Leaving On A Jet Plane...Very Quickly!

All along, we were expecting to travel at the end of February (after the Chinese New Year), but hoping and praying that somehow it would happen before then.  Our social worker expected that we would travel at the end of February as well, with a slim chance that we would be able to get through our paperwork and travel before Chinese New Year.  So...this is what we prepared ourselves for. 

Well, we woke up to an email from our social worker in the middle of the night last Wednesday, asking us if for some reason we were able to get through our paperwork, would we be willing to travel quickly before the holiday.  Needless to say, neither one of us slept for the remainder of the night, but at the same time, we were very guarded and trying not to get too excited, as this was a big "IF".  We emailed back the next morning with a YES, YES, and YES we would love to travel!! 

Then began the most difficult and longest waiting period ever!  From Wednesday night to Monday afternoon seemed like forever.  We received TRAVEL APPROVAL from China on Monday afternoon, January 14!!  Then, we began the wait to see if we would be approved for a consulate appointment before Chinese New Year.  Roughly 24 hours later, we received an email that indeed we would be traveling before the holiday, and not only that...we will leave one week from today, January 24! 

Words cannot even begin to express how incredibly excited we were.  We received the consulate appointment email in the middle of the night Tuesday and once again did not get any sleep for the entire night.  God is so good and His timing is PERFECT! 

My mother will be going with us on our trip!!  We are so excited to have her come along for support, encouragement, and most importantly...another set of hands!  We were not sure that she was going to be able to come on the trip with us for sure until we actually got the word "go".  Once again, our God is in the details even when we think He may not be.  We have seen His presence in every aspect of this adoption journey! 

Karlye is very excited about Lucy, China, the train, and the airplane, but I am not sure that she totally understands that we are really leaving.  In her defense, we have been talking about her sister and traveling to China for about a year now, so why would she finally get it that we are actually going.  Please be in prayer for her sweet little heart.  She is about to face many new transitions in just a short time...travel, living in a new place for two weeks, a new sister, etc...  She is already beginning to get extremely clingy to me, which I am sure will only be enhanced closer to time.  Karlye and Nathan made a countdown chain today after school to help her visually see how many days are left before we leave.  She had a great time with this!

To add to the already increased amount of stress over the last couple of days includes a diagnosis of Asthma for Karlye :(.  She has had a yucky cough for about 13 weeks now and has been on three rounds of strong antibiotics, one round being 20 days long.  The cough would not budge, so off to the doctor we went again, for the fourth time.  He suspected Asthma a few weeks ago, but was not convinced.  This appointment, she was wheezing and had chest tightness so this diagnosis looked more promising to the pediatrician.  He gave her a nebulizer treatment and she was breathing better.  We left the pediatrician with about four prescriptions to control her asthma and headed to Children's for a chest xray.  The chest xray was consistent with Asthma.  We may have to bring an extra suitcase for all of her inhalers and medication.  Poor thing!  Hopefully we will get her to feeling better before we head into the smog of China.     

Not only are we getting packed and ready to leave in a week, but Lucy's furniture just came in on Tuesday for us to actually complete her room!  Nothing like last minute!  This is really wreaking havoc on the planner in me!

We are so excited and still in awe about how quickly and perfectly all of this came together.  A big thank you to our sweet social worker for all of her hard work to get us ready to leave in such a short time!  We appreciate ALL that you do to help families bring home their children! 

Please also be in prayer for Lucy as she is about to leave everything familiar.  We ask that God prepare her heart, comfort her, and surround her with a sense of peace during these last days without her family.  We are so ready to get our arms around her!

I will post a blog before we leave with more details about our travel plans.  Until then...

Thank you sweet Tiffany for the beautiful letters!  They look great!