FAQ: Why do you have to wait so long to go to China?

Unfortunately we still have a mountain of paperwork to conquer before we can travel to China to get Caitlin. Our new homestudy was finally approved and finished today, so I drove up to our homestudy agency to pick it up. I then added it to yet another pile of paperwork (including a 16-page application, more copies of passports, birth and marriage certificates), and FedEx-ed it all to the USCIS (Immigration) office in Texas, so that we can again apply for our I-800A. The I-800A is our pre-approval to bring an "immigrant" into the country. We already had this, but unfortunately allowed it to expire last year when we thought we still had years to wait, so now we must reapply.

Once we get our I-800A approval, we will apply for our I-800 (another pile of paperwork!), which will approve Caitlin for entry into the U.S. Then we cable everything to the National Visa Center (NVC) to get Caitlin her U.S. Visa. Then we send everything back to China so that they can work on the Visas for Paul and me, as well as our Consulate appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.

Once we have all that, China will send us our Travel Approval (or TA), which is when we can make our flight arrangements. When we receive our TA, things will really start to move fast; we should be traveling within 2 weeks (I know of people who were on a plane 24-48 hours after receiving their TA)!