We Love Skype!!!

Tonight we were able to use Skype and talk to and see Maddux in China through video. We got introduced as his mom and dad. He waved to us and sang us a song (in Chinese) and told us that he likes cars. He also got to see a close up of Mickey on the video and that got a smile out of him. He was a little bit shy, but we expected that from some of the other information we had. He knows the words mom and dad in English, but that's it for English.

Only had about 10 minutes to spend on Skype, but it was awesome!!!

Now if we could just hop on a plane and go get him!!!

Our 800 application should have been approved on Friday, but we did not hear back from USCIS. Will be calling first thing Monday morning.....everyone keep fingers crossed!

The Rest of the Process

From what we understand, the rest of the process is:

1. Mail I800 application to National Benefits Center (NBC) for approval. Takes 10-14 days.
2. NBC will mail approval via regular mail to National Visa Center (NVC). Takes 2-7 days to arrive at NVC.
3. NVC will upload approval into computer system and cable approval to American Consulate in Guangzhou, China.
4. NVC will issue a letter stating approval has been cabled. We receive a copy via email (if everyone is feeling nice) and email the copy to adoption agency. Adoption agency couriers it to Guangzhou to drop off at US Consulate.
5. US Consulate will issue Article 5 letter. Agency courier can only drop off and pick up documents from the Consulate on Mondays and Thursdays. Takes 2 weeks.
6. Agency courier picks up Article 5 and forwards it to CCAA. Travel Approval (TA) is issued a few weeks later.
7. After TA, receive official Consulate Appointment and plan China travel. Hopefully 2-3 days after TA. Travel 4-6 weeks later.

We are still hoping to travel by end of February!

Maddux is Coming Home!

Okay, not immediately, but last night we received approval from China. Maddux is officially ours!!!!! Jen got the call from our adoption agency at 7:02PM last night. Only 34 days waiting for Letter of Approval (LOA)!

Our agency has to mail us the LOA form and we have to sign and send it back to them. After that happens they will submit paperwork to the USCIS office to get us official approval specifically for Maddux (verify his orphan status, etc.). They will then send this to another US gov't office where the information will be cabled to China. This process should take 4-6 weeks. Then China will issue an Article 5 and after that is taken to the Chinese authorities, they will issue a travel date for us. We also have to apply for visas for China. We are estimating we will travel sometime in mid to late February!

We also are going to find out if we can send a care package with some goodies and some pictures of us to Maddux.

Great timing! Sunday afternoon we stopped at Ikea and bought a dresser for Maddux's room and a comforter cover.

Red Thread Charities

Love Red Thread Charities....they are the charity group that has been in the orphanage that Maddux is at and have been able to send us updates and pictures from October updates below. This weekend we received some new pictures, including ones with his foster mom and one with Maddux actually smiling!!

Their website is: http://redthreadcharities.org/ if anyone is interested in more information.

And now for the new pictures:




























A smile:













This picture is of the bracelet that he wears. This was with him when he was found and was given to him by his birthparents. We are told the bracelet is for good luck. The walnut is a chinese medicine that promotes wellbeing.

Our little boy is waiting for us in the Zhejiang Province, in Hangzhou City.

Blog Settings

We have taken our blog private as we are not able to publicly post pictures yet until we have official approval from China. We received notice yesterday that our Log In Date (LID) was 10/12/2010. This is the date that China has received our dossier and logged it into their system. The next step will be official approval (Letter of Approval - LOA). We are hoping for this by Thanksgiving, but the average wait time is 58 days currently.

The Big Update

So finally the big update that everyone has been waiting for..... we have decided to switch from Bulgaria to China (for a variety of reasons) and have a boy waiting for us. He is from the China Special Needs program - he has already had surgery to correct his special need. We saw him listed on an agency waiting children's list and requested his information and received it on his 3rd birthday!

His name is Sun Zhong Qiu and he was born on 5/25/2007. Sun would be the equivalent of our last names. His first and middle names (Zhong Qiu) were given to him as he was found during the autumn festival. His American name will be Maddux Samuel Bush.

Multiple pictures below for our cutie.

The first picture we ever saw (taken in March 2010)













New Pictures Taken in October 2010: