Great Wall

Great Wall

Friday, December 20, 2013

Travel While in China

One of the questions we are most frequently asked is "Do you know when you will travel over to get Mila?" Unfortunately, the answer to that is "no we don't." Right now the best that we can give is an estimate. We've been told that from the time we got our letter of confirmation from the national Visa Center, that the time to travel is approximately 10 weeks. That puts us mid February which stinks because we really wanted to go in January but at least it is getting closer. Right now the US Consulate in Guangzhou is reviewing our paperwork for being able to bring Mila home and make her a citizen. This takes about 4 weeks. Once they approve the paperwork, they will issue an Article 5 to the CCCWA stating that we have met the Hague Convention requirements. We will get a copy of the Article 5 when it is issued. Then the CCCWA reviews the paperwork on their end. Another 3-4 weeks. Once they approve it, they will issue our travel approval (TA). This is the document from china that says we are cleared to enter the country for the purposes of adoption. Once that is issued, we will contact our travel agency (Lotus Travel) and they will start putting our trip together including all the places we will stay, setting up our appointments and helping us book our plane tickets. That is suppose to take 2-3 weeks and then we travel!  So that is where the 10 weeks comes from. And with the holidays we are wondering how much that will slow the process down. We hope not by much!  For now, all we know is that we will fly into Beijing, be there for 2 days, then we will travel to Wuhan City to where Mila lives! We'll be there for 5-6 days and then we will travel to Guangzhou which is where the US Consulate is. There we will complete Milas immigration paperwork and she will officially become a US citizen!  For now, here is a picture showing the drive times between where we will go.