A Chicken Pox Upon the Bureaucrats

I don't know if anyone is still following this blog, but we've been home for a few days and are still settling in. Zoe's cold seems to be finally getting better, but she isn't sleeping quite as well. We had one of those nights that all parents dread - when the baby starts crying and can not be soothed no matter what you try. We've always been able to calm Zoe down pretty quickly, so this was a little frightening. Lorin got her to sleep eventually, but we're all feeling pretty jet-lagged today.

But the sun is out (it's been raining since we got home), so in a little while we're going to take Zoe out for a walk in her new stroller.

In the meantime, there's more to recount about our time in China. Let's start at the end, on our last day in Guangzhou, with a bit of bureaucratic theater known as the "swearing in."

After going through the dossier paperchase and waiting 15 months for our referral, I knew that the Chinese part of the adoption (our week in Nanchang) would be an exercise in red tape. It never really bothered me, even when we learned that the notary would no longer take U.S. dollars and required the mighty sum of 4000 RMB (about $520) from each or our two families traveling together, a sum which was more than the first three banks we went to were willing to exchange. It didn't bother me because a) this was the process that many others before us had been through, and that it made sense in its own twisted way, and b) our guides Tom and Jim were more than able to guide us through the labyrinthine process. Having Tom and Jim around made the buracracy all part of the adventure.

Not so much adventure on the American side of the adoption. On our second day in Guangzhou, our guide, Ms. Liang, came to our room to help us fill out the paperwork required for the American Consulate to issue a visa to Zoe. On Wednesday, she delivered the documents and made sure they were all correct. (Turns out the U.S. gov't had issued a new form that needed to be filled out, and Ms. Liang had to come back to the hotel to have us take care of that.) Finally, on Thursday, we were all to go to the consulate for the mysterious "swearing in" that we had heard so little about.

Most adopting Americans in Guangzhou stay at one of two hotels - The White Swan or The Victory. Both are very nice and are in walking distance of where the American Consulate used to be. About a year ago, the consulate moved to the other side of the city. And Guangzhou is a big city, the 3rd largest in China. Still. most folks like to stay at the White Swan or Victory, so both hotels will bus the new families to the consulate. The bus ride takes 45 minutes to an hour through heavy traffic. There are about 50 families on 3 buses.

At the consulate, we all waited in a large room while we were called one-by-one to a window to show our passport, which the clerk compared to the xerox of the passport that we had already provided. Then we all waited around for a while longer, wondering what comes next. There are signs and instructions around for the "interview" process of getting a visa. "Just relax and tell the truth", the instructional sign says. Parents are yakking, kids are yelling, and it's not long before some of the babies, including our Zoe, are having major meltdowns.

An official notice is passed around advising us that a few of the kids at the White Swan had come down with chicken pox. We had all heard about this, and many of us were nervous about our kids being exposed. Then it occurred to me: the U.S. government was warning us about exposure to chicken pox by putting us all in the same room and thereby EXPOSING US ALL TO CHICKEN POX. It had been a long couple of weeks, our daughter was sick and crying, and I was starting to get a little pissed off.

Finally, a consulate official came out to administer our oath. She explained that the children would be getting temporary green card visas, and would become naturalized U.S. citizens as soon as they set foot on American soil. Then she had us raise our right hands and attest that all the information we had provided during the long process was true to the best of our knowledge. We did, and we were done, except for collecting our children's visa packets and the long bus ride home.

That's it? All that schlepping across town and waiting and crying and sweating (did I mention the sweat?) to verbally attest to something to which we had attested in writing for every document we had submitted? What a waste of time.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I'm glad to have Zoe home and I'm glad she has her U.S. citizenship. But would it really be so difficult to have the consulate official come to the hotel, look at our passports, and hand out our visas there? I bet most of us would be willing to chip in and pay her taxi fare.

P.S. There's a few new pictures at the Shutterfly link...