FIVE YEARS DOWN THE TRACK...

In November 2004 we started the journey to bring a baby home from China ... five years later, in October 2009, we met Isobel Pingqin.
Our little livewire known as Izzy.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

We have our Notice to Travel

Yesterday we received a call from DoCS advising they had finally received our Notice to Travel. This is the final piece of paperwork we need before collecting Isobel - we basically exchange this certificate for Izzy. So that is now safely in our folder of paperwork to take with us.

Thought we were done with vaccinations, but we are now having a Swine Flu vaccination, so one more needle.

No progress on packing - suitcases have been sorted out but as for what has to go in them, well that's all too hard.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Three weeks to go

We’re now getting very organised.

We still don’t have our “Notice to Travel” from China. If we don’t have the letter, we don’t get Izzy. We are hoping it is already in the mail as China will be starting a week of public holidays mid next week.

Bags are out and packed one day, unpacked the next – deciding just what we need to take for three weeks and one small girl is quite challenging. No doubt the bags will be packed and unpacked numerous times until we leave. If the weather was consistently either hot or cold it would be easier, but it is very much like Sydney at the moment, 18 degrees one day, 28 the next.

Accommodation in Hong Kong was booked and confirmed this week.

Prams came down from the rafters in the shed on the weekend, were washed and are now back in their old spot – in the boot of the car.

So the next two weeks will basically be getting Izzy’s room organised at home, and finding places for all the junk that has lived in her room and is currently in our hall.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Four weeks to go and counting...

A few more things have been achieved this week.

We now have our Chinese visas in our passports. Accommodation in Nanchang and Shanghai, as well as most of the official bits and pieces to be done in China, were booked and paid for. This was a long and painful process - it is all booked though the Chinese adoption agency's travel service, so every question had to be emailed to DoCS, who then emailed China, wait for China to reply to DoCS, and then DoCS reply to us. So this has taken about two weeks to finalise.

Travel vaccinations have now been completed.

Lots of stressing this week - just because.

We now need to wait for our most important piece of paper from China, our Notice to Travel (NTT) - this is the official letter from China advising us to come to China to collect Izzy. Without this piece of paper, they won't hand Izzy over. We expect it to arrive next week.

Next job ... sorting out suitcases!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Five weeks to go until we meet Izzy

More progress this week. We have confirmation that handover will definitely be on Monday 19 October in Nanchang.

Flights were confirmed and paid for this week, and accommodation has been confirmed by the Chinese agency who arrange that side of things.

We had confirmation also that our immigration documents arrived in China, as did all the paperwork DoCS were sending to the Chinese adoption agency.

We arranged for a soft baby photo album with photos of Peter, Ben and I to be sent to Izzy at her foster family's home - hopefully this will make it to her and she will be able to see what we look like. It will still be extremely distressing for her when she meets us for the first time, however hopefully if she has seen the photos she won't be as scared.

We will be applying for our Chinese visas on Monday and having the last of our travel vaccinations this week.

We fly out of Australia on Tuesday 13 October, have a two day stop over in Hong Kong so we can take Ben to Disneyland there, then straight into Nanchang which is where we will collect Izzy on the Monday.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A date for "handover"

Very exciting, we received confirmation from China via DoCS this afternoon that "handover" will definitely be on Monday 19 October.

Tentative flights have been booked and we will be flying out on Wed 14 October - only 5 more weeks!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

One week closer...


On Monday we met with our social worker and were given our first photos of our gorgeous girl.

We have named her Isobel Pingqin Andrews.

The amount of paperwork we had to organise this week was overwhelming, but finally was done.

On Friday our immigration documents were sent by express courier to the Australian Consulate in Shanghai. Other documents were returned to DoCS who advised on Friday afternoon they were also sent over to China.

We have a proposed "handover" date of 19 October, however it will take about 4 weeks for China to confirm that date (or give us a different date).

Next step - visas and travel arrangements.