Sunday, August 16, 2015

Article 5 drop off

We received our I-800 approval on Monday, August 3rd.  Most people had received theirs 14 days after they applied.  I think our officer was out of town, because had we followed the 14 day timeline, it should have been approved the Friday before.  So we were delayed a couple of days with that.  After we got approval, we got our GUZ number and filled out the DS-260 form.  This form is a visa application from the view point of Evie. (The DS-260 online form is known as somewhat of a villain...most people have to try multiple times....sometimes hundreds...to get in and it takes them days.  We got right in on our first try!  Thank you, Jesus, for that blessing!) We submitted that, and waited for our PDF letter from the NVC stating that our file has been forwarded to the consulate in Guangzhou.  We received the email with our PDF the day after we got our GUZ number, and emailed everything to our adoption agency.  The next step is Article 5 drop off.  This is when the agency representative in China drops off all of our paperwork to the US consulate in Guangzhou.  The consulate looks over all of the immigration forms, LOA, the visa applications, and gets everything squared away.  This process takes 10 business days.  We had our Article 5 drop off this past Thursday, August 13th.  We will have Article 5 pick-up on Thursday, August 28th.  This is when the Travel Approval wait starts.  When we get travel approval, we then send in which dates we would like for our consulate appointment (the last appointment we will have in China before traveling home).  The consulate appointment confirmation usually comes just one day after travel approval.  This is the last thing we will be waiting for from China!!!!!  Once we have travel approval, we can book our flights!!!!  We are sooo close!! 
We just booked our hotel stays for both weeks we will be in China!   We should be leaving on October 16th, and coming home on October 29th!! 
It's getting real, guys!!!!
We will have our baby in our arms in 2 months and 3 days!!!!! 

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