Shall I start with the fact that we have a name? Yup, you heard that correctly, she is no longer referred to as Baby Elvis around the house. She now has a name.... Teagan ZhouXin. We love it (Of course we love it because it would be silly to name your child something you don't like!) Isabel, however, is not too happy about the name. A moment that will be etched in my brain forever is when we told her the name and Isabel just did a scowl...and then almost had tears as she explained she thought SHE would get to name her little sis. We have had numerous talks about this. I still don't know that she is sold on the name (she prefers the name she had chosen...Kiki). However, I have explained to her that she is welcome to have her own special nickname for her little sis. (Who would like to place a bet that five years from now everyone in the neighborhood refers to Teagan as Kiki?)
Oh wait...maybe I should start off with the UPDATE we received on Teagan? With Isabel we received an update shortly after our match...but there was no real opportunity for additional updates as we were on a plane to China so much faster with her. Since the wait between match and travel is so much longer this time around, families sometimes receive updates. Not always, so best not to count on an update. That being said, I can't think of a better surprise than working at my desk one afternoon and suddenly getting an email with an updated photo and brief (extremely brief) update on her health and development. She is doing well, but recently had a cold, and she is "very active". [Families who were in our travel group to get Izzy are probably giggling right now as Isabel was labeled as being very active...and she was, indeed!] Well, I could ramble on here, but I am sure you are skimming past this already to look at her newest photo:
They cut her "Elvis do" quite a bit, but she still seems to have a lot of hair. She seems to be standing on her own, which is wonderful to see. She also looks so much older to me in this photo. I cannot explain the heartache that comes when you see your child and know that you cannot just hop on a flight and bring her home right away. To love her so much without having ever held her. Tough stuff I tell you.
Which brings me to my last update...things are at least moving quickly. (Fair warning...this is kind of the boring stuff.) On Halloween we received a "pink sheet" from the USCIS asking for us to provide further evidence. (This was the next step in the process we had been waiting for and we knew that they just needed a copy of our LOA.) Our agency passed along a copy of our LOA and then we were told to keep an eye out for our 1-800 Provision Approval (PA). On our flow chart it says that it can take 2-4 weeks, but our PA just showed up TODAY! Tomorrow I will call our agency and have them lead me through the next step in the process. I believe we will receive a letter from the National Visa Center (NVC) which then will then trigger us to send a DS-260 to apply for a visa for Teagan to come back into the US with us. (She will be traveling with a Chinese Passport and is not considered a US citizen until her feet touch US soil.) I believe these steps take about another week or so to happen. Meanwhile, Jeff and I will fill out the documents and request our visas for travel. After that comes the Article 5 document which then leads to the Golden Ticket a.k.a. the Travel Approval (TA). We can travel anywhere from 10-21 days after we receive our TA.
What does our timing look like at this point? Well, your guess is about as good as ours. We will of course have a better idea once we see how quickly our NVC letter and Article 5 arrive. Going off of what we know at this point...we are still looking at December. If I look at the typical timeline of events that our agency usually sees...I can narrow it down to a mid/late December departure. And yes, that would mean that we would travel over Christmas. Personally, I can't really think about that right now. It will be hard enough to be away from Isabel, I cannot imagine being away from her over Christmas. So...I am choosing to ignore this possibility until I am required to confront it. ;-)
Last but not least, I must give a public "thank you and I-love-you-for-dealing-with-my-crazy-emotional-self" to my husband. We finally got the nursery painted....twice. We painted it once and the color did not quite turn out how we had expected. This realization came to us after the room was complete and at a very late hour on Sunday. He was not feeling well and had to stay home the next day to get in to the doctor. That morning while he was waiting for his appointment....he surprised me by repainting the room in the other color. This seems like a small thing to most, but we have been trying to get this room painted for a VERY long time. We can finally check that off our list and move on to the rest!
1 comment:
Woo hoo, things are finally moving along! Congrats on finally settling on a name-love it, and on finishing her nursery! She is a cutie and I really hope you maintain her Elvis hair when she comes home with you! ~ Johnna N.
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