Here we go...

Ready or not!

We're in DC @ Dulles Airport, preparing to take off in about an hour for Beijing. We will be meeting our son face to face in under 18 hours!

--relayed over phone to Susan, Official Typist.

Welcome to Go!

A week left and counting...

Skype #3 with YoYo tonight--apparently the dog is a hit. I have to admit, however, that 2 things disturb me about his care thus far: he knows the Barney song, and he fled our conversation tonight to find solace in the arms of a stuffed Teletubbie. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

If you're new to my blog, I'll summarize. In July 2005, we started the adoption journey with a local agency. Because of breakdown within the agency, we left after 18 months with nothing to show for our time. Last February, we picked up the journey again with a new agency. A month later, we had completed our homestudy and traveled to China for a two week tour. We decided to pursue special needs adoption--called "Waiting Child" adoption by our agency. We requested children in June, then again in October. Our October request for one little boy with very large needs was frighteningly successful--and in 6 days, we'll travel to meet him and bring him home!

I'll admit, summarizing was harder than I expected. It brought back so many things that haven't yet made it to the blog. I told a friend the other day, "Who would walk the path before them if they could see its entirety? Fear would crush us forever." Some might choose to call it spiritual warfare, but I know that the biggest battle was with my own fear, and if it had won, not only would we not be traveling in 6 days-we might never be parents at all. There were so many near-misses.

But here we are, and I'm blogging as if I don't have a list to panic about. I must be off.

SKYPE!!!

Amazing things...

Friend Lisa's baby M was rushed to Vandy Children's hospital Friday, where they discovered the six-week-old had a "little artery trouble." Risky surgery today went smashingly well, and hopefully, she'll be off the ventilator soon. We've logged some time in these last few days back & forth to visit, praying, running errands... we've decided all play dates from YoYo's arrival onward will be at Vandy Children's Hospital. It's where the cool kids hang out--where they go to see and be seen, as it were.

Then home again, lickety-split, to Skype our boy! The weather cooperated tonight--yesterday, heavy rain in China prohibited a connection--and we got to see and talk to our little guy in real time for the first time!!! He was pretty concerned about the dog in the house, as he had not been there before and the dog was about, so he kept murmuring, "Dog, dog," in Mandarin. We didn't rate as much attention. So, that sounds like normal parent stuff!

T suggests we try again tomorrow night, and then perhaps we can do this every night until we travel. Oh, my...

Oh--I may have started a mural in YoYo's room, too. You know, just to kill time.

List of things remaining until we travel:

• pick up YoYo's ostomy supplies
• pack
• buy a new suitcase (Tania told us he has "a lot of stuff")
• three showers (3 showers?!?!)
• order cabinets (oh yeah, there was a leak and damage to our home in this whole story, and yea! thanks to the Florians and the Smiths for taking our housekeys and rescuing us while we're gone)
• finish the room
• patch the roof
• YoYo's prescriptions
• last-minute paperwork
• finish 7 AP Art portfolios
• wrap the school year
• film our award ceremony remarks
• create a CD of student artwork for awards ceremony
• there's soooo much more
• about $ 5,000 to go!

Did I mention we heard his voice for the first time?! OH, there's PLENTY of baby-ness left in him. He is soooo yummy!

On the Air...

We're getting ready to talk to Yo-Yo for the first time! We're Skyping him between 8 pm and 9 pm tonite!

(stay tuned)

Think of this adoption as...

...the most unlikely combination of events imaginable...an unlikely bridge between two places in spacetime...you know, a wormhole.

This evening, I thought we'd surely hit the benchmark, the defining moment which galvanized the spidery webs of hope and imagination into a very tangible event--plane tickets.

It's funny how a flight itinerary can make things real. While we made preparations for Iraq nearly two years ago--can it be two years already since that magical summer?--I existed in some sort of dreamworld, flowing from immunizations to supply lists to lesson plans to packing, and suddenly one day we had tickets. Until that moment, Iraq was a far-off land, and in that moment, it became very real and very close.

That's how it was tonight. Finally, e-tickets!!! And even if I haven't printed them yet, there is this sort of irrevocable sense of certainty, as if the journey to Yo-Yo has finally wound its way from rutted dirt lane to pavement. I babbled on the phone for 2 hours with who knows who about our flights.

And then the roof blew off even that.

T, the tireless co-hope of Yo-Yo's house, Skyped me. Rather, she told me to Skype her. And I, wildly insecure about my appearance in the best of times, much less in the wee sma's of Central Time, Skyped her. We talked for all of 20 minutes, but I may as well have been talking to Amelia Earhart tonight for as real as it felt. I can't begin to say how nervous I was--but it was for the best of causes that I stuck with it--and I ended up feeling not unlike those uncharted times in high school on first dates. I am going to be this boy's Mom--I AM his Mom! What do I say to not let them know how dumb I really am? What if she thinks I'm too ugly to be his Mom? Too fat? What if she comes away from our conversation pouring out amidst giggles and fits and starts and wireless interruptions and pixelated faces and thinks, "Maybe this isn't the best idea?"

Don't ask me why it felt like a casting call. It just did. And T was the kindest, gentlest person, self-effacing when it came to talking about her work, concerned that we'd have to figure out how to navigate introductions with Yo-Yo, delighted to be chatting casually about this event that will forever be the quantum bubble of our Big Bang. This is our zero, our shift from one end of infinity to the other. Before & After.

And it started with my first Skype. What a spaceship!

time

A lot can happen in a few days. Monday, I sent out the I-290B using the earliest delivery FedEx offers. It was cheaper than buying the gas to deliver it personally.

After all the buzz, Tuesday was quiet. The only adoption email was from the National Visa Center. They received our request for an expedited re-send of the Visas 37 cable to Guangzhou, and they had some questions. I resisted the impulse to reply, "Get with the story, people!" Instead, I let them know about our I-290B. Then they vanished. The best thing about Tuesday was getting a text from my nephew Brandon which read, "I'm so excited about Yo-yo coming home!" Through tears, all I could get back to him was, "Me, too!" I was carried that day by the hope of a ten-year old.

Wednesday popped. The I-290B WAS COMPLETED!! I got an email saying it was sent to the Visa Center and a copy was headed our way. YAAAAAAHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Sine then, it's been a blur: writing letters for the Embassy promising we won't carry "Jesus" or "Dalai Lama" banners in the streets*, frantically searching for flights we can afford**, turning in grades and making slides of student art and getting ready for the next school musical, scheduling (at long last this thing that I never thought we'd be able to have) baby showers!, updating registries online, emailing BlueSky to make arrangements, forwarding our I-171 news to all relevant parties...

Oh, did I mention? This means that we will still be traveling MAY 1!!!*** In less than three weeks, we'll turn the page.

*Instead of "banners," we promised the Chinese that we would not disseminate "religious propaganda." I hope we don't do that here, either ;) "True religion is this..."
**"flights we can afford" = weighing out funny questions like, "How likely is it that we could haul Yo-yo through Chicago's Mass Transit from O'Hare Airport to Midway? Southwest has tickets from Chicago to Nashville for $59!
***"May 1" means we've totally lost 10 days from our "What Must Happen Before Yo-Yo Comes" list, which includes ripping out a whole wall (literally) of our kitchen where a recent leak went badly behind cabinets and has made that wall SOGGY. Yikes! Isn't this going to be fun! We waited 14 years for this!! Yahooooo!

So much to say...

It's funny how time seems to stretch out over a weekend, and then one Monday afternoon, three emails arrive within ten minutes of each other--and they have the power to change the world.

The first email was from a friend of ours who is a huge advocate for adoption. Apparently, stories like ours have kept our agency from being granted Hague accreditation. The Hague Convention is an intercountry agreement establishing a set of rules which will determine the future of international adoption. Its decisions took effect April 1--the day before we suddenly needed all new forms and exact wording.

As it happens, our agency lacks accreditation. They were denied, according to their communications, because of the actions of some employees who have since been dismissed for forging documents in Russian adoptions.

But it's more complex than that. Our agency also has established foster homes in China. Our own Yo-yo has them to thank for donations which paid for his medical supplies for the last few years. There are so many children for whom our agency is an advocate. It even received permission from the CCAA to post several very hard-to-place children in hopes of finding them homes and it helped test-drive the new internet-based system of special needs adoption for China. So where is the breakdown? I don't know, but I know that I cannot pretend that I do no wrong.

On to the second email, this time from Johns Hopkins. Dr. Gearhart, the hero, sent a great letter stressing the need for an expedited processing of our new paperwork. His recommendation to Immigrations is that we be able to finalize this adoption ASAP for the sake of Yo-yo's health. Yea, Dr. G!

The third email? It came from Caseworker # 3, who wanted to check in and see what progress we were making. She had placed a call to the Immigration office in Memphis, and she wanted to encourage us to send our forms out soon. She went on to say that our agency really doesn't know why this new thing is suddenly being enforced, but it has nothing to do with the Hague Convention or accreditation.

We have been so encouraged by all our friends, their thoughts, and their prayers. To know that someone is thinking of you and praying for the sake of your child is a powerful thing. It can make a day bearable, hope possible. It can keep a dream alive!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE PRINCE!

Mommy & Daddy are coming soon!

April Fools?

Ok, now bear with me on this.

When I spoke with Caseworker #3 the first time yesterday, she said that in my conversations with the Senator's office and CIS, I should mention our son's needs as factors necessitating swift action and expedient travel. She called back moments later to ask, "You haven't made those calls yet, have you?"

Turns out, the CIS has a special form for children with special needs. Because we didn't start out thinking Waiting Children, we didn't know about this form, nor did we indicate interest in special needs when we completed our I-600 (the beginning of the immigration paperwork). Well, Caseworker #3 talked to a colleague after our little chat and learned that we did NOT want to say that special needs would necessitate anything, because it would mean someone might start thinking, and then we might have to fill out that form, and since it carries with it a turnaround time of 12 weeks, that would hinder our travel plans. She assured me that we were ok without the form, and that the Homestudy Addendum which we would carry with us to China would take the place of that form for the CCAA.

Well...two things happened today.

The first was an email from the courier handling our visas. She said that the Chinese Embassy noticed that we're employed by a Christian organization, and they want us to write a letter promising that we will not proselytize while we're in China. We can either fax those letters to her or overnight them, but we will not be getting any visas until we've given those assurances. Mind you, back last year when we sent our dossier off, we mentioned to Caseworker #2 that a coworker had to write a similar letter when he adopted from China. Did we need to include such letters or send them later, we asked. Nooooooo, no worries there--we shouldn't have to do any such thing, she assured us.

Except that we do, now, it seems.

The second thing--and perhaps you should sip your coffee before you read on--go ahead, swallow it--was an email from Caseworker #3 this afternoon. As it happens, China announced today that effective immediately, all parents adopting children with special needs must have--you guessed it--an I-290B, that special little form for kids with special needs, from the CIS. This comes now, in spite of 20 years of Chinese adoptions without this requirement.

So what happens now? I skip work again tomorrow, and I hightail it up to the agency to pick up the papers I need from them, print out the I-290B, make out a check for $585--remember, it has to be a Cashier's check or it will take longer!--and overnight it to Memphis. Then I have to begin a new round of Senatorial phone calls, to see if our situation can be expedited so that we don't have to wait another 8-12 weeks for that form to be processed.

And if we do have to wait 8-12 weeks? Well, that would put us into June or July, and by then Yo-yo has to have another ultrasound, and we'd have to restart the I-600 process and get new fingerprints, because we'd come too close to the expiration date on our I-171H. CIS is kind enough to offer one free extension to parents. That's good, because our agency's Hague accreditation was denied--long story involving Russian adoptions--and the only country bothered about that is China. If we had come this close and had already used up our free extension from the CIS, we'd be encouraged to GO TO ANOTHER AGENCY AND RESTART THE WHOLE PROCESS. No, really. I don't think I have to spell out what that would mean.

At this point, I feel like anything else will just sell more copies of the book once I get this boy. I must admit, I really did not see this coming. For that I chide myself.

you're not going to believe this, but...

WE HAVE TRAVEL APPROVAL!!! That means we'll travel around May 1, if all goes well...

..."if all goes well" includes of course the assumption that the Consulate will allow us to keep our appointment with them. This morning, they informed our agency that they don't have any of our information on file. The good folks at the CIS (Center for Immigration Services) were supposed to cable the Consulate a document called a "Visas 37"--it confirms that we've been approved to pursue citizenship for our boy. Without it, they don't have the verification they need, including our fingerprints, to finalize the process.

What does it all mean? Well, this morning it meant that I had 24 hours to come up with some action before the Consulate would cancel our appointment. If they did that, it would mean we'd have to wait for another Travel Approval to be issued. One hour of trying to call the visa processing center passed, then another of trying to reason with officials at the CIS. Then our agency's local office called with some helpful ideas, and where did I wind up but on Senator Lamar Alexander's phone line!

Now, I've never spoken with the Senator. I've been glad in the past to see him support the President's package for AIDS treatment in Africa--in fact, my plan was to call his office today or tomorrow to express my support for that bill, a 5-year plan, to be renewed for many many reasons. But, as it happens, I found myself asking for help with expediting this visa thing.

I was told to send an email to the Senator's office with our necessary information and precise wording about the situation. I sent that, and now we wait. I'll give it two days before I start new phone calls. When I copied the email for the Senator to our travel coordinator in St. Louis and Caseworker # 3, they both said "Excellent" and the travel coordinator indicated that would be enough to hold our appointment at the Consulate for now.

For now...