Update

This will probably be the last update we receive on Elise before we actually meet her.  I used a service in China called China Adoption Help and they contact the orphanage for a fee and hopefully obtain answers to questions and recent pictures.  The last pictures I received were from almost two months ago and I was going crazy not seeing her face and making sure she was doing alright.  Last night I received the following information and pictures:

What is her personality like?  Happy?
She is very out-going,enjoys making new friends,she will try to please you if you are upset. Although she is quite determined for what she thinks is right.

What are her favorite foods?
Fruit especially mango is her favorite,she likes sweet foods. She is not choosy.

Who is she most attached to?
The foster parents and 2 big sisters.

Is she in a foster home?  Any foster brothers/sisters?
Yes,there is another boy from the same orphanage.

Is she healthy?
Yes.

How is she comforted?
Try to hold her or let her sit alone for a while.

How is she doing developmentally? 
She could go up and down stairs by herself, and she is able to hop for one step as well as stand on one foot with support.
She likes reading and sometimes to scrabble on paper.

She understands the adult's instructions and will follow them.
She will hold your hands to ask you sit down and hold her.
She says sentences of five to six words, and is able to imitate most of adults' pronunciation.

Does her eye need any special care until we can get her to a specialist?
No.

And they sent three pictures.  Many people get more, but I am just happy to get something.  She is growing up so fast and looks like such a big girl.  I hope that I bring the right size clothes.  And her poor little lips look swollen and painful...the next few weeks can't go fast enough.

And the TA wait begins

After our debacle with our Article 5 paperwork we appear to be back on track.  The agency emailed me last night to assure me that our Article 5 paperwork was being picked up and sent overnight to the CCCWA.  It should be received by them on Friday and we will officially be waiting for Travel Approval.  Current averages for TA are 14 days, but I have seen some received in as little as 8 days.  If we get it in 14 days, that will be June 8^th.  Either way, we should be able to make our target travel date of June 20^th.  That is assuming we can get the Consulate Appointment we need.  It is getting so close.  We had new luggage delivered yesterday so I am ready to get started packing.  As soon as we get a few days into our TA wait I will be finalizing our travel plans as far as tours and hotels, just without the dates.  Elise’s room is all ready to go – it just needs a beautiful little girl to fill it with laughter!

 

I wish I had some new pictures to share, but unfortunately since Elise has been moved back to her province I have no more contact with her caregivers.  I don’t even know if she is with a foster family or in the orphanage.  I just hope she is healthy and happy.  And if things work out as I hope we will have her in our arms in 32 days.

Back on track

Our Article 5 package has been located, returned to our in China rep and was delivered to the Consulate on Thursday (they are 12 hours ahead of us).  We lost 12 days in the process, but if the TA comes quick we will be right on our target dates of June 21-July 5.  Oh happy day.  For those reading this who do not understand the process, our Article 5 process takes 14 days for processing.  As soon as that is done it gets picked up and sent overnight to Beijing where we wait for our TA (travel approval).  TA’s are taking 2-3 weeks currently and as soon as we have TA we request a Consulate Appointment and make our travel arrangements.  We are nearly in the final stretch.

More delays...

I received some news last night from our agency that has really defeated me.  I thought we were more than a week into our Article 5 wait with a possible pickup as early as this Friday.  However, our agency rep told me that he sent our paperwork to the Chinese government in error instead of to our in china rep for drop off to the US Embassy in China.  So, our paperwork has been missing for nearly two weeks.  They have been trying to locate it since last Wednesday, but I just heard about it yesterday (Monday) and I am not very happy about that.  I was advised that as of yesterday our paperwork has been located and will be sent to our in China rep.  When?  Who knows.  They feel that it will be received Friday and that drop off will happen the following Tuesday as they are closed on Mondays.  Ugh.  That puts us more than two weeks behind.  The frustrating part is that I have busted by arse getting through this paperwork quickly and timely.  We finished our homestudy quickly.  We had our dossier completed, notarized and authenticated quickly.  The only real wait we had to endure was an extra long wait for our immigration approval, which is with the US government, not us and not China.  That process probably added at least 30 days to our wait.  But we moved on.  Our LOA was received after 70 days, not too bad considering we had a long holiday mixed in and that others were waiting longer.  This part of the process is supposed to move like clockwork…drop off Article 5 and pick it up exactly 14 days later, then we would be in line for travel approval.  We were getting so close I could taste it.  We had dates picked out when we wanted to leave.  And now we don’t even know when our Article 5 will be dropped off.  We don’t even know where it is at this point.  There really isn’t much more to say.  I will update when our paperwork has been delivered to the correct place.