YAY for TA!!!!!

Yesterday...


Friday...


May 23rd, 2008...


We received what we've been waiting for!

We got TA!!!!!!!

"TA" stands for Travel Approval, (for those of you who are "acronymically-challenged" like me), and Travel Approval is what you need when you want to go to China to bring your baby home!

So now we know for sure we will be leaving for China on or around June 5th!

All we wait for now is confirmation from our agency of our Consulate Appointment (CA) in China, which is an appointment they must schedule with the CCAA to finalize everything for Kelly to get her Visa, right before we leave China to come home. Since your CA is at the very end of your trip, you plan everything else backwards from that date.

Our agency requested three different dates for our CA- first choice: June 18th, second choice: June 19th, or third choice: June 23rd. They say you usually get your first choice, but we have to wait for the CCAA to let us know before we can book our tickets, so the wait isn't quite over yet! EEK! Our agency says it can take up to 6 business days for the Consulate to get back to us- YIKES! BUT- they tell us they expect to hear back on Tuesday, so let's hope that's the case so we don't have to book our tickets with less than a 7-day advance notice. Whew- It's getting down to the wire!

As far as how everything works once we get to China- we will have a Rep from our agency (who speaks fluent Chinese and English) meet us at the airport. He or she will be available to us everywhere we go from the time we arrive to the time we depart. They usually give you two to four days from the time you arrive in China before "Gotcha Day." They try to schedule some fun touring and sight-seeing of the area during that time. This also allows you to adjust to the new time zone before you receive your child. I've had a lot of questions and people confused about how this all works, so let me try to explain "Gotcha Day. "

"Gotcha Day" is that blessed day when we will meet with the Adoption Officials at the Civil Affairs Office in Guangzhou, and they will place Kelly Elise in our arms for the first and last time! Once Kelly is placed in our arms that day, she will stay with us forever! Many people thought we might go to the orphanage to get her, or that we might only be able to see her and visit her, but have to leave her in the orphanage until everything is finalized. No, no, no! Once she is with us, she is ours! It becomes "official" a few days later, but she will stay with us from "Gotcha Day" forward, and she will never have to go back to the orphanage again.

Now, we do have an opportunity to go to the orphanage several days after "Gotcha Day", and it is a voluntary visit, so we can choose whether or not to go. Unless we're sick or having a really hard time with Kelly's adjustment, we do plan to visit the orphanage. I anticipate it to be the most difficult part of the trip, but we owe it to Kelly to see where she spent the first year of her life, and I'd like to personally thank the nannies for taking care of our baby girl.

I hope that helps you better understand how things go... feel free to post comments or ask questions, because I'm sure I'm forgetting some things!

I'll let you all know once we receive our CA and get a travel itinerary set in stone. I am going to start a Yahoo travel group so we can post to that from China and you all can follow along! I'll post pictures and keep you updated on how things are progressing via that group, since I've heard it's often difficult to access Blogger from China.

I'll keep you posted!

Prayer Requests:

1) That we get our Consulate Appointment confirmation on Tuesday, May 27th, so we can book our tickets asap

2) That we are able to get affordable airline tickets - around $1,000 per ticket would be grand

3) That we can get the rest of the "near-new" $100 bills we need for the orphanage child-rearing fee next week

THANKS!!!!