Slow Busy...

This picture has nothing to do with anything... but I don't have any new pictures of Hope so I thought I would give you all a smile anyway... isn't she yummy? I can't wait to see my girls side by side... cheek to cheek!


It seems that every step of this process is much harder than it should be or the anxiousness of it all is causing my head to spin!

Child Acceptance Letter: Once our fun party was over, I was eager to get busy! I faxed our pediatritian with Hope's medicals and had the best conversation with her. She is excited to meet her new little patient and gave me advise on caring for her in China and was familiar with the re-vaccination process. With her 'approval', not that we really needed it but felt it would be irresponsible not to take that step first, we signed all of our papers and mailed them back to our agency. Our Child Acceptance Agreement was mailed to the CC*A Thursday and it was delivered late Sunday night! (Monday morning their time)

Hope's name: We thought that choosing her name would be simple. Hope (insert Chinese name her) Last name. Easy, done. Not. Honestly we felt that Mung was not a pretty word in English and her paper work stated that it was just a name that they used in naming babies. I spent a whole day, on line with dictionaries coming up with a middle name that had meaning for us. One that would honor the 'meaning' of her name and use some of the same initials. (L.M also for my name Lynn Marie) In the end we found a name that means "Pretty Rose" similar to "Bright Sprout" only much prettier!

Her official name is going to be Hope Li Mei.

Visa Application: Wow! Who knew this was going to be a process and sooooo expensive $195 each! Yikes! I got the official "How to fill in the blanks" from my agency. Found an on-line application and started typing everything in. They must be typed. Luckily they are in pdf format so you can just type it all in on line, (HA! HA! I know someone who took it somewhere to type it on a TYPEWRITER!!!

Then I found out that the fees I was looking at were for a service to handle your application... well... I'm cheap... why can't I just mail it in and bypass this service?? Because the Chinese consulate won't accept mailed applications because applications were being stolen in the mail so people could steal the passports. Ugh!

Sooo...you need to walk them in or use a service... OH! I would LOVE to go to Chicago... but hubby said no! That this would not save us any money that besides gas and hotel I would spend a lot of money... Heh, heh... I tried. American Girl will have to wait...

Then after a little digging a fellow "picture holding waiting mommy" recommended this lovely site - There's Always Hope - now I just loved the name and when I realized it was another China AP serving PAP's get their Visa's I was interested. We will save at least $85 total!

We also needed passport sized photos for this! So here I am at 9:00 at night putting on make up and making Chris fix his baseball hat hair and all of us changing our clothes so I can take pictures. Jim wanted to wear his Mickey Mouse tee... I made him change! Sheesh! Then I spent an hour Photoshopping the pics 2" in size, printing and cutting them... of course the printer jammed, I couldn't find my paper cutter and I got glue on Chris' face and had to reprint his...

I'm not kidding getting our Visa applications ready took HOURS!!!!!! But they are done and will be mailed to my new friend Denise Hope. I just love her name!

Brown Envelope/NVC - Hmmmmm. For those of you who know this process, I'll share. For those dear family and friends who don't ... you can skip this part! It seems as though the De**oit office of immigration did not forward our recently updated (March) I-171H approval to the NVC. My dear friend (the one who used the typewriter!) gave me the heads up on this because they didn't forward hers either. I called the NVC 2 weeks ago and confirmed my suspicions, then e-mailed the De**roit office, as did the SW from my agency. Then waited a week... they did get back to me and I was stunned that I got a very sweet message!! Like a warm human being responded... they even said they were sorry! I e-mailed them back and thanked them for such a nice response!! Now I will call the NVC tomorrow to make sure they really did it... I just hate that I had to fool around with this...

Today marks 2 weeks! 2 more weeks until we can start expecting Travel Approval...

Stay tuned for packing lists, house cleaning and preparing to leave our sweet Kate home with Grandma.. sniff.