We leave tomorrow

Tomorrow we leave for Vietnam. Yesterday the boys were off school so we had time to spend with them. It was such great weather, we played at the park and went for ice cream. This morning I had a few errands to run, and pack a couple of last minute things. We went out to dinner tonight with the boys and Mark's parents. Tomorrow we will say good bye to the boys when they leave for school. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm excited to be going and at the same time it will be hard to leave the boys. I know they will be well taken care of. That's not the point. I have never been away from them for this long, and so far away. If I keep thinking about the baby, it will keep my mind off of them and maybe I won't miss them so much. We will be emailing them and talking on the phone. And they will be busy when we're gone. This weekend they're going to Wisconsin Dells and next Saturday is the cub scout Raingutter Regatta. And then there's school. So anyway, we leave tomorrow and arrive in Hanoi Friday morning. (Thursday night here) We will be 13 hours ahead once we change the clocks here. I will try to post Friday night.

4 more days

This morning I finished the work I needed to get done before I leave. It feels so good to have it done. Then I did some shopping to pick up the remaining items to pack. And I finished packing. Just a couple of last minute things to pack at the end. Boy, those suitcases fill up fast. But a lot of the things will be used up during our stay so there will be room coming back for the things we buy while we're there. So tonight I'm going to relax.

5 days and counting!

Today my goal was to finish my work that I needed to get done before we leave. I have a little left to do that I will finish tomorrow. The boys are off school Monday so we wanted to be able to spend the day with them.

Last night I did some more packing. It's easier to pack clothes when you are going to a different climate. The forecast for Hanoi while we're there is in the 80's. They have higher humidity than we do. I've been told to take lots of hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes. And of course we need to have room in our luggage to bring back things we buy when we are there.

I received an email from the adoption agency with the names and email addresses of the others in our travel group. There are a total of 5 families. We're looking forward to meeting them.

We're going next week for sure!

It's official. Our adoption agency received an email stating that the 5 families in our travel group will have Embassy appointments in Vietnam and file the I600 the old way. I feel so relieved. I am so excited about going now!! Now I need to finish packing and tying up loose ends before we leave. Only 6 more days until we leave!!

It looks like we're going next week

These last couple of days have been the most stressful of the whole adoption process. So the change officially goes into effect October 29. USCIS has decided those with 'imminent' travel plans will be able to make Embassy appointments on a case by case basis. Beginning November 17 all I600 forms need to be filed here before travel. Our adoption agency emailed them this morning with our itinerary's and travel plans and is waiting approval from them. Since they're 12 hours ahead of us we aren't expecting to hear from them until tomorrow. I think it's looking good. Our adoption agency told us to plan to travel as scheduled for now. We would all feel better having confirmation from them. So we'll see what tomorrow brings. Continue to pray for us.

possible travel delay

What a stressful day. Remember in an earlier post, I mentioned that there is going to be a procedure change with the filing of form I600. Well, this morning I received a phone call from our adoption agency saying that the initial report is that the change is going into effect Oct 29. They are expecting a formal announcement by the end of the day today. So we don't know any of the details. Everyone at the adoption agency is bothered by this because they had no notice. They did not think it would happen this fast or they would not have scheduled groups to travel. She doesn't think they will grandfather anyone. Which means we would not be leaving next week. Because now we would have to file form I600 here and USCIS has 60 days to approve the form. Like I said we're still waiting to hear the details of the formal announcement. So I took matters into my own hands and called our congressman's office to see what they could do. I faxed them the info they requested and they are making an inquiry to see if we can be grandfathered in. It could be a couple of days before I hear back from them. To me it would make sense to grandfather those who already have dates scheduled for the G&R. We already have our airline tickets, we've received our visas and we're ready to go.

9 days until travel

Wow, 9 days until we leave. There are a lot of things to do once you have travel dates. We continue to pack. I'm hoping to be done packing by this weekend so I can relax for a couple of days before we leave. If that's possible. The boys are excited about staying with their grandparents, so that makes me feel better. Although Nate hopes we're only gone 2 weeks. I'm sure we'll be ready to come home by then too. I'd like to be home before Thanksgiving. I'm planning on posting while we're in Vietnam, but probably won't post any pictures until we return.

Our flights are confirmed

Well, I didn't hear from the travel guy last night, but he emailed me this morning. So after emails back and forth we finally decided on a travel route and confirmed our flights. We will be leaving October 31 and arriving in Hanoi November 2. Sounds like a long trip, but they are 12 hours (or 13 once we change our time?) ahead of us. It's kind of funny because when we come home, we leave one evening and get back the next morning. We were told to book our return flight for 3 weeks out, and it has to be a changeable ticket. There's a good possibility we will be home before 3 weeks. Once our flights were booked, we had to send in our applications for our visas. Then I needed to call to get travel insurance. And I also called to add her to our health insurance. So it was a busy day and I didn't get much work done.

We have travel dates

Today I received the email with our travel dates and info. We are supposed to be in Hanoi, Vietnam by November 4th. Our Giving & Receiving Ceremony (G&R) will be on Monday the 5th. I immediately called the adoption travel agent, who has been recommended, to make flight reservations. I left him a message, and called again a few hours later. He said to email him the details and he would work on it tonight and call or email me. So I'm waiting to hear from him.

Wow, this is really happening. For a while when we were waiting, it seemed as if we were just going through the motions, but it's real, it's actually happening, we are going to have a daughter soon. I'm both excited and nervous. Not so much about traveling to another country, but about having a baby again. Will I remember what to do? It's been a while. And I'm not looking forward to being away from the boys for so long. That's going to be the difficult part.

Can't wait to bring her home

What an emotional week it has been. I just can't tell you how excited I am! Although it has been not quite 4 months since we sent our dossier to Vietnam, the wait was long enough. All the paperwork and waiting has been worth it. She's the cutest little thing and is the perfect baby for us. I can't wait to bring her home.

This weekend I did some shopping for baby things, now that I know how old and big she is. We should have our appointments scheduled soon, so we're thinking we'll hear this week about our travel dates. The tentative date they are trying to schedule for is only a few weeks away. So I'd like to get our airline tickets as soon as possible.

We have a referral!

We have a referral!! I'm so excited!! I received the phone call yesterday (Tuesday) about 2pm. I can't post any more info yet, until it's official.

Haven't heard anything

I've talked to a few people in the last couple of days who say they check my blog regularly. It's nice to hear that. I've often wondered if anyone is reading this. A couple of people have posted comments, but there are many others who don't post comments, and that's fine.

Last Thursday, I emailed our social worker at the adoption agency asking if there has been any change in our status. I still have not heard back from her. Which is unusual. Usually she gets back to me the same day. So that could mean a couple of things. Either she's tired of hearing from me, asking the same thing. But I don't think that's the case based on the content of her emails. Or maybe she's on vacation. She was just on vacation recently for a week and someone else was answering her emails then. So I don't know that that's it. Unless she was just off a couple of days. Or maybe she's going to be calling me soon with good news. I like that one better. I'm trying to not get too excited about it, but it's hard not to. So here I go again, trying to figure out what this means.

Sometimes I'm OK with being #5, knowing it can't be too much longer. It's not like we're going to go back to #7 or #20 or anything. And then other times I have the strong urge to email the adoption agency, just having to know if there's been any change.