A Busy Day

Tuesday was a very busy day. We had our appointment at AIT to have an interview for William's visa. It took quite a while for us to get there as our appointment was at 8:30 am and we had to deal with commuter traffic on the MRT. We almost missed the building. It is pretty non-descript with a sign that says something about immigration on it. Fortunately, we were able to by-pass the line of people waiting to get in and go through security fairly quickly. They won't let you take any cameras, cell phones, or radios into the building. So, we had to check our camera and cell phone at the entrance. They returned these items as we left the building.

Our social worker was already there turning in paperwork for us and answering questions. We had to sign William's Taiwanese passport and an application for immigration on his behalf. Then we waited about 45 minutes for an interview with an immigration officer. We had been warned that other families are sometimes asked difficult or inappropriate questions, but our interview was very straight-forward. We simply had to swear that everything in our paperwork was accurate and that we would answer any other questions honestly. We signed some paperwork agreeing to innoculate Will and were on our way. Below is a picture of William with our social worker, Maria Hsu.

The Cathwel staff had arranged a meeting with the birthmother for Tuesday afternoon. Our original plan was to go back to the apartment and take a nap before heading out for the Jonah House. However, we were already more than half way to the Jonah House and decided that the MRT trips to and from the apartment would be too much for the baby, so Angela and her mom stayed at a Starbuck's while Allen went back to the apartment to get our gifts for the birthmother.

The meeting with the birthmother went well. However, we have decided to keep the details of this meeting and the birthfamily's circumstances private.

After our meeting at the Jonah House, we went to a market on the next street and bought many traditional toys to take home with us. It was a very long day and we were all glad to get home that night.