Process in Guangzhou

THE PROCESS IN GUANZHOU is about getting Emily's visa, plainly and simply. Doing so takes a few days, a medical checkup, and some paperwork. So as we enjoyed the delightful White Swan Hotel, shopped like crazy, and continued to play with Sydney and Emily, we also completed the medical checkup for Emily, the required paperwork, and visited the U.S. Consulate to receive our adoption packet and Emily's U.S. visa.

Our personal experience in Guangzhou was marred by Debbie cracking a rib during a fit of intense coughing. She had a tough head cold with a wicked cough throughout the trip, and her coughing became intense enough for her to break a rib upon our arrival at the White Swan. We also discovered we had left one of our suitcases at the Guangzhou airport upon our arrival, so Tom returned with one of our agency guides to collect and return the suitcase. We felt silly, but also wary of what else might happen!

Nothing else bad happened, except that it turned exceedingly cold and we didn't get to do as much shopping around the hotel as we might have liked. Tom and I tried to give Debbie breaks whenever we could so she could heal and recover from both her cold and the cracked rib, and she soldiered on and persevered through wracking pain and coughing fits. We spent quite a bit more time than he expected in Chinese pharmacies!

But we toured a couple of places in Guangzhou, shopped in quite a few places, and completed Emily's physical and paperwork. We attended the same medical clinic for Emily's physical as we had for Sydney's physical, and while the conditions were certainly sanitary, we nonetheless thanked God that we do not have to rely upon socialized medical care! We Americans may gnash our teeth at rising insurance rates and medical costs, but I'll take privatized insurance and medicine any day over socialized medicine.

We also discovered that the U.S. Consulate had moved from its location immediately next door to the White Swan. As a result, when the day came for us to take Emily to the U.S. Consulate to receive her visa and to complete the swearing in ceremony, we took an hour-long bus trip rather than a 5-minute walk to the Consulate.

At the Consulate, we walked through security and waiting, with many other adoptive parents, for daughter's visa paperwork. This paperwork is handed to us in a sealed paper envelope, and we are not allowed to open it until the immigrations agents at our U.S. port of call open it in our presence. As a result, before the paperwork was issued, we had to check one last time that Emily's name was spelled correctly. It was. We received the paper envelope, heard the warning to keep it sealed one more time, then did the cool stuff -- with all the other parents in a large waiting room, we uttered Emily's oath of citizenship on her behalf. And with that we applauded ourselves, boarded the bus, and returned to the White Swan where Sydney and Tom had enjoyed some quality time together.

And then we packed and prepared to return home -- flights from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to San Francisco, and San Francisco to Washington Dulles. Before we finished packing, we collected our last gifts and spent our last dinner eating with friends at Lucy's, a Chinese/Western eatery just next to the hotel, one at which we ate several times along the way.

For more about our time in Guangzhou, review our December 4-5 and December 6-7 posts in the Adoption blog.