Article 5 and beyond

We are getting closer.  As of today our final paperwork called the Article 5 is heading to China.  Two weeks after they receive it we will officially be waiting for our travel approval.  In just two short (long?) months we will be meeting our little girl, the little girl we fell in love with nearly a year ago, whose face I have stared at daily and the little girl who is never far from my thoughts.  As we are heading into the homestretch there are still so many things left to do and I feel so unprepared.  Oh, Elise will have everything she needs and probably much much more, but there are so many other things to think about and so many questions to ask ourselves.  But even if I were to make list after list I don’t think I will be fully prepared for the adventure ahead of us.  And I am not just referring to the physical aspect of traveling…there is also the emotional side of it all.  How will Elise react?  Will she like us?  Will she bond with us or will her attachment be difficult?  Will she eat and drink?  Will she be healthy?  Then there are other things that I don’t know for sure, like is she potty trained, what size clothes and shoes do I bring.  The more you think about it the crazier it makes you.  I know this, though, that we are ready to get Elise, ready to begin our family with a new beautiful little girl.  I would go tomorrow if I could.

 

Last time I updated the blog, which has been a while, we weren’t sure where Elise was.  I sent a care package in hopes to get some pictures and confirmation that she is doing ok.  I received some pictures back and she looks very happy and appears to be in a foster home.  She also looks she is going to be a handful.

 

This really sucks....

My heart is hurting this morning.  Our little girl has been living in a loving foster home and school where she has been well taken care of, cherished and loved. ...until last week.  I just found out that she has been moved back to her orphanage in her province.  The only information I was given was that there is some unrest in her province and that the government will typically have all the children who are in foster homes returned to the orphanage.  I don't know why she was moved for real.  For all we know it could have been because we received our LOA and that is how her province does things.  I don't think we will ever really truly know.  I have been able to find some news articles about the unrest, but I don't expect that they tell the entire story and that only certain approved things are published.  We were spoiled because we were able to just shoot an email to her school and we would get an update, a new picture, a story about her personality.  Now, I don't have any way of getting in touch with her.  I hurt so much to think about what she must be thinking.  She was moved to the school a year ago and didn't speak Mandarin, now she is moved back to her province and she no longer speaks that dialect.  She didn't even know she was being adopted yet.  She has no idea what is happening to her.  Is she crying herself to sleep, is she getting enough to eat, is she getting to play, is she getting any love.  Thinking about it could make me crazy.   The only thing holding me together is that we are moving along in our process.  The remainder of what we have to do is fairly predictable and we would be traveling anywhere around mid June.  I hope it is sooner, that we are blessed with the shorter waits at each step, but hopes get crushed all too often.  I just want her home, where she is safe and loved and cherished once more.

WE GOT IT!!!

I am so thrilled to announce that we received our Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC) or LOA as it is also called on 3/29/12 on day 70.  Wait times have increased tremendously because the CC**A did a reorganization of the offices and workers were without phones, desks and computers.  They were back to work a couple of weeks ago, but things have been painfully slow.  I never expected to receive it at day 70…I honestly thought we were in for the long haul.  I want to send good thoughts to those who are still waiting to hear something.  Any wait is too long, but then when the wait is extended for unknown or even known reasons it is unbearable.  There will be more closures of the offices this week due to a holiday so who knows when things will move again.

 

We have already mailed off our I800 to the USCIS and now we wait approximately 2 weeks for approval.  With luck on our side, we will have our TA or Travel Approval around early June.  Seems so far away, but I can tell you that these next two months are going to fly by.  I have so much to do, so many things to plan for, need to send out for our Visa’s, make list upon list of things to bring with us to China, lots more shopping to do, and on and on.  But I will do it all with a huge smile on my face.

 

Elise, we are coming….