TECO Experience

We headed down to Palm Beach Gardens after work Wednesday night to crash for the night at the Aunt & Uncle Inn (thanks, Roy & Maribel). They warned us about the heavy traffic in the morning to Coral Gables and suggested we wait a bit later to try to miss some of the rush hour. The traffic was very heavy and I was getting a little concerned about making our noon deadline.

We found the TECO Office on the 6th floor and told them we were there to authenticate our adoption papers. I handed them my two folders of paper and she asked for our application. I told her we had to fill it out, which we did and turned in. I noticed they had some free brochures, which I collected. She had a little Taiwan flag on her desk and I asked if she had those available. She said she would look for one. She took our cell phone numbers and said she'd call us if our papers were done early, but otherwise they'd be ready at 3.


On Maribel's advice, we decided to spend our waiting hours walking around the Bayside Marketplace.

We had a great Cuban lunch and listened to a really bad keyboardist jamming out with his own bad self. At 2:00 we were done and decided to head back and wait at the TECO Office. As we were pulling out of the parking garage, we got a call that our documents were ready - perfect timing.

We got back and they handed us our authenticated documents....I couldn't believe that was it. They asked a few questions about why we chose to adopt from Taiwan. I talked a bit about our decision process and showed them a picture of Kaylee. (Notice Kaylee's in the picture) They authenticate 2-3 sets of papers each month. They had never seen any of the babies pictures or had any follow-up on what happened to the families. I gave them our blog address to follow our journey.

They gave us a Taiwan flag for Kaylee and I asked for anything that we could keep for her. We got a ton of stuff - 3 dvds on Taiwan, maps, magnets, brochures....it was great. One of the ladies did warn us that Taiwan is only 1/4 the size of Florida and has a TON of people. We had them tell us how to say her name and did our best to mimic them. They also told us what her name means. Chia means nice, beautiful and Chuan means precious, like silk.

They wished us well. What a great experience! We gathered all our documents and placed them in the fedex box in the mailroom. We are officially on our way to the courts!