Papers, papers, applications, photocopies and more papers...

I think I mentioned it is here in Guangzhou where the US Consulate resides. Now that we have our baby girl, being here is the most important part of our trip to China. Without permission from the US government and her visa, we can't bring her home.

Several months ago, we received our first "official" approval from the US government to adopt a Chinese orphan. That form is known as an "I-171H". To acquire that permission, we had to file our homestudy with the Department of Homeland Security, paid a ridiculous fee and ALSO had the unique and lovely opportunity to be fingerprinted by that Department and cleared by the FBI. (That fingerprinting was in addition to two other unrelated fingerprint events - one by our local police precinct, and one downtown at Police Headquarters for State Child Abuse Clearances.)

In the forms I filled out today, we petition the US government to classify our foreign orphan (the one they gave us approval to adopt in the I-171H - i.e. Lian Kaixin - on all the offical US documents)as an immediate relative. In addition, there is her visa application, and her application for a medical exam at the quarantine bureau (can't get a US visa w/o a medical exam). We need to provide the US gov't with her Chinese passport, her original abandonment certificate,(the one with the cute picture of all three of us from a couple of posts ago, along with it's translation, her birth certificate, and her visa photos (we're going in a couple of hours to take those and get her medical exam at the quarantine bureau). Our consulate appointment is tomorrow 6/13. We don't go to this appointment, but rather our facilitator here in Guangzhou, Li, takes all of our documents there. If all goes well, we go to the US Consulate on Wed morning 6/14 and take "the" oath, i.e. everything we said in the papers is true (or as Li said, "just raise your right hand and say whatever they tell you to say"). We get her Chinese passport back with her U.S. visa on Wed. afternoon, and then Thurs morning, (at 5:30am mind you...) leave Guangzhou to catch our 8:30 flight to Beijing, and then later on in the afternoon, fly home. Whew!

Li said that this part of the adoption process is the most complicated because you deal with the U.S. government. She said they are very fussy about the paperwork. We also have to pay a visa fee of $380 US dollars, which has to be paid in cash with "clean" bills. Yes, you read that correctly. No markings on the bills at all. Li checked all of our money. One of my hundred's had some markings on it, so one of the women in my group gave me two "clean" $50 dollar bills instead. Sounds crazy, but it's true.

Given all the recent immigration bruhaha at home, I find the notion that they are fussing over the quality of the USD kind of funny (in a ridiculous, not an amusing way) - but I digress....

Hoping it hasn't been to boring reading some of the details of the adoption. I've actually shared but a tiny piece of the paperwork maze we negotiated. But I wanted to give you a flavor of what it's been like since December,2004, when we started gathering together all of the seemingly endless pieces of paper we needed to come here to bring our baby home. As you can see by her photos, we think it was worth it.

A couple of the pictures you're looking at are of Mia's first time ever in a swimming pool.