We are moving right along in these final stages of the adoption process! We received our i800 approval from US Immigration today!!!! I just got off the phone with our caseworker and have a bit better of an understanding of what this means for us. There is a bunch happening right now behind the scenes on behalf of our travel and Noah.
But here is a timeline of paperwork leading up to travel:
1 week to receive Cable Letter
2 weeks to receive Article 5
1-2 weeks until we receive Travel Approval from China
Approximately 2 weeks from TA until we are in China!!
This is approximately 6-8 weeks from now!
2 weeks to receive Article 5
1-2 weeks until we receive Travel Approval from China
Approximately 2 weeks from TA until we are in China!!
This is approximately 6-8 weeks from now!
There are various tasks for us to accomplish for each of these steps. Forms to be filled out, emails to be written, confirmations to be forwarded. Aside from the paperwork we still must do, we also have one final education requirement to complete for our agency. We will be doing that together in an online course. We also have to get visas ordered for each member of our family in order to travel to China. We also have multiple phone calls scheduled with different China team members from our Agency, Lifeline Children's Services. Some of these calls discuss travel arrangements, logistics of final paperwork, and post adoption counseling and services.
Apart from all of these logistic and technical tasks to be done we will concentrate on getting prepared to travel and to bring our little guy home.
We have a couple of fundraisers we hope to do in the next month. We will be running a one week sale of our tee shirts for anyone missed out the first time around. We are planning a fundraiser dinner at our church. And we will be selling online any and everything we can spare from our home!!!
I need to pull out clothing for Noah, round up baby gates and cabinet locks for a toddler, pull out and get ready any toys or gear we think he would like, set up a crib and move Caleb and Levi into a different room, purchase anything we are lacking for him to get started.
We need to start thinking about what we will need/want in China for ourselves, big kids, and Noah. And we will need to start buying/pulling out the items that make our packing list.
We have our final travel vaccinations schedule for this week.
We will likely be traveling sometime in August. We are not sure of the dates yet but with each bit of paperwork that get finalized we will know a much better idea of the week.
We could use your prayers!
Pray that we:
- would have a peace in the midst of all of these final tasks
- would be able to raise the remaining cost through our fundraising/selling efforts
- For our sweet boy- that his little heart would be prepared to join our family and that bonding would happen quickly and easily.
If you would like to contribute in any way financially to our remaining adoption costs you can click on the paypal link labeled "Donate" on the right hand column to do so!
We so appreciate you and the role who have played and continue to play in bringing our boy home!
