We FINALLY have

I-800 Approval

 

We had receieved our Letter of Approval from China on April 22nd.  It arrived via FedEx on April 23rd and was mailed overnight mail to USCIS- Immigration.   It had to go through the lockbox in Texas- that takes entirely to long and then to Missouri where our officer waits for it to hit her desk to approve it.  I called her at least a times over the past couple of weeks.  Each time she'd give me a new day to check in with her.  I called last Friday thinking it would for sure be approved.  Everyone else whose papers were received on April 24th like ours had received their approval last Tuesday or Wednesday.   She told me it was on her supervisor's desk and to check in the following Tuesday.   I just wanted to hang up.  I didn't expect that at all.  She kept talking to me and then said Happy Mother's Day!  I started crying at that point and barely could get out a 'you too!' before hanging up.   I called on Tuesday only to have to leave a message.  Never got a call back.  I was prepared to call back Wednesday afternoon.  She ended up calling me around noon and told me we were approved, Monday, May 13th and that it was mailed from them (National Benefits Center) to the National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hampshire on Tuesday via 2 day mail.  That  means the NVC should receive it today.  Once it is unloaded and checked in, they will issue us a GUZ #.  Once we have that GUZ # we can request a PDF via email that we send to our agency rather than waiting for the actual document to come in the mail.   We should get our GUZ # tomorrow or Monday and our PDF Monday or Tuesday.  Once our agency has that PDF, they can signal their in-China person to drop off our papers at the US consulate, which has been closed most of this week due to a threat.  That is called the Article 5.  It takes two weeks from drop off to pick-up.  We will see if we have any luck with expediting that step.  Once we have Article 5, we wait for China to issue our Travel Approval (TA).  Once we have TA and are given a consulate appointment, we backwards plan from there and can book our flights.   Most families leave 1-3 weeks from TA.   It is looking like we'll be traveling in early July.  It's hard to say if we will make his 6th birthday or not, July 1st.