Weekend Update

The highlight of our weekend was the baby shower that Tricia attended at her parent's house on Saturday.  Well over 50(!) people showed up, another sign of just how excited everyone is for Madelyn to get here.  We're both seriously humbled by the amazing generosity of everyone who attended.  So this is Troy giving out an unofficial "thank you" now, while I'm sure Tricia will be sending out the "official" thank-you later :)

Of course with 50-plus people in attendance (and I don't have all the pictures from the shower organized yet, or else I'd post them), it took us a while to sort through the assorted gifts that Madelyn received.  This is one lucky girl, here (and two parents who have some major room organizing to undertake)…

While Tricia was doing all of this, what was I keeping up with?  Well, I managed to mount our TV onto the wall, which has been on my to-do list since we moved in (we screwed up the placement of the mount when we initially tried to do this, but it was the night before the Tour of Homes started, so we never fixed it). 

Sadly or hilariously, depending on your viewpoint, while I was trying to hoist the TV back above the fireplace, I split my favorite pair of jeans right up the backside…I wasn't initially very amused, but looking back in retrospect, it was pretty funny (as was my stereotypical overreaction to it).

We also had a chaise delivered that we were going to put in our bedroom.  After the deliverers put the chaise in the room, I went to plop down on it and relax for a couple of minutes.  It was nice…but something was wrong.  I looked and looked and then realized that we had the wrong chaise -- the arm was on the left-side instead of the right-side.  Ugh.  Fortunately, Macy's has the correct one being sent next Saturday.

Also being returned is our mattress.  We tried it for about 70 days and it's done nothing but make Tricia's back sorer than ever.  So back it goes.  Fortunately, Costco has their all-latex mattress back in stock at the end of the week, which gets very good reviews, so we are going to be giving that one a try.

I also managed to mount some security cameras, organized the computer, and put up some furniture on Craigslist (all of which has already sold, clearing out an entire room).  So lots of the to-do list is getting checked off, which is a nice feeling to have before major life changes take effect.

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Travel Plans For China

We now officially have our itinerary for our trip to China and have also just booked our flights.

Depart Portland		May 5th
Arrive in Beijing		May 6th
Tour in Beijing (Great Wall)		May 7th
Holt orientation		May 8th
Depart to Fuzhou to pick up Madelyn aka GOTCHA DAY!!		May 9th (Mother's Day!)
Arrive in Guangzhou		May 14th
US Consulate visa appt.		May 18th
Visa issued		May 20th
Depart China/Arrive in US		May 21st (arrive in PDX at 8:40 AM)

Our flight looks to be fairly convenient, flying direct from Portland to Tokyo to Beijing and then coming back from Hong Kong to Tokyo to Portland.  Going to China will be about 17 hours and coming back around 15 hours. 

Of course, coming back we'll have a new family member sitting with us.  Actually, Madelyn is coming back as a "lap child," thus she doesn't get her own seat, so that will likely be an interesting experience for 15 hours -- I'm guessing we'll have plenty of stories.

Just 41 days until we leave…

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Thank You!

This week we received an extremely thoughtful gift in the mail -- one of the cleft lip specific bottles (known as a Haberman feeder) from our gift registry on Amazon. 

However, we have no idea who sent it!  If the person who sent it reads this post, please let us know so we can personally thank you.

The bottle will be packed for our trip to China and surely come in handy.  Thank you so much!

Next up: our travel plans are set!!

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Travel dates pushed back to May 7th

Ever feel like you just got punched in the gut?

We just got the following word from Holt:

Yesterday we notified you about tentative travel dates in early April but unfortunately we need to revise the estimate for your Beijing arrival for early May. While pursuing appointment clearances with local orphanage and Ministry officials in China our staff was told that all offices would be closed for the 5 April Tomb Sweeping Day holiday.

Tomb Sweeping Day is a new government holiday, not one when offices usually closed. We regret that we were unable to confirm those appointments and have been unable to create an acceptable alternate schedule.

We will begin work today on a new schedule and expect to be able to arrange your Beijing arrival for approximately 7 May and will confirm this with you as soon as possible next week.

Yikes, talk about a roller coaster ride with your emotions.

So after hyping ourselves up to get everything done in 2 weeks, we now have a month to prepare, which should make things much easier and ensure that much more gets done...but still, all we really want to do now is have Madelyn home with us, so it's a tad bit discouraging at this moment.

I'll post again once we do have our 100% confirmed schedule.

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We are going to China!

Just got the word from Holt, we are tentatively scheduled to be headed to China, with our arrival in Beijing set for April 2nd.  Thus, we'd leave here on April 1st.  We would then be arriving back home with Madelyn on April 16th!

Again, this is TENTATIVE, since we do not yet have full confirmation on all of our hotel and flight information.  I'm about to call the travel agent now to get that in motion.  It will be during the trade fair, so we'll have to see how that works out.  We also don't have confirmation from all of the Chinese government offices that are involved in the adoption.  We do have confirmation from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou for a visa appointment, which is what they are basing our travel dates on.

We are both feeling pretty confident that these dates (plus or minus one day) should stick, though, as Holt has been pretty conservative with their time estimates thus far, leading us to believe that it will happen.

Anyways, everyone feel free to celebrate tonight as Madelyn will be coming home in less than a month!  Woohoo!

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Travel dates coming VERY soon...

We don't have an exact travel date at this moment, but the wheels are in motion and it's possible we could be leaving VERY soon.  It's not a guarantee, but there is hope! 

Of course, it's also still possible we leave later, so I'm not going to go into detail yet and just stay vague for now...but an update should be forthcoming in the next couple of days :)

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Madelyn's Timeline + Travel Update

When last I discussed our travel timeline, it looked like we would be leaving for China sometime between April 9th and April 23rd, which we got from counting out 6 to 8 weeks from our Article 5 approval date of 2/26.

Since all the terms in this process are confusing -- I'm always forgetting which form did what -- here's as simple of an explanation that I can provide on what exactly is going on here…

The Article 5 is a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that verifies Madelyn is eligible to immigrate to the United States.  It has been couriered to the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs in Guangzhou and we are simply waiting for them to make it official by stamping it and sending it back to Holt so that we can get our travel date.

However, it appears there may be a fly in the ointment there -- while reading the Holt China forums, we came across this information:

Every October and April the city of Guangzhou hosts a large international trade symposium commonly referred to as the ‘trade fair’. This year the spring fair takes place during three sessions: April 15 – 19, April 23 – 27, and 1 – 5 May.

Because of this trade fair, hotels and plane travel in Guangzhou are both heavily booked and a lot more expensive.  For this reason, Holt does not typically book travel during those weeks.

So, it sadly appears that even if our Article 5 letter gets back to us in the next few weeks, travel won't be done during the aforementioned dates, meaning our likely travel date is pushed out to the first week of May. 

There is still a possibility that we could leave the first week of April, if somehow the paperwork moves fast (as in today?), but that doesn't appear to be the norm.  Some people DO travel just 2 1/2 weeks from getting the travel approval…so perhaps this can happen for us too!  We're not going to lose all hope :)

In the meantime, we've put together the following, a timeline of the entire process from submitting our application to the day we FINALLY get the joy of seeing Madelyn for the first time face-to-face.

MADELYN'S TIMELINE

9/10/08		Submitted our application to Holt
10/23/08-10/24/08		First Holt parenting class
1/16/09		First home study visit (at Holt)
1/22/09		Final home study visit (at our apartment)
2/10/09		Home study approved
2/13/09		Finished Child of Promise medical conditions checklist
5/18/09		Dossier completed and sent to consulate for authentication
6/12/09		Dossier sent to CCAA
6/22/09		Dossier logged with CCAA (Log-In Date)
8/11/09		Social worker calls with possible match and we see Zhang Yi Hong (Madelyn) for the first time!
8/17/09		Submitted Letter of Intent
8/20/09		Home study update visit (at our new house)
8/26/09		Letter of Intent is accepted!
11/7/09		Last Holt parenting class
11/25/09		Receive updated pictures and information on Madelyn. She's standing now!
12/7/09		Letter of Acceptance
12/22/09		I-800 Provisional Approval received
1/8/10		Hague documents sent to China
1/12/10		Receive NVC letter
1/19/10		Visa applications sent to consulate
2/2/10		Tricia and I receive our visas for entry into China
2/23/10		Receive 1st birthday update pictures from orphanage!
2/26/10		Receive Article 5 approval -- we can now get a travel date
TBA		Receive Travel Approval
TBA		Travel Dates
TBA		Madelyn's Gotcha Day

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New picture of Madelyn

We just got an unexpected treat yesterday, a new picture of Madelyn, along with her current measurements!

She is now "supposedly" 77cm (30 inches) tall and weighs 9kg (20 lbs). 

I say supposedly because we have been made aware that these measurements may be just a tad exaggerated, as is the norm with many Chinese orphanages.  It's not necessarily a fact that this will be the case here, but just keep in mind that she may come home a wee bit smaller than these numbers say…

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