Travel in August

Several people have asked when, exactly, we will be traveling. Right now, all we know is "sometime in August." We think we have about a three-week departure window-- between August 1st and August 15th. But we won't know anything official or final until approximately 7-10 days before we depart. For those of you who are interested, here is how it works:

Once we received our referral, we sent back a letter accepting Marcie's referral. Our agency received our acceptance letter on Friday June 30th, I think. That following Monday (July 2nd), they sent our acceptance letter (along with everyone else's) to China. It takes 2-4 business days to arrive, which means it got to China some time around July 7th.

Once China receives the acceptance letters, they issue Travel Authorizations. This arrives anywhere from 2-5 weeks after receiving the letters. This means at the earliest, we will receive our authorization next week. The travel authorization gives us permission to travel to China to get Marcie.

Once our agency receives the Travel Authorization, they contact the American consulate and request appointments. The Consulate takes 2-4 days to respond to the request. The time and date of the consular appointment determine the travel itinerary (and thus the date of departure). If we receive Travel Authorization next week, we could receive our Travel Notice (date of departure) late next week or the last week in July.

I'm personally betting that we won't depart until the third week in August (around the 15th). I have no hard evidence of this. It's a hunch based on the fact that the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) is rumored to be in the middle of a move to a new building. I think this will slow down the authorization process a bit. Plus, everyone from the U.S. can't travel all at once-- it has to stagger a little. I'll be disappointed if we travel much later than August 15th. But this is one of those things over which I have no control, so I'm choosing instead to focus on other things (like helping Casey re-decorate his room in a Thomas motif and setting up the nursery).

Anyway, we'll keep you posted-- please keep checking back!