Educated Guess (& Explanation) of Our Travel Dates

Today is the day that our Article 5 should be issued by the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. An Article 5 letter states that we are suitable adoptive parents and that Shaling will be able to enter the United States and reside here permanently. A courier will pick it up from the Consulate and take it to Beijing, where it will be delivered to a contact of our adoption agency, Madison Adoption Associates (M.A.A.). On Monday (or at least, most likely on Monday) that contact will let M.A.A. know that our Article 5 and some of our other documents are being submitted to the C.C.A.A. (China Center for Adoption Affairs). The C.C.A.A. will issue our Travel Approval (T.A.) in about three weeks. That’s when things really take off.

Once we get the T.A., We’ll immediately be submitting our top five date choices for our Consulate Appointment (C.A.), which takes place IN China. At this appointment, we (and Shaling) have to appear in front of her visa officer in order to receive her visa. The C.A. has to be on a Tuesday or Wednesday. We have to arrive in China at least TWO Sundays before C.A. Within a day or so of submitting those choices, one of them will be confirmed and we’ll start scrambling to make our travel arrangements.

To illustrate, I’m going to give you the recent timeline of my friend Tim Stowell, who is adopting Star (you may remember her from other blog posts).

10/21 – Article 5 picked up
11/15 – Travel Approval
11/28 – Sunday by which he must arrive in China
11/29 – Probable “Gotcha” Day
12/8 – Consulate Appointment

Notice he has less than two weeks to make all of his travel arrangements – air fare, hotel, etc. Since our Article 5 is being picked up today, if we follow Tim’s timeline, we’ll receive our T.A. on December 13, though it very well could come sooner. Keeping that in mind, Brock & I discussed what our top 5 choices for C.A. would be.

Ideally, we’d get a C.A. of January 4 or 5. Either of those would mean we would have to arrive in China by December 26. I’m guessing we’d fly on the 23rd or 24th, not the 25th, due to air line prices & seat availability. Our “Gotcha” Day would likely be on Monday, December 27 and our adoption would be complete on December 28. Some time before the C.A., Shaling would have to have a Center for Disease Control approved medical exam and immunizations. We would fly home roughly January 8 or 9. The drawback is that we are missing the entire holiday season with my family (Christmas through New Year’s), but the payoff is that Preston would get to travel with us without missing any school (or perhaps one day or so to deal with jet lag).

Our next two choices would be January 10 or 11. We’d have to be there by January 2. We’d get Shaling on January 3 and the adoption would complete on January 4. We’d fly home around January 15 or 16. Preston would still go with us, but would miss an entire week of school (plus we wouldn’t get Shaling until AFTER the holidays and the next calendar year – those of you familiar with the IRS know why that matters). The plus is that we’d at least be home for Christmas.

Our fifth choice would be December 28. We’d have to be in China by December 19; we’d get Shaling on December 20 (adoption complete on the 21st), and fly home around January 1 or 2. We’d still miss the holidays with my family and Preston would miss 3 days of school in December, but we’d be home with a week to spare before Preston has to return to school on January 10. He’d get to stay home with her during the day for that week. The ONLY reason this is not our first choice is because Preston has his first ever concert with the Sangamon Valley Youth Symphony Concert Orchestra on Saturday, December 18 at the University of Illinois-Springfield. It is the only concert they have this semester and he is one of only TWO percussionists in the ensemble. We are so excited for him.

If we chose December 28 or 29 as our C.A., the time constraints between his Saturday afternoon concert and our required presence in China on the 19th make things complicated. We’d either be scrambling to find the exact flight that would get us there on time (we lose time on the way to China; gain it coming home) or we’d have to leave him home and go without him. I don’t like that latter choice for several reasons. One, I want to see this concert, for which has been working so hard to prepare. Two, I truly want him to go with us, as I think international travel is a wonderful learning opportunity anyway and in this particular case would be even more beneficial. It would help him understand his new sister if he could experience the only world she’s known for nine years.

So, those are my thoughts and a rough explanation of what’s left. Nothing is set in stone, but I believe it’s a safe bet that we will end up with one of our first two choices (January 4 or 5), so now all of our family and friends have a much better guesstimate of when we’ll be traveling.