Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Just a quick update for today. We have lots of packing to do and a 5:30am departure time from the lobby tomorrow morning. Yikes. It is 11pm now, so as you can see there won’t be a lot of sleeping tonight. Oh well.

We went to the U.S. consulate today and took the oath which basically was affirming that all the documents and statements we had made along the adoption process were true. This allows Jillian to leave China on an immigrant Visa, yet gain citizenship upon entering the United States. Her Chinese passport will actually remain valid because she doesn’t exactly lose her Chinese citizenship when she becomes a U.S. citizen. It is very strange how it works, but we were encouraged to obtain a U.S. passport as soon as possible so she will never have to travel on her Chinese one. Anyway, the whole oath process was pretty cool, but not very personable. We were in a room with about 100 of our fellow adoptive parents and we all raised our right hands and repeated after the USCIS person. But it is almost completely official now, all we have to do get to the U.S. for the deal to be done! Yay! After all this time.

We spent the rest of the day shopping (yes, we bought more Coach!). Hopefully customs is used to us crazy adoptive parents and all our shoes and silk dresses and bags. We had a nice dinner with a couple of fellow WACAP families and thoroughly enjoyed our last evening in Guangzhou. Now we are trying to pack and figure out just what we need for the long plane ride home with a baby. Unfortunately we left our thermos at the consulate (all liquids had to be removed from back packs) so making bottles won’t be as easy, but we’ll make do.

Jillian has really come out of her shell over the last few days and is becoming more and more playful and vocal. She may retreat back just a little as we turn her world upside down again, but at least she knows we are by her side now.

We didn’t have the camera with us today because they cannot be taken into the consulate, so we left them in the room. Enjoy the latest shots I took of Jillian this evening.

Signing off from Guangzhou China.