Update on Our Family

 

First, I would like to say I’m thankful, humbled and overwhelmed at the outpouring of support from our friends.  Our China adoption community is made up of some truly amazing people and their friendship, love, good thoughts and prayers have probably saved me from going completely bananas over the past 24 hours.

What happened and why?

I know our situation is baffling to many.  Here it is in a nutshell:

Most families who adopt from China live in the US.  The US visa in the child’s Chinese passport allows them to enter the US when the family travels home.  The child becomes an instant US citizen.  The family will choose (or not) to get the new child a US passport at some point in the future…depends on the family’s lifestyle and immediate travel plans.  The new US citizen will get a certificate of citizenship about 30-45 days after arriving home that is proof that the child is a US citizen and that (along with some of the adoption paperwork) is used to get the new US passport.  Pretty simple.

We live outside the US because the military stationed us in England.  Lee and I hold US passports and a military ID.  Those things, along with our military orders assigning us in England allow us to come and go from the UK at our leisure.  Our family members authorized to live with us have to have a visa to stay in England with us.  Zack has a special card he has to present when we come and go that shows he’s authorized to be there.  US citizens who come to England for tourism or visitation are allowed to enter on their passport and remain for 180 days. 

Chinese nationals cannot enter the UK without the appropriate visitor’s visa.  Right now, that is what Kyle is.  Actually, there is no Kyle, not legally.  He is Wu Cheng Jin, holder of a red passport issued by the People’s Republic of China.  If he wishes to enter the UK, he must have a visa.  It does not matter to the UK border authorities that he was just adopted by an American family two weeks ago.  It does not matter to the UK border authorities that “Mr. Wu’s” parents are with the American military forces and that he is completely supported by them.  It doesn’t matter than he can’t gain employment in the UK or apply for benefits.  It doesn’t register with anyone that “Mr. Wu” is three years old.  It only matters that he has a Red Chinese passport and cannot enter the UK without the appropriate visa.  “That’s crazy” or “that doesn’t make any sense” or “that doesn’t apply in this situation” don’t exist. 

Last year, when we adopted Zack, we made a stop by the British consulate in Guangzhou and got a “Special Child Visitor Visa” in his red Chinese passport.  It cost about $200 and took a few hours of our time to explain our situation.  We had to fill out a few forms regarding his anticipated employment, his marital status, and whatnot, which we found a little bit amusing, since Zack was barely two at the time.  Nevertheless, we got a special visitor visa and took Zack home. It was a little more paperwork and a little more money.  It wasn’t that big of a deal. 

Before we went through with this adoption, we really did stop to consider whether we wanted to deal with the paperwork and hassle to adopt another child while living in England.  Living in the UK has definitely added an element of hassle to our adoption and bringing a new child in to our home while stationed at RAF Lakenheath was a huge frustration.  We were treated like we were the “first family ever” to adopt a child from China while stationed in England – which I happen to know we weren’t.  Everything from getting a medical appointment to getting a social security card was extremely cumbersome.  The wonderful “Armed Forces Network” infomercials (some of you know what those are) tout the military “Family Center” as the place to go for questions about international adoption.  I approached our family center on multiple occasions.  The answer I finally got was “yeah…we just don’t know what to do with you.”  This was after getting the runaround and not having our calls returned for 2+  months.  Trying to get an initial medical appointment to have our post-institutionalized child evaluated – HUGE HASSLE.  Dealing with an appointment clerk whose response was “if your child isn’t sick, why do you want to see a doctor” was not a great beginning.  Anyhoo…my point here when deciding whether or not to go forward with a second adoption was “do we really want to go through this again”.  The answer was no, but the opportunity to adopt Kyle presented itself and saying “no” because the people who process paperwork and the people who are obligated to provide family support at RAF Lakenheath are not responsive…not a good enough reason for us not to go forward to bring Kyle home. 

So…fast forward a year and Lee and I again find ourselves at the UK Visa Processing Centre in Guangzhou, China with our new son.  After answering a bunch of questions about Kyle’s prospective employment and marital status, we got in line with all of the Chinese people who are trying to get visas to come to the UK.  We had to give out some additional information about our income to show the clerk at the processing centre that we were gainfully employed and could afford to have an additional person living in our household.  It didn’t really matter that we had to provide this info to both the US and China…we had to provide it again to the UK, in order to get a visa for Kyle to go home with us. 

We were ultimately told that the visa processing center changed their policy and that they no longer had the capability to issue a visa in Guangzhou.  The application had to be sent to Beijing.  We tried explaining that we had tickets to leave on Thursday night (this was Monday) and we tried playing the military card.  No go.  We were told that we could purchase expedited service and that we might get Kyle’s visa in 5 working days, but that it could be up to 10 working days. 

We looked in to changing our tickets to leave a week later…we were hopeful that the visa would show up in 5 days.  Mind you, we could not apply for the visa until Thursday morning (this was Monday) because Kyle’s Chinese passport was being held by the US consulate.  We contacted our travel agent and we were told that she could not get us a flight home until the 6^th of September – we’re initially scheduled to leave on the 22^nd of August.  This would mean 15 days stuck in Guangzhou, China, living in a hotel.  15 days of burning our leave and 15 days earlier that Kyle would have to begin going to childcare.  Our plan is to have as much time at home with Kyle as we can but with Lee and I both being military, we do have duty commitments.  Not to mention that we’re both scheduled to test for promotion to Chief Master Sergeant on the 10^th of September. 

After much discussion, we decided to go ahead and change our plans to go from here directly to the US.  This will allow us to “activate” Kyle’s citizenship and take steps to get an emergency expedited US passport that will allow Kyle to enter the UK.  We contacted our travel agent to see about adjusting our tickets and we got a huge sticker shock.  Getting out of China and in to the US on a relatively short notice was about impossible.  The “cheapest” fare for 2 adults and 2 three year olds to travel from Guangzhou, China to Detroit and back to London is $13,000.  No, that isn’t a typo.  Why Detroit?  It’s a major hub, it has a passport processing center and we have family there, which will negate getting a hotel room and renting a car.  We played around with fares and different departure dates and really…this is the very best there is. And yes…we eat the return leg of our initial tickets. Emirates refunded us about $500.  Laura is going to keep her initial itinerary. 

We leave Guangzhou on Sunday morning.  We fly to Shangai and then from Shanghai, we fly to Los Angeles.   From Los Angeles to Detroit, where we stay for a week and then fly directly to London.  These are the cheapest tickets on an “undesirable” (per our travel agent) airline – China Eastern.  This is the absolute cheapest way to do things, as crazy as that is. There are literally no seats available and the “last minute”-ness of the tickets are killing us. 

We have managed to pay for the tickets and the extra 4 days in the hotel isn’t killing us.  We have scraped up the money and have asked our credit card company to raise our limit.  We typically do not carry a balance on our cards and we are fortunate that we’ve got the credit to be able to handle this.  We’ve completely exhausted our savings to be able to pay for two back to back adoptions and we’ve been denied for almost every grant we applied for.  We fundraised about $2,500.00 and busted our booties for two months to even raise that much.  We’ve got a $15 home repair that we can’t pay for now because after this adoption trip – we really are broke.  We’re in good health and gainfully employed and we will recover from this.  For that, we are thankful.  But the “now” is really killing us. 

We have some nice friends who have posted our story on Facebook and we’ve received some monetary support because of that.  For that, we are very, very grateful.  It was not our intent to ask for money, but the money we’ve received is enough to pay for one person to fly back to the UK from the US.  We are so appreciative.  I’ve seen the adoption community rally many times to help a family that doesn’t have enough money, so the fact that we received support isn’t surprising.  It does make me a little uncomfortable, though, because we have never been that family.  Affording adoption has always been a struggle, but we’ve always managed without having to take the “we can’t do this without your help” position. 

“Why does your entire family have to travel?”

We brought our two children to China to adopt one new child.  Our “old” kids, for lack of a better term are 21 and 3.  Our 3 year old has been in our home for less than a year and our 21 year old has funded her own travel.  She is returning home as scheduled. 

Both parents must sign for the new child to have a passport, so we both must travel to the US with our new child. We can’t send our other 3 year old back to England with our 21 year old daughter.  They do not have the same last name, and there is no documentation that says that he may be in her custody.  We’re in China and we have no idea how we’d get such documentation and honestly…I don’t trust the UK border authorities not to do something weird to detail my kids.  It’s not like I’d be on the other end and I don’t want my 3 year old put in to some weird foster care situation because the UK border agency wants to get weird. 

“Why can’t this family take a ‘hop’ – military space available air”

We have a limited amount of time we can be on leave.  If we are delayed getting home, our newly adopted child will go in to childcare immediately upon returning home, which is not healthy for the bonding process.  He needs at least a week at home to adjust to the time change and new environment. 

We have some experience with hopping – Space –A and it isn’t good.  We’d have to travel to a Space-A hub and hope that we all get on a flight.  There is no published schedule.  If we do get on a flight, it doesn’t guarantee that the flight will go to where we are going.  We’ve attempted Space-A travel in the past and more than 50 percent of the time, it’s involved the expensive, last minute purchase of one-way tickets and hotel/food/transportation expenses at the port.  We’d have to travel to Philly or Baltimore, wait to see if we could get on something going in our general direction and hang out and then pay for a one-way if we couldn’t.  I’m supposed to be back at work on Monday the 23^rd (Lee has a little longer) and while I have an understanding boss…I am still in the military and can’t remain on leave indefinitely. 

The travel really does cost as much as it costs…$13K for the two kids and Lee and I to fly from here to Detroit to London.  We booked through Sue Sorrels and verified through Kayak and Expedia that we’re getting the best, most expeditious last minute rates.  It’s horrible.  I’ve bawled my eyes out for about the past day. 

“Can’t the military help?  Can’t the US Consulate talk to the UK consulate and make this go away?”

The military can possibly provide us some monetary assistance…there is an Air Force Aid Society that we’re looking in to using.  I’m not sure that this is going to be seen as an emergency and I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to recoup the costs since we’ve had to book the tickets ourselves…we can’t wait on funding…we have to book quickly to get out of China.  The availability of flights (unless we want to fly Russian or Egyptian airlines – which we don’t – is really that scarce right now). 

The US Consulate can’t help us.  Their advice to us is to get our new son to the US as soon as possible to get him a passport.  They will not engage with the UK consulate and we honestly feel that we’ve exhausted that.  The UK’s policy on visas for military dependents is very cumbersome and restrictive…anyone who has been stationed there with family members in the past five years can attest to that.  The UK is not the same as Germany or Japan.  If one more person tries to nicely tell me that all I need is a SOFA (Status of Force Agreement, not the couch) stamp in Kyle’s passport or a letter from my commander, I am going.to.scream. 

Our situation is sucky.  Bleak.  No way to sugar coat that.  I am not a “negative Nancy, look at me/woe is me, drama queen” kind of girl.  I work hard.  I take care of my own.  I love my family fiercely and I have a huge heart for my adoption community and all children.  To raise my hand and ask for help – terribly hard – even when someone else raises their hand on my behalf. 

I’ve seen a lot of FB stuff on our adoption situation and I’m thankful for every single person who has said something nice to me or about me or who has sent my family money.  I swear, someday I will find a way to pay that forward…when I get the mental energy and recover from this, I’ll post about the “Mockingbird Project”…my brain child and post AF job/initiative to help military families adopt. 

A little bit of collateral stuff going on – we are a family of 5 (3 adults and 2 toddler boys) who have been living in a hotel room for 2 weeks.  Things are TENSE. 

I have been sick since we’ve got to Beijing and am holding out for a “Doc in a Box” when we get to Detroit.  I’ve got a yucky, phlegmy chest and I’m pretty certain I have an ear infection. 

Zack got bit by some kind of weird bug and had to go to the Chinese hospital yesterday.  Things are OK now…I was actually pretty impressed with the efficiency and I’m thinking of going back and letting them work on me. 

I have kept Kyle’s medical issues private and will continue to do so, out of respect for him.  That said, his issues were pretty substantially misrepresented to us and we’re dealing with issues and potential surgeries on the horizon that we didn’t anticipate. We love him and he is part of our family but the road ahead for us is harder than we’d thought it would be. 

ALL OF THIS SAID…we’re doing OK. We had dinner with another adopting family tonight and enjoyed their company and came up with a great plot to populate the world with Tigers Fans.  Thank you Joel and Becca for dinner.  We loved visiting with you.  Our two little boys are so funny and we’ve seen they are going to keep us laughing and on our toes for many years.  Today, Kyle enjoyed many firsts – an ice cream cone, a visit to the zoo and a swimming pool. 

Adoption is hard.  International adoption is really hard.  Hell…parenting PERIOD is hard.  I think I can safely say that our road has been more difficult than the average bear’s, at least in terms of logistics.  I’ll be real here – I’ve questioned what we’re doing and whether we should have embarked on this journey.  These last few days have caused me to do that.  Tonight…I am at peace.  All of my children are in the place they are supposed to be at.  It is not perfect.  It is not even ideal.  There are many questions I don’t have answers to.  I have faith that we’ve made the right choices and are going in the right direction. 

For all of those who have helped us – really…thank you does not suffice.  And…at the risk of excluding anyone who has been wonderful to us, I would really like to give some shout outs to Mary, Lynette, Carmel, Vickey, Michelle, Wendy and Tracey for your OTT help to my family. 

And to end on a silly note...we took the boys to the zoo park today.  Spirits were good.  Cheers.