A Little Up a Little Down

Our daughter is in Guiyang. Mark just discovered that Fort Worth's sister city in Chi*a is Guiyang. Out of all the cities in Chi*a, Guiyang is the sister city!! I really love that.


For a long time I have hoped that the day we meet Emma would be June 10th. I have a countdown app on my phone that is set for that date in Chi*a which would be the evening of the 9th here (1 month 2 weeks 2 days 21 hours 7 minutes 3 seconds FYI). All the dominoes seemed to be lining up. We received our I800 approval on the 11th (this is where the US gives permission for us to adopt Emma specifically). We were cabled on the 19th (this is the beginning of the Visa process for Emma). Things were on-track for for our Article 5 to be dropped off on Tuesday the 23rd (another step of the Visa process). I emailed the appropriate document to the agency. I knew our coordinator was currently in Ch*na, but I assumed that she would still be managing things like this. When I hadn't heard back from her after 2 days, I emailed her again to check on the status. I received an auto-reply that she was out of the country and would have limited internet for a week. The timing of this is so important. If we don't have drop off this week, then this process may not be done in time for us to receive travel approval before the Chi*a agency closes for a week for a software upgrade which would make "my" desired travel date not possible. Monday morning I received an email from our agency reassuring me that things were on-track and drop off was happening on the 23rd (today). FYI, drop off can only happen Tuesdays through Thursdays. Things were back on track and "my" date still looked probable. A few hours later, an adoption friend who is using the same agency let me know that because of holiday closures, no adoption business would be conducted the week of June 10th. NOOOOO! We will have to delay travel by a week. I was really hoping to avoid that because it means that we will be home 2 days or less before the oldest 3 leave for Camp Blue Haven (and they are not going to miss camp). I strongly believe that this is in God's hands and that we will travel when it is best. I was just hoping he would agree with MY plans :-) The good news is that things are progressing as they should and we should be able to travel in June!! We have 3 steps left in this process. The Article 5 process (the current step in process), Travel Approval (TA) from the Chi*a agency, and confirmation of our Consulate Appointment (CA). This may actually happen!!!!!


- Jenna