CHRISVALIER.COM

Today, we received Ava’s Adoption Certificate, officially welcoming her to the Valier family.  We are so proud. 

Our day started bright and early, leaving the hotel at 8AM (which turned out to be the best move of the day).  First, we headed over to the Civil Affairs Bureau of Jiangxi Province to complete the adoption registration procedure.  When we arrived, there was a mass of people trying to get on the elevators.  We filled the elevator and headed for the 26th floor.  Unfortunately, we stopped on nearly every floor in between and somehow squeezed one or two more people in at each stop.  When we finally got to the 26th floor, we were directed into a small room where we had our pictures taken for the adoption certificate.  After pictures, we moved into a larger waiting area and began the wait for our turn. 

In the waiting room, initially, there was our group of four families and one or two other families.   Thirty minutes later, you could hardly find a place to stand, let alone an empty seat.   There must have been twenty families in that waiting room – hence my earlier comment about leaving at 8AM being the best move of the day.  We were then called, one family at a time, to be questioned by a Chinese official.  The questions were relatively simple like “What is your occupation?” and “Why do you want to adopt a baby from China?”.   When the questions were over and the official was satisfied, we exchanged gifts and moved on.  There were many more families waiting.  The gift we received was a nice porcelain mug.   This area of China is quite famous for its porcelain.

After the questions, it was on to the “banker” where we paid the fees for all of the paperwork.  They seemed to be very well organized, probably due to the incredible job our guide Mary had done.  I sat down at the “bankers” window, he said something to Mary and Mary turned to me and said $1240 dollars.  I handed him the money and he handed me a stack of receipts that were already stapled together.  I was in and out of there in less than five minutes.

At this point, we received our Adoption Certificates and Ava was officially a Valier.

Then, it was on to the Notary Office to complete the notarization procedure.  Again, when we walked into the lobby, there was only one or two people there, so we were able to get in and out very quickly.  Fortunately so, because as we were leaving, a bus load of at least 10 families was walking into the lobby.  Yet another clear indication of why leaving early was in our best interest.

Then, we all headed to Wal-Mart to pick up some essentials.  Well, the whole China Wal-Mart experience is a story in and of itself.  We’ll save that for another day. 

Needles to say, today was an exciting day for the Valier family. 

P.S. – Thank you so much to everyone who has commented on our posts.  It is so much fun to come home after a busy day and just read through each and every comment.  It keeps us going, thanks.