Travel Dates Are In!

After several hectic days where the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou misplaced our I-171H which they HAD TO HAVE in order to make our appointment, we finally have all our travel dates. It all worked out.
We are leaving on Saturday November 11th at 10:10AM from Chicago, go to Detroit on Northwest Airlines. We fly from Detroit to Tokyo nonstop. From Tokyo, we fly into Guangzhou, China. On the 22nd we just reverse the process.

We have an appoinment to meet Kaia on November 11th at 11:00am China Time. Since they are 13 hours ahead at that time, ( Non DST for us) that will actually be the 10th at 10:00PM here at home (EST)

Now all the things that need to be done before we leave is crazy. Oh Well!

TA CALL

We received a call from Jouneys of the heart on Friday, Oct 24th that the Travel Approval had been mailed from China. It just so happens the 24th was our anniversary so that was a great present!
Our SW, Gabriel said to be ready to travel in 7-10 days. We have waited for 14 months and now we have a short time to get everything together to travel, including running to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to get VISA's for our passports.
Now the real fun begins :)

LOA Arrived Today

Our agency used DHL to next day air our LOA. We were told someone would have to be home to sign for the package. We waited and waited but no letter. I went out to get the mail and there sits our package on the porch. The driver never rang the bell! So much for having to sign for it.

Anyway, we immediately signed the LOA officially accepting Kaia as our Daughter and took it to the USPS to next day air it back to our agency in Portland, OR.

Now we have to wait for for the TA (Travel Approval) that says we can travel to China.

Everthing should go fast now!

LOA (Letter of Approval)

We received word from Gabriel at our Adoption Agency that they received our LOA from the CCAA in Beijing this afternoon. They are next daying it to us via DHL for us to sign and then get right back to them.
Once they get it back, they will verify everthing is correct and get back to Beijing. Then we wait about 2 weeks for TA (Travel Approval) from CCAA. We should travel 3-4 weeks after that.
We were getting to wonder if we were ever going!!!!

The Long & Winding Road

It is day 25 since our Dossier was logged in at the CCAA in Beijing. We got a call today from our agency in Oregon that the CCAA was missing 2 important documents that our Social Worker here in South Bend had to fax to them so they could sign and then they would have to fax to China. Confused? Don't be. In a matter of 30 minutes, the documents were being faxed to CCAA!
Amazing what modern technology can do.

Gabriel, our coordinator at Journeys of the Heart said that our file is being reviewed already (thats why they knew we were missing the 2 docs) and we could possibly receive our LOA or Letter Seeking Approval from Adoptees (us) in another week or so. Therefore it is quite possible that we could travel sometime in mid to late September. We need to travel before the Canton Trade Fair which lasts 3 weeks in October to avoid the 400% increase in hotel rooms.

We will keep you posted!

Waiting Family

While we know all our family will be excited to have Kaia home, no one is more excited than the "Grandmas" (Well maybe Hannah is more excited)

Where We Are At In The Process

Our chase for Kaia is being done almost completely backwards when compared to our chase for Hannah. With Hannah, all of our paperwork (dossier) had to be done and sent to China before we were matched with her.

With Kaia being special needs, we were "matched" with her before we started our paperwork. Our dossier was sent to China on June 5th, 2008 where it was translated into Chinese and then deilvered to the CCAA. It was officially logged into their system on June 30th, 2008.

We are now waiting for our LOA (Letter of Approval) from the CCAA and that could take anywhere from 1 to 3 months.

We were worried about the Olympics but that isn't a factor anymore since the CCAA slowed down a bit. Now we find out that Guangzhou is home to the largest Trade Fair in the world during October. So now we are just hoping and praying we travel before then.