Consulate Appointment

We had our US Consulate appointment yesterday.  We were in one of the first groups to fall under the new visa procedure.  The facilitators no longer submit the visa paperwork at the Consulate – this is now is done by the families themselves.  We rode the bus from the hotel to the Consulate as usual, but we went on the actual day of our scheduled CA rather than the day after as was previously done.  We had to go into the Consulate by ourselves and the facilitators all had to wait in the first floor lobby.  We were ushered into a smaller room that is adjacent to the large room where we used to have the oath ceremony.  We took the oath first and then each family was called up to a window to submit their paperwork, to have a “face check” to make sure we were the right family with the right child, and to sign the DS-230.  There are only 12 families scheduled at a time (either at 8:30am or 10:00 am each day) so we were in and out fairly quickly.  Today our facilitator went back to the Consulate to pick up Lily’s passport/visa and her sealed brown immigration envelope.  This new procedure will cut one day off the travel time for future families.  Unfortunately we were already in China when these new procedures were instituted so we have to stay a day longer than we are required to since our flights were already confirmed and purchased.