Progressing with our paperwork

Now that we have our LOA, we have many little steps to take with our paperwork before Ch*ina will issue us our TA and we can hop on a plane to bring Madeline home. Now that we have our LOA, we can begin this process to TA. First step is to have our I-800 approved by immigration. I spoke with our Ch*ina coordinator this morning, and she informed me that she will be overnighting our I-800 to immigration. I was so happy to hear this because it can take 2-4 weeks to get approved (and I mailed it to our agency last Thursday.) After we get our approval, our immigration officer will forward it to the National Visa Center (NVC). The NVC will then cable our approval to the US Consulate in Guangzhou (where Caleb was born!) The US Consulate will process Madeline's immigration visa, which can take 2-3 weeks I believe. Once this is approved, they will issue us our Article 5. Our agency will then send our Article 5 to the CC@@ in Beijing, where our paperwork will wait for Travel Approval (TA), which will take about 4 weeks. From start to finish, we are looking at about 10 weeks until the CC@@ issues us our TA. As soon as TA is issued, we will figure out when we would like to travel. We will likely travel alone, so we have the privledge of picking our travel dates. Because Patrick has to stay here in the US for the middle 2 weeks of June, we can't travel until after that....even if we get our approval sooner. So we are expecting to travel at the end of June or early July.

At this point, I'll take any time in the summer. In fact, with this expectation, I bought Madeline her second swimsuit- a cute little bikini with ruffles! She does need a practical suit as well. So I will be purchasing a rash guard top with bottoms. But I couldn't resist this bikini.....because I'm just so stinkin' thrilled my daughter is going to be home for the summer!!!!!