The Brown Envelope!

Mail From China...

When Cameron picked up the mail on Saturday this was in the mailbox!

It's an information packet from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. It contains forms we need to fill out for Kai's immigration visa and adoption process in China. These are sent out when the I-171 form from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Bureau of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is processed.

In reality, this isn't that big of a step in the process, and not everybody even gets one. The forms inside it are all available online, but it was really cool to have it show up. It's another tangible marker along the path.

One of the forms inside was all written in Chinese, and there is a Xerox copy of a little tourism map of Guangzhou.

Anyway, it got us fired up again as we wait to hear from the CCAA in China. To recap where we are in the process...

We were DTC (documents to China) on May 16. The next step is LID (log in date), when the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) officially marks our dossier as being in their system. We hope this has happened already but we haven't heard, and may not. What we are really waiting on right now is our TA (travel approval). For most people adopting waiting children right now, the time from DTC to TA is about 8 to 12 weeks. Travel usually happens about 2 to 3 weeks after TA. So worst case scenario, we will be traveling the first week in September, but it could be as soon as the first week of August.