some other families waited for their I-171H for 2+ months!  Not only the USCIS are slow in processing our paperwork, they are also increasing paperwork and fingerprinting fees beginning Nov 23, 2010!

Once or more like ‘whenever’ we receive our I-171H in the mail, we need to let our Chinese coordinator know so she can finally book our consulate appt in China.

My husband and I attended the Giants parade.  I actually dislike parades.  But this was the best parade I have ever attended!  Giants fans cheering, calling out to their favorite baseball players, clapping their hands, blowing their plastic horns that cost $5, waving their homemade signs and wearing their Giants colors.  One sign I remember said ‘I called in sick…. SHHHHH…. Go Giants!’

The fans were in their best behavior.  From where we were standing, I didn’t see any looting, fighting, etc.  Everyone just had an awesome time.  Plus the weather was very good for November. I am glad we got to be part of this historic moment.

We left our house before 7am and boy it was heavy traffic even in carpool lane.  We parked our car at my husband’s workplace and took the free shuttle to BART then from BART to downtown SF.  In SF, we got off at Montgomery.  Then we looked for a nice spot to view the parade.  We did get a very good spot.  Our spot was next to the barricade that was put up on Market Street.

The parade started at 11am at the Transamerica Pyramid.  Since we were waiting at Market Street, we didn’t see the Giants team until 11:30am.  We got to see Cody Ross, Brian Wilson, Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum and other Giants players.  During the parade, confetti in color black, orange and white were coming down from top of the buildings on Market Street.  Others like BoA, Giants office staff and investment firms gave out Giants signs.  So I was able to get a sign that said ‘Authentic Giants Fan.’  Some people gave out candies and T-shirts to lucky fans.

After the parade, we went to the Chinese Consulate in SF to turn in our Visa application for China.  Since the parade was in downtown, the muni bus took a while to get to us because of the huge crowd.  Once we got to the Chinese Embassy, our time their was actually pretty quick.  We went through security, took a number and when our number was called, we went to the window and simply turned in our applications.  Our pick up date is Nov 8.

BAAS notified my husband that we finally got our travel approval!  But even though we are finally approved to travel to China, we are still waiting for our updated I-171H.  The lady at USCIS said she will process it asap.  But it has been one week and we haven’t heard from her.

Today marks our one month wait for travel approval to China since we got our LOA. Watching the World Series has really helped us keep our minds off the long wait.

My husband said the year we will be parents to our baby boy is the year Giants happen to be World Champions!

My last basic cake decorating class was this past Monday.  Our last project was to bring a cake and use class time to decorate it.  I wasn’t sure what to do at first but then I decided to create a Welcome cake for our son.  Also instead of a round cake, I wanted a square cake to make it look like a baby block.  Since I don’t have a square bake pan, I used my regular 8″ round cake pan.  Then I cut my round cake into a square.  Afterwards I added light brown icing. 

In class, I really had fun decorating the cake.  To add designs on the cake, it is best to use stiff icing.  But if I hold the icing bag for even few minutes, my icing in it would start to get soft.  So I had to do my icing drawing on the cake really fast before the icing gets way too soft. 

The balloons didn’t turn out the way I would have wanted them to.  But I am happy with how the baby booties with the ribbon turned out.  Overall, I am happy with my ‘Welcome Nathan’ cake decoration.

Our coordinator called us yesterday to ask whether we received our updated I-171H.  Without the updated I-171H, we can not get consulate dates in China.  Currently, our I-171H only gives us approval to adopt female infant.  But since we decided to adopt a baby boy first, we need to have that new information reflected into the I-171H  form.  Since my husband and I did not receive our updated I-171H, my husband called our adoption agency BAAS this morning.  Since we already had our homestudy updated, BAAS sent a request to get our I-171H re-processed on Oct 14.  Once we have our updated I-171H, BAAS will request for consulate dates and hopefully we should be able to travel to China soon!

BAAS gave my husband a contact person at the CIS office.  This person will be the one to process our I-171H.  Currently, she doesn’t have our paperwork yet, but once she does, she will process our paperwork asap or at least that is what she told my husband over the phone. 

Our coordinator will be on a two week vacation in China.  While she is away, she will send our paperwork to a BAAS employee.  Since she will be on vacation starting tomorrow, she asked for our preferred travel dates.  Our tentative travel dates is between Nov 21 – Dec 03 or Dec 06 (depending if we will be taking our son to Hong Kong Disney). 

After she comes back from vacation, we as well as 14 other families will meet at her house for an orientation meeting on Nov 14.  In this meeting, she will go over our itinerary in China.

The window blinds my husband installed in Nathan’s room are kinda long.  So when the window blinds are pulled down, the wooden shades stack up at the bottom.  So my husband removed these extra wooden shades to make the window blind fit better in the window.  Good thing my husband is a good handy-man.  If it weren’t for him, I would have probably kept the window blinds as is.

I finally cleared out my son’s closet.  I had two storage boxes in there with my junk in it.  I also have shopping bags and gift boxes that I kept so I can use them for future use.  Also, I kept old empty Coke bottles and cans !  OK, I love junk!  But I am not a complete hoarder!  🙂  My Coke bottles and cans are actually something I collect from places I have been to like Greece, China, Japan, Italy, etc.   

I ‘temporarily’ put my junk into the baby girl’s room closet.  When that room becomes occupied, I will transfer my junk into my husband’s office.  🙂  just kidding…

Finally after three weeks of waiting, Michaels finished my custom frame orders. I had Up and Finding Nemo posters framed in white wood with simple edges.

I particularly chose those two posters because both have some meaning in my family’s life. In Up, Carl and his wife couldn’t have children on their own. Carl befriended a young boy who eventually became a part of Carl’s life. In Finding Nemo, little Nemo was born with an abnormal tiny fin much like our son born with a birth defect.

My husband put the framed posters up in Nathan’s room. Plus I got to put his toys out on his shelves. Also today, we bought our son’s car seat. It is a 3 in 1 car seat (infant, toddler and booster). After we bring him home from China, we will buy his stroller.