My life is filled with "A's" lately :) TA & CA are the most recent A's that are music to my ears. Yesterday we received our Travel Approval, which means we have the go-ahead to make travel plans for China. We were given two choices for travel - the 20th (in nine days) and the 27th (in 16 days). I would have loved to leave on the 20th, but with Adam's work, preparing my classroom for my long-term sub, and final preparations over the summer to get the kids ready for school, we requested the later date as our first pick.
This morning we received our CA - our consulate appointment. We were approved for the later travel date. On September 1st we will get to meet, hold, hug, and play with our son. I have so many fears about this day. Google "Gotcha Day" and you will understand why. It usually does not go well. Kids don't usually like strangers, and as much as Adam and I already love our son, he does not know who we are. We smell different, we look different, we dress different, we eat different... get the picture? I know I will have to use all my powers to restrain myself from just kissing the daylights out of him too. I love this kid. Not like, "oh, he is so cute I just love him," but like, "I love you. Deep down to the root of your soul, I love you". But as much as I feel this I realize I have to be careful about not coming on too strong and scaring him away from me.
I have heard that kids in these situations tend to take to one parent and not the other at all. I have seen this with many families I have met online going through the same process as us in the past few months. So, as much as I love Adam and want these two boys to bond, I am going to hoard the backpack we have ready, which is stuffed with bubbles, balloons, books, markers, spinning tops, and more so I can offer bribes and incentives to come to mama. I want so desperately for my baby to love me, but love is a deep emotion and it can take time. I love him so much I will respect that and will be patient for this love to grow.
I am so so terribly saddened that I will miss the kid's first day of school. I had a friend ask the other day how I felt about that and how I will probably never live that moment down. Sadly enough, I think that friend is right. I think as a parent we are constantly forced to choose. We have to choose which crying child to go to first, which to feed first, who to hug first or last, and in this scenario, we had to choose: do we wait on China for our son for potentially up to another month, or do we just go for it knowing that AJ and Abby will be loved and well taken care of. China has a holiday taking place the first week in September, so if we didn't leave now most likely we would have had to wait an additional three weeks until we could travel. We chose to bring Christian home and to trust that AJ and Abby will not be deprived of any crucial life experience. I know my mom will do a wonderful job with the kids and I am already starting detailed notes outlining her days (sorry mom :)).
So, we are now down to about fifteen days until travel. Tonight we booked our tickets. To save on costs we are going to have a "lap seat" for Christian - meaning we will hold him in our laps for over 16 hours of airplane time. Yikes! It saved us about a thousand dollars though and there is a good chance that on an airplane he wouldn't want his own seat anyway. We decided to extend our trip by one day and spend a little time in Hong Kong. This will spread out some of our travels as initially when we looked at our itinerary we were going to need two layovers with about four hours at each airport. This meant a crazy amount of consecutive travel time, so we added the night in Hong Kong. This will mean about four hours of travel to the hotel there and then about five hours less travel (including the layover wait time) on the return home. We have heard wonderful things about Hong Kong, so for that we are excited. We have also heard that at that point we are just going to want to go home, be with our kids here, and to start what will be the new normal for our lives. Hopefully we made the right decision, but there is no going back at this point, so we might as well embrace it, right?
These next two weeks are already busy. Adam is working very hard to wrap up some small jobs and get some big jobs going so his team can keep busy and be productive while he is away. His dad is also going to help out with some of his duties. My parents and sister are moving TOMORROW from their home to an apartment, so they are busy. I have four days left of tutoring this summer, one day of work where I am going to meet with my long-term sub and help get my classroom schedule/ dates/ room set up so there is some rhyme and reason to everything, clothes shopping for the kids, and final cleaning/ nesting projects. The rest of our time will be spent together - I need every hug and kiss I can get from my precious two. I already miss them. I decided to use my personal days during workshop week so I can be home with the kiddos for our final days together and so I can finish my book/ notes for my mom in our absence. In addition to taking on the two kids, she will be watching our crazy dogs, three fish tanks, grocery shopping, and cooking/ house duties. Thank goodness for my mom!
Christian's suitcase is already packed. I have his clothes washed and folded, ready for our trip. I just need to run through our list a few more times to get a few final pieces and then we are ready to take off! Somewhere in there I need to actually learn some Chinese. I was really hoping to acquire pieces of the language, but I still only know about three words. I do need to brush up on my sign language a little though - thankfully I used to know quite a bit. As far as I understand, Christian is not able to produce sounds because of his cleft palate, so I plan on teaching him sign language to help him with communicating until he has corrective surgeries and speech therapy. Good thing we have 24 hours of travel - I should be able to pick up a language and review signs in that time period, right? :)
I just want to end this note tonight with a big thank you to all of you who continue to share in our joy and excitement. I was teaching a class today for CPI to staff and we had a few minutes left over at the end of our training before the next presenter. A friend asked for me to share a little about the adoption and I joked, but not really, that I could talk all day about our little guy and our journey. I am so so blessed and am so thankful for many reasons. God bless!
Praying for and thinking of you all!! So excited! :) --Nancy B
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