Day 2

Free day!  

Today we decided to try to find the walking street that we can see from our window. Looks like a nice walk and we need some supplies. It is always nice if we can figure out where everything is before we have a child that may be very unhappy to help make our trips as short as possible. There are many nice items in the shops but it is hard to buy too much knowing that I will have to carry a child and all of our suitcases on my own through the bus station and airports. We found the grocery store and a few children's shops.

After shopping we stopped for ice cream at a booth near the front of the walking street (the picture above). It is so hot and humid it is very hard to pass up. Back at the hotel it is time cool down and to nap. Still adjusting to the time change. We are up for a few hours, sleep for a few hours, up for a few, sleep...
Need to exchange money again! 

Day 1

First day of travel but it turns out to be 2 days with no sleep. 13 hour plane ride to China, not too bad. When we arrive at the airport we meet our guide and take the subway (3 transfers) to get to the bullet train station. On the first stop with all of our suitcases we all do not make it on the train leaving Cheryl behind. The guide and I rode to the next stop, got off the subway, and returned to Cheryl only to try again. She is just standing against the wall waiting for us all casual eating a sucker like "No big deal". The rest of the transfers went well and we were at the train station about an hour and a half later. We took the bullet train to Hefei arriving about 3 hours later. I have such a hard time sleeping when I travel but by now I am off and on. When we arrive at the Hefei train station our guide takes us to the Holiday Inn. It is about an hour drive by taxi. It is a nice hotel but all we want is to shower and sleep.

Recap on time: 13 hour plane ride, 1 1/2 hour subway, 2 hour wait for bullet train, 3 hour train ride, 1 hour ride from train to hotel = 19 1/2 hours of travel to get from home to our hotel. This is bad enough but we have also travel forward in time at some point in all of this so our days and nights are all mixed up.

2 days until we take custody of Min!

Travel To Cina Tomorrow!

This week has been very emotional. We are very excited to finally  be traveling to meet our daughter but at the same time very worried and heart broken to leave our other children behind. Even when you know your children are with someone who loves them more than life its self; it is not mommy and it breaks your heart to see them sad and worrying that you are leaving them and may not come back. 

Waited until the last second to pack because I have been trying to make sure that every possible issue that may come up was taken care of before I left. NOT POSSIBLE! Its OK because this time I am packing very light (the plan that did not work out). We have adopted 3 other times and have learned that less is better and washing is not so bad in a hotel room or that shopping opportunities always come up to fill in what we forgot that we may need. I was hoping for 1 medium suitcase that turned into 1 large and 1 carry on. I packed for Min with a few different sizes of shoes and clothes, toys, crayons, wipes and pull ups just in case and then a few different choices of clothes and shoes for me. I also packed Ramon noodles and oatmeal for those days that we did not feel like going out to find food or shopping. You never know if the children are going to be up for it the few days after Gotcha Day. What is our happiest day ever can be very hard on them. They also are not used to public so can be very overwhelmed. This seemed to fill the large suitcase and I still had the blankets and hats I crocheted and the nanny and guide gifts. This is where the carry on came in. I just will leave the orphanage gifts in the bag and I am down one bag to bring home. I bought the bags that "shrink" everything smaller and still need more room! Oh well, it is what it is and I will find anything I need in China... maybe I really just do not need it.

Hope I can sleep, It will be a very long day tomorrow.

Confirmation of travel date!

We will be leaving on June 19th at 7:40 am, flying 7295 miles to Shanghai China and then traveling another 293 miles (hopefully by train because it is another 5 hours by car) arriving in Hefei the day before we take custody of Min.

14 days until we travel!

Travel Date!

We take custody of Madilynn Min McClurg June 22, 2015. We have not confirmed the date that we will leave for China but the estimated date is June 19. This will give us one full day (China is 12 hours ahead of us) to get caught up on sleep and settle in before we take custody of Min. Our US Consulate date is July 2, 2015 and then we are on our way home! I will try to keep updated on the blog if possible, last adoption from China I was not able to access the blog.

The best July 4th gift ever!

Article 5

Our Article 5 has been completed and sent to the CCCWA for our Approval to Travel. With our Approval to Travel we can contact the Visa Department to schedule our appointment. This will be the last thing we do before we come home from China with Min so our travel date will be 2 weeks prior to this appointment!

Denise from Theres Always Hope picked up our Visas today and will be sending them to us. Travel is getting so close!

Please pray for Min to have an easy transition and find moments of happiness during this very confusing time of adjustment for her.

Thank you to all who have helped us through this process. To be honest, the process has just began. Min will now become part of our family and adjust to a new language and culture. That will be another long journey for her.

Letter from NVC

We received our letter from the National Visa Center stating they
recently received our approved I-800 petition for MIN, YING YAN and sent our case to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in China where the adoption interview will take place.We then filed our DS-260 and will wait for our Article 5. This usually takes 10 days. After that we will receive our Travel Notice.

New Estimated time ...June 6 for travel date and June 20 to travel.

Provisional Approval Notice

We received our Provisional Approval Notice to classify Min as our immediate relative from the USCIS on Friday May 8, 2015. Time is really moving fast right now. We are so excited and have been shopping and preparing for travel and Min's home coming.

Our new timeline:
Letter from NVC on average 1- 2 weeks puts us at May 20
Article 5 is 10 days bringing us to May 30
Travel  Notice 2 weeks after that brings us to June 14.
We will travel (usually) 2 weeks later.

We sent gifts to Min after we received our LOA.  Two new outfits, shoes and socks, a phone with songs and games in English, fruit and veggies for the children in her group, and candies for the nannies. We also received and update and Min is growing so much. She is a big girl now, no more baby.

We are going to China to bring home our beautiful daughter very soon!

Letter Seeking Confirmation

We received our Letter Seeking Confirmation (sometimes called Letter of Approval or LOA) on April 17, 2015. Our I-800 petition to claim Min as our relative was sent to USCIS on April 20, 2015. The average time between the I-800 and the Travel date is 6 to 10 weeks! This puts our travel possibly as soon as July!

We are so excited but now reality is sinking in at how much time we have left before travel and all the things still needed to be done. We have already starting making plans for travel with our travel agent and working on the needed documents for us to travel.

Min will be home before we know it!

Log in Date

We received our log in date on Saturday February 28! The average time from log in date to travel is 4 to 5 months putting our time to travel to bring Min home in July or August!

Dossier on the way!

On February 12 we sent our dossier documents to China (through WACAP). We received notice a few days later that CCCWA had accepted the scanned documents sent to them by WACAP. Now we wait for our log in date. This usually takes 2 to 4 weeks.

Authenticated documents!

We received our first set of documents from the Chinese Consulate today. We had to send them out in two packages because our medicals were approaching their expiration date. We were not sure when our  I 800 approval would be in (we were thinking the middle of Feb but it came in shortly after sending out our documents) and did not want them to expire. They were the hardest document to have completed properly. Unfortunately it took our doctor's office several tries.

Let us review:

10 documents collected: Financial Statement, 2 general physical examinations, 2 police clearances, 2 letters of employment, I-797 Notice of Action, Homestudy, and our Adoption Application Letter. (We did not need copies of birth or marriage certificates because this was our second adoption from China. We are allowed to use the prior ones) These documents all were taken to the Office of the Great Seal and Certified.

Then we took all of the certified documents and sent them to the Chinese Consulate via There's Always Hope for Authentication.

These documents are now added to the others that did not need Certification and Authentication. Our China Program Agreement, 3 notarized reference letters, copies of our passports, 2 passport photos, and 6 family photos.

This brings our Dossier to the grand total of 26 needed items completed and ready to ship to WACAP for translation.

The next step is shipment to the CCCWA in China for the adoption of Min!

USCIS Approval

We received our USCIS I 800 A approval in the mail today! This is the I-797 Notice of Action needed for our last Dossier document. We are on our way to the notary first thing in the morning and then off to Lansing for Certification. If we have time everything will go in the mail the same day to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for our last Authentication. This should take about 10 days to return to us. We can then send our Dossier to WACAP for translation. Before we know it our dossier will be in China!

USCIS Biometrics Appointment

Our appointment was in Detroit at 8:00 am. That means that I had to get all of us up at 5:00 am and start getting ready and out the door by 6:00 am for the 2 hour drive. The good news is that we have been there before so at least we knew where we were going. The little ones did very good and got up and ready quickly. The oldest were less than happy because it is Winter Break for them and they would much rather be sleeping in. All goes well and we are off on time and on the way to my husband's work to pick him up. Traffic is good and we arrive EARLY. Not often that happens for us. We are able to go through the security check before they are "officially" open and wait inside so the children can play to pass the time. Check in is quick; check our ID,give us a short form, return it, and wait in line for finger printing. The line moves fast and we are out of the USCIS in less than an hour! Drop the husband back off at work and stop in to the bakery for a special treat for the great children that worked so hard to be patient and well behaved. We hope to get our approval is less than 2 months. This will be our last document needed for our Dossier.

We took our other documents to the Office of the Great Seal for Certification of the notarizations. Our medical documents will be 6 months old in February and the Chinese Consulate will not accept them after that time so we have to get them Authenticated now. We are using There is Always Hope for our Authentication process through the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. We used Denise Hope for this process with our last adoption, she is great!

We hope to finally have all of our documents (we have to certify and authenticate the I-800 approval that will come in approximately 2 months before we can send in our doss) in to CCCWA by March.

Our timeline keeps slowing down. I am estimating travel at this time in the middle of September.