An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle but will never break. --Chinese legend

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

When?

"When are you going to China?" is the million dollar question. The quick and most truthful answer is that we really don't know. We won't know until our travel dates are set, and that's usually about 2-4 weeks before we depart. We are guestimating October, but there are dozens of things that could swing that one way or the other. Today Max's visa application and accompanying paperwork will arrive at our agency in Texas. They will review it, make sure it is complete and send it off to the US Consulate in Guangzhou. Once it arrives in Guangzhou a weekish from now, it will take two weeks for them to issue our Article 5. What the heck an Article 5 is is still a little fuzzy. It's not Max's visa to enter the US, but it is (I think) a document saying our paperwork is fine and unless he shows up with raging tuberculosis or something like that, he'll get a visa when the time comes.
Our agency's representative in China will pick up our Article 5 and send that off to the CCAA in Beijing. We will then officially be waiting for our TA (travel approval). It could take anywhere from 2-6 weeks after Article 5 for our TA to arrive. It is at that point that our agency can set our travel dates. So, best guest, we're looking at anywhere from 5-9 weeks for travel approval and then another 2-4 weeks until we leave.
The other tricky thing is that there are a lot of other things going on in China, specifically Guangzhou where we will be for almost all of our trip, during October and November. There is a national holiday October 1. I'm not sure how long government offices will be closed for that. Then there is a large trade fair in Guangzhou October 15 - November 4 followed by the Pan-Asian Games November 15-27. Those could make flights and hotels ridiculously expensive or, worst case, not available at all. So there is always a chance that those events will screw things up for us. Only time will tell.
No Max updates yet. Supposedly he got his birthday package, but his orphanage director is out of town until the end of the month. We might get updated pictures at that time.
And now please enjoy some pictures of David at Millennium Park and playing baseball at Uncle's Dave's game.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

NVC Letter

We woke up this morning to an email from the National Visa Center saying that our information has been forwarded to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. This is our NVC letter in email form. I learned by snooping around some of the international adoption forums online that people have had varying success with getting their letter emailed to them, which can cut a couple of days off the wait to travel approval. I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a try. Even if our snail mail letter came today, this will save us a day because neither Kevin (who will be attending the Smashing Pumpkins concert tonight...10 years after their "last concert ever") nor I (who will be working late) will be home in time to FedEx our next round of paperwork. So the next step is to send off Max's visa application and accompanying paperwork to our agency who will forward it on to the US Consulate. Once they receive it, we expect about a 2 week wait for Article 5, so probably a 3ish week wait total. Got it?

Monday, July 26, 2010

Our basement overfloweth

For all of you out there complaining about the unbearable time between posts, we spent this weekend cleaning sewage out of our house. Beautiful Oak Park, IL received just under 8 inches of rain in a 24 hour period, the overwhelming majority of that coming overnight Friday night. The sewers and storm drains were full, and there was nowhere for the filthy smelly water to go but into our house and the houses of pretty much all of our neighbors. Fun stuff. Thanks so so much to Grandpa for his middle of the night "Dirty Jobs" audition as we worked to minimize the damage and to Grandma, Grandpa and (all the way from Italy!) Great Aunt Fran for entertaining David Saturday afternoon while Kevin and I cleaned. Overall, we were very fortunate. Since we (Kevin) woke up to the rain and were awake for the flooding, we were able to move everything of value out of the way. Our house has gone from smelling like poop to smelling damp and mildewy to almost back to normal this morning. Carpet cleaners come today, and once they've disinfected and cleaned we'll figure out how much of the carpet (which actually looks great) and padding underneath is salvageable. In the mean time, please enjoy this video of David rocking out to on the way to Uncle Dave's baseball game last night. David's future career: the UPS driver on the next version of "Scrubs." Good luck Tuesday night, Uncle Dave!

Monday, July 19, 2010

I-800

Our I-800 approval came today. We're one step closer! What do we do next? We sit and wait for our information to get sent from USCIS to the National Visa Center and from the NVC to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. At that point, we will receive a letter saying everything has been forwarded to Guangzhou, and we can commence the next round of paperwork for our Article 5. After Article 5 comes travel approval, and after travel approval comes Max!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Happy birthday, baby boy!

Max turned one today. Since we couldn't be there in person, we sent him a little care package (pictured below is his actual package). In addition to a translated letter and candies for the orphanage staff, he got a little panda, a camera for pictures of him with his nannies and a little birthday cake from a local bakery. We are hoping that the company we used to send his package will be able to get us some updated information and/or pictures (maybe of him with his cake?), but so far no word.


Meanwhile, we rounded up some family and friends and had dinner in Chinatown to celebrate. There were 20 of us in all. Thanks so much to everyone who came out in Friday night traffic (and some even with small children) to be a part of Max's first birthday.
The party guests
We had our own private room, and the kids had so much fun playing: Maya, Eli, David and (in the second picture) Gabe
The soon-to-be family of 4


Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Ain't too proud to beg

I am being sent to jail for muscular dystrophy. On August 4, the Orland Park police will show up at my office and take me to fake jail. I am not sure whether they picked my name out of the phone book or if one of my patients threw me under the bus. Either way, my goal is to raise $1600 bail, which is enough money to send two kids to MDA camp and let them just be normal kids for a while. I'm just over a quarter of the way there. If you can find it in your heart and your wallet, every penny gets me closer to my goal. Check out my fundraising site here.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Can't keep a good man down

David recovered from a surgery that would have hobbled an adult man for several weeks in an afternoon and has been on the go since Friday evening. The first couple of trips to the bathroom were bad times, really bad times, but since then he's been feeling dandy.
We continued our family's annual tradition of gorging ourselves to the point that we really should be ashamed at the Taste of Chicago. This year we made it 6 out of 10 days (not bad with the wedding and surgery thrown in), visited 40 out of 54 booths and tried something like 63 food items (54 unique items). Completely sick but very enjoyable. The key lime pie from JR's bakery was a big winner. We ate 5 pieces. David particularly enjoyed ice cream in any form he could get it and "spicy rice" (jambalaya). And in case you are wondering, no, none of these statistics that no normal family would keep are personal bests (except perhaps the 5 pieces of key lime pie).
David enjoying some corn and watermelon from the Dominick's booth


Ramma's favorite--Rainbow Cone! David's favorite--the pig at the booth with all the sausages!

We spent yesterday afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's house. David had fun playing with bubbles and running every adult in sight ragged playing Davidball, which is essentially soccer with no restriction on using your hands and with both teams able to score at either goal. There was also a disappointing number of plays that involved David giving me the ball and then telling every one else to chase me. He wanted to stay for the fireworks and then demanded to go home as soon as they started.

Earlier in the weekend, David had asked to go on a boat ride. Since Kevin and I were both off of work today, we obliged. He had requested that Uncle Dave and GG come with but was denied on both accounts. Uncle Dave's honeymoon excuse went over ok, but he was still asking for GG when we left the house this morning. The unfortunate thing about the boat tour is how clearly visible Navy Pier is when you're out on the lake. The unfortunate thing about having a really fantastic nanny who takes him to do all kinds of fun things is that he knows Navy Pier better than Kevin and I do. So after we got off the boat, we headed there for lunch, mini golf, a carousel ride, the ferris wheel and Italian ice before finally heading back home. David crashed and burned around 7:00 tonight, and quite frankly, I'm surprised Kevin and I are still awake.
On the boat and on the ferris wheel

Friday, July 2, 2010

Post op

The surgery David had back in January 2009 sprung a leak a couple of months ago. Again, I will leave the details between David and his urologist, but he had a second surgery today to plug the hole. It took about 2 hours. He is home watching movies and downing chicken nuggets now. Aside from some pain when he pees (which will probably last a couple of days) and being a little shaky (which will probably last another couple of minutes), he is pretty much back to his normal self.