Key events in Vietnam

Many people have asked why we will need to spend 3 weeks in Vietnam. Is that time spent waiting to pick up Gianna from the orphanage? No, here's the basic itinerary. We'll probably fly into Hanoi on a Saturday or Sunday and spend a day getting situated. The next day we visit the orphanage and meet Gianna for the first time. We will be able to speak with her caretakers and ask questions about her life at the orphanage. Then we take her back to the hotel with us. This first 24 hrs is usually the most difficult. You feel let down if it isn't love at first sight and you doubt your ability to be a good parent. Maybe this is similar to the first 24 hrs after you give birth, who knows. The next day you go back to the orphanage for the Giving and Receiving Ceremony. This is the finalization of the adoption under Vietnamese law. If the children have living parents, they are required to attend. So there is a chance Gianna's birth mom/dad will be there to say good-bye. This is an emotional time for the orphanage caretakers. Although they are happy to see children go to loving homes, they will surely miss them. After the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, there are refreshments and a meet and greet. Immediately after this, you are escorted to the local police department to apply for your child's Vietnamese passport. Then you wait for 5 business days or more for the passport to be issued, sightseeing and getting to know each other. After the passport is ready, you take your child for a medical exam at a clinic approved by the US embassy. Once you have the medical review, you go to apply for a US visa. It takes around a week to get a visa interview. Typically they can issue the visa on the same day as the interview or if they are back logged, it can take another week.

So there will be a lot of down time where we will do tons of sight-seeing. But we can't really leave the general area of Hanoi and certainly can't leave the country when waiting for Gianna's citizenship documents to be processed. I'm restarting my Vietnamese lessons. Its a difficult tonal language, but I want to be able to speak to Gianna in her native language and tell the orphanage workers how grateful we are for their kind service.