all too familiar

We're still waiting. Again. I've come to realize that this whole adoption process involves more "hurry up and wait" cycles than anyone can really imagine. Really. Our super duper exciting LOC from China required us (actually that would be Andy) to rush around and gather more documents to send to another government office for another approval (our i800, for those of you in the adoption world and know exactly what all of these things are!). We were told by our agency to expect that to take 10 days to 2 weeks. And, just as I expected, we're looking at 2 weeks tomorrow. And nothing. I called the US immigration phone number last week to try and check on our status. I was told that I would get a receipt, of sorts, in 30 days and then I could ask about our status. I kept telling the lady that was the previous process we went through (the i800a) and our papers should be approved within two weeks this time and I shouldn't be waiting on a receipt that takes 30 days to get here. She was like a broken record. She just said the same thing over and over. I finally asked for the Chicago office phone number. And she told me that they did not accept incoming phone calls there. Huh? Now that's an interesting way to avoid having to deal with customers.

If any of you have been or are in this new i800 process, do you have any suggestions or thoughts? Our adoption agency has only had one or two families that are adopting from China go through this i800 approval stage. They have had a few others that are adopting from Guatemala get through this stage and they all had approval within 2 weeks. If we get our approval today or tomorrow, we're right on schedule...well, the late schedule. If not, well, I'm not going to go there yet...

The small glimmer of hope and good news in this stage is that our original LOC document is actually back in China. Our agency sent it there in hopes that China might look at it and be ready to issue our Travel Approval (TA) as soon as they receive the i800 approval. So, at least something is in China right now. It's just one lonely paper. But it's there.

For those of you who read this and have no idea what any of it means...it means we're waiting. again. on paperwork. from the u.s.. We're still hoping to be in China by May.