Off to China

At last, we've booked our travel to and from China, and we've received our in-China schedule and travel itinerary. The past week has been quite trying, but the result is that our plans are set and we know we'll have Emily in our arms on Monday, November 28. When all is said and done, that fact is the only one that matters.

But as the time grows closer for us to travel to China, our patience runs thin. So working out the details of our travel to and from China, and learning of our in-China schedule, has seemed to happen excruciatingly slowly, accompanied by high levels of stress!

Our adoption agency notified us to expect to receive, on Thursday evening, our in-China travel schedule. But with Deborah in New York, Daniel in Richmond teaching, and Sydney staying with friends Thursday night, we were nervously checking our email messages, phone messages, and the like to find out what the rest of our journey in China would look like. Deborah and I finally connected by phone late Thursday night with the news that we'd received nothing. So, there came another test of our patience!

But Friday morning Deborah received our in-China schedule and discovered that we needed to make a significant payment to our adoption agency to cover the costs for our in-China travel (hotels, breakfasts, and air travel) THAT DAY so it arrived at our agency by Monday, November 14. But Daniel was in Richmond with Sydney getting travel funds from the credit union there, Deborah was in New York working, and neither of us were near the right check book! And since Friday, November 11, was a federal holiday, the task of getting funds out in time proved more difficult that either of us anticipated. Once again, by the end of the day, we persevered and the check's in the proverbial (FedEx) mail, scheduled to arrive by 10 AM Monday to our travel agency.

We also discovered that our travel group has a conference call with our adoption agency scheduled for 3 PM on Monday. And we learned that Daniel's dad, as a travel companion, needs to participate in the call from his office in South Georgia. So we called Daniel's dad to let him know about the call, then sent him the travel schedule and particulars so he'd know what we were talking about during the conference call.

But at this point, almost all of the unknowns have been answered and are now "known." We have our travel itinerary from Washington Dulles to Hong Kong and back, and we have our in-China travel schedule. We know we'll leave Dulles early Thanksgiving morning and return the evening of December 8. We know we'll see Emily for the first time on Monday morning, November 28. And we know that we can (almost) afford the whole process!

We've sent our full travel schedule to friends and family via email. Please email us if you'd like to receive a copy of the schedule - we will only post the schedule on the blog after events happen.