In the count down...

I am currently on Day 6 of waiting for my I-600 Acknowledgement and hopefully receiving Travel Approval. The wait can take as long as 60 days, but it has been averaging 8-14 days. So, I am hopeful I will receive final approval this week and be in Hanoi next week or the week after.

We received our Viet Nam Visas for travel and our passports back from the Viet Nam Embassy in Washington DC. The stamps and insert for Viet Nam in our passports are really cool. With both the Chinese and VN visas; it just seems rather adventurous to have approvals for travel to/from Socialist Republics. (I just love Robert Ludlum novels.)

Last week I received a packet called “Referral Documents” from Viet Nam. It was a package of about 10 documents outlining how baby Brian came to be at the orphanage. It describes that on April 20, 2008 at 8pm, one of the “deaf and dumb children” found a baby at the orphanage gate. They took the baby to the security guard on duty who immediately ran to the gate to see if he could see anyone there. He did not see anyone. He called the Orphanage Manager and she came to the security room and they both called the police together. The police came out to the orphanage and processed the paperwork of the abandonment. The child was then relinquished to the orphanage.

They determined that the boy was approximately 2-3 days old at this time, because his navel was not dried.

He was wrapped outside with a green cotton diaper, wearing a green-flowered white newborn shirt inside and a white newborn hat.

They assigned him a name – basically calling his last name the same last name as the Director of the orphanage. I don’t know where his first and middle name came from. (I am still not allowed to release his Vietnamese name or his pictures until after the adoption is completed in Viet Nam).

In Viet Nam documents and language they call the orphanage “The Social Welfare Beneficiaries Nourishing Center”.

An announcement was completed within the next several days and placed in the newspaper and on television for a period of time seeking the parents or guardians of this baby boy. No one came forward, and the child was permanently relinquished to the center. A birth certificate was given to him.

The next set of documents show the child’s status being changed into “available for adoption” and then on October 20, assigned to me – and all of my personal information formally being connected with this baby.

I hope to learn more when we are in Viet Nam and hope to find the deaf child and security guard who found baby Brian. (I need to refresh my sign language skills asap!)