Lots of things going on in the Cobb world

A lot of things have been going on in our household since we received our LOA about a month ago.  We submitted our paperwork to USCIS as quickly as we could, and we went ahead and applied for our visa's to travel to China.

About a week ago we received our passports back from the Chinese consulate in San Francisco with shiny new visas good for 1 year in them.  Then this past Wednesday (10/12), we found out that we got our approval from USCIS.  This is where the US federal government officially approved of us adopting Li Rose!  So now we have the approval from the Chinese government (LOA), and approval from the US government.  All that is left is for USCIS to mail our approval to the national visa center, which will then cable the approval to the US consulate in China.  A person who works for our adoption agency will then drop off a form (DS-230) at the US consulate, which will then issue an Article 5.  The Article 5 is sent to the Chinese agency that runs the adoptions and it is signed by the director.  It is at that point that a TA (travel authorization) is issued, and we are free to travel to China.  It has been averaging between 4 and 6 weeks between USCIS approval and TA.

Once we receive TA, we will be asked when we would like to travel.  We will say, "AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!"  So our adoption agency will try to get an appointment with the US consulate in China.  Once we have that appointment, they will count backwards two weeks, and that is the day that we fly to China!  Confused yet?  Basically, we are anticipating traveling sometime around the end of November or beginning of December!

On another note, we have mentioned in the past that our orphanage is notoriously closed lipped with information about the children under their care.  We decided to go ahead and send a care package to Li Rose in the hopes that it would get to her.  The most important part of that care package was a photo album where we have labeled pictures of her mommy, daddy, and big brother.  We heard that the director of the orphanage was replaced about six months ago, and that gave us more hope that they might be more open, but everyone said it was still very closed.  Well, a couple of weeks ago, a woman on a list-serve that we are members of said that she had sent a list of questions to the orphanage, and they answered them!  So we sent a list of questions, not daring to hope, but seeing if they would be answered.  Well they were!  We got an update on Li Rose!  No new pictures, but some information so that we can plan better, since the last information that we had was when she was 9 months old (she is 17 months old now).  Here are the questions we asked, and the answers we recieved:

1. Can we get updated measurements?  As of 10/10/11 her measurements are: Weight - 11kg (24 lbs), Height - 76 cm (30 inches), Head Circumference: 46 cm (18 inches)
2. Can she walk independently? She can walk if she holds someone's hand.  She can walk for about twenty minutes when someone holds her hands.
3. Does she live with a foster family? Yes
4. Can she say any words? She cannot talk yet but babbles.
5. What kind of food is she eating? She is not picky with her food.  She has rice twice a day and drinks milk three times a day.  Her staple is rice, vegetables, minced meat and eggs.  She has a good appetite.  She can finish one bowl of rice each time.  She can drink about 220 ml (7.5 ounces) of milk each time.  She loves fruit.
6. Did she receive the care package that we sent her?  Yes, we received the package in August of 2011.

We were very happy to get these updates, and we were even told what medication she is on for her epilepsy.  We will talk with our pediatrician about it soon, but it sounds like she is on the lowest dose possible of a very common, easily available, and low priced medication, so that is good.  We will have her levels tested and everything else checked out once she comes home to see if she even needs to be on medication.  Our initial report about her said that she had not had a single seizure since going on the medication.

Our upcoming travel has spurred us to finish up home projects that have been ignored for a while.  We finally finished installing all of the baseboards and quarter rounds in the entire house, caulked, and painted them all white.  We are almost finished doing all of the touch up painting.  We got rid of our muscadine grape vine in the back yard, and in its place will go a swing set that Chrissy's cousin is driving down in a Uhaul truck to give us tomorrow.

We are also starting to do planning for our travel.  It is still hard to make any definite plans, as we still don't know exactly when we will be traveling to China.  Chrissy has been putting things into a "China" box for months now, and we are trying to figure out how we are going to keep one toddler happy for 19 hours of flying to China, and then two toddlers happy coming home.  As for flights, it is starting to look like the best flights will be to fly from Jacksonville, FL to Beijing, China.  From Beijing we will fly to Kunming City, where we will be for a week.  We will then fly to Guangzhou, which is where all adoptions in China are finalized.  We will be in Guangzhou for about a week and then we will fly or take a train to Hong Kong and fly back to the US.  We are starting to get really excited, but at the same time we are very tired of waiting!

We are hoping to stay busy and not worry too much about the wait in the next few weeks.  It is possible that our paperwork can process faster than the averages and we would appreciate you joining us in praying that that would be the case and we could leave to get Li Rose very soon.