It's Official!

Monday was a very busy day, very busy.  We started our day with a great breakfast at the hotel, and then at 11:00 our guide in Nanchang, Jenny, came to our room to have us sign a lot of documents. 

After we were done with the documents we had a few hours to get lunch and let Maisey nap.  At 1:30PM we left to the Nanchang Office of Civil Affairs.  On the 27^th floor of an office building in Nanchang (the Old City.) The office was very small with on large room where family’s waited for their appointments there wasn’t any air conditioning an it must have been in the high 80’s in that office.  We met up with the contingent from the Orphanage who was very happy to see Maisey, or “Fen-Fen” as they called her.  They were very happy to see she was doing well and that she would be living with a good family.  Long enough to be educated in the US before she would, naturally, move back to China and live out her life there.  I say that a little tongue and cheek but the truth is that is the hope of everyone in China who is involved in foreign adoption.  They are very proud of their heritage and hope that Maisey will not lose any of her love for her homeland. 

The meeting with the official was very quick, she reviewed our stack of papers and asked us questions about why we wanted to adopt, and how we’d provide for her and that we would not neglect or abandon her.  Needless to say we passed.  We then gave our orphanage donation, and we were given our official document from the Chinese government that states WE are Maisey’s legal guardians!  It’s done!  Now for just a little more red tape for passports and visas.

I want to say something about the orphanage donation.  On the surface it sounds strange, or somehow less that above board.  It is NOT.  The orphanages in China that participate in foreign adoption are a smaller percentage than those that don’t do foreign adoptions.  These orphanages need to be compliant with the UN’s Hague Convention, which raises standards of the participating orphanages, and adds some safeguards in the system to minimize corruption.  This “certification” requires more staff, better facilities, etc. This costs money.  In China, those orphanages receive only half of their operating budget from the Chinese government; the other half comes through the donations of parents like us.  It’s kind of a pay it forward concepts.  Those who adopted before us, paid in part for the care that Maisey received.  The donations me made will help those to be adopted in the future.  The whole process is truly amazing and very well run.  I was impressed.

We left the Civil Affairs office with our guide and went to the Government’s Notary office, just across town.  We had another short interview, mostly to confirm the information on the report.  We were in and out in 5 minutes.  Then we went to the Safety office, Chinese homeland security, in the “New City” part of Nanchang. This is where we applied for Maisey’s passport.  We now need to wait 3 days to receive her Chinese passport.  Although she’s our child, she is still a citizen of the People’s Republic of China; therefore she will travel with a Chinese passport.  She will become a US Citizen the moment our plane touches down in the USA.

Then we went to a baby store to buy a potty for Maisey.  You see not only can she walk, she’s also potty trained.  In everything that happed this day, Maisey would not go to the bathroom in our room, or in her diaper or anywhere for that matter.  She held it all day the poor girl, until she had her own potty like the one from the orphanage.  We brought her back to our hotel, put the potty on the floor, and presto, back to normal.

More to come stay tuned.