This is how I see myself these days. So much to do. So little time. We are moving so quickly to the day when we can finally meet Minsy and gather her into our arms. I can't wait for that day to happen. We have been on this journey for over a year now. When we began I was convinced that we would be through by the end of last school year. Then I moved my timeline to be sometime this summer. Now I am fairly certain that we will be leaving to go to China sometime in October. Last week our Article 5 was sent to the agency in China who finalizes all their adoptions, and that was the last step that needed to take place before we get our Travel Approval. Traval Approval (TA) is the only thing we lack before we can get a consulate appointment to finalize this adoption and get Minsy home. I am hoping that we can get the TA either this week or next. So much is in other people's hands. It is a little frustrating, but from the beginning I have felt as if this is all in Heavenly Father's hands, so I have faith that it will happen when it is supposed to happen. I just hope that it happens soon. My comfort, at least, is that Minsy is now with a loving family who is taking good care of her. If that were not the case I am sure that I would be beating down some bureaucratic doors to get her out of there.
So, I'm excited to get Minsy home, but now that I have a date in my head that seems somewhat realistic I am looking around at all that I have to get done before we leave. Taking eight people on a trip to the other side of the globe for almost a month is no small task. There are preparations that we need to take. I have to work out attendance and grade issues with the school. I have to get our finances in order so that our accountant can get our taxes completed for us (That's right . . . We haven't completed our 2010 taxes yet. Our situation is so wacky that we never get things done until October each year). I could go on and on. There are the things that I have to do to get things ready for our family to leave, but there are also things that I need to do to get things in order for when Minsy arrives. The Blau house is a house of chaos -- loving and fun chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Chaos is probably not the best atmosphere to bring a child when she will probably be feeling a bit of angst at leaving all that is familiar and bringing her to everything unfamiliar. And so I organize -- or try to organize at least.
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| Minsy in China 8/6/11 |
This week I got an email from the lady who is working with Minsy's orphanage in behalf of our adoption agency. She was able to get an updated picture of her. She seems so much more grown up than she did in the pictures that came with her adoption papers. Of course, it has been ten months, so there would be a little bit of change. I just sat and looked and looked at her picture all evening long. She is so absolutely beautiful, and I could see her entering our family. I felt a connection. I was happy for that. I know that we still have a long journey ahead of us as we get to know one another, but I could see into my heart as I sat there and stared at Minsy's picture, and I could see that my heart was willing to do all that was necessary to create the bonds between a mother and child that Minsy (and I) would need. It was a powerful moment for me.
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| Ellie is Minsy's size! |
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With the updated picture we got some updated information about her size. We didn't get any updated height info, but we did get her weight. I really have had a hard time wrapping my head around just how tiny she is. All of her measurements have come in metric, so I needed to convert to picture it with my American brain, but even before I did the measurement conversions, I could tell that Minsy was going to be smaller than the average 4 year-old. It turns out that Minsy only weighs about 24 pounds. Surely that is a misreading, but it is consistent with the measurements that we received about her last spring. I thought that maybe it was just that I was comparing it to my own children's sizes, so I went online to compare her weight when looking at a Chinese girl weight chart. Minsy falls below the third percentile in height and weight. Holy Cow! I am used to having children that are at least at the 75th percentile, and often are above the 90th. It will be just fine. I just want to make sure that I am prepared when I arrive in China. Yesterday we watched a family of children in the afternoon, and they had a girl who is a year and a half old and weighs the same as Minsy. We had her get on the scale and everything. Seeing her gave me a better idea of what to expect, but now I realize that it was wishful thinking when I bought the clothes that were size 3T. Oh well, better too big than too small!
Also, this week I decided that it was time to get serious about trying to figure out our travel plans for while we are in China. We have to wait until we have a definite consulate time until we make our reservations, but I can at least have a general idea of what to do. We are planning on staying in Beijing for about a week before we head to Wuhan to pick up Minsy. Then we head to Guangzhou to finalize all the government paperwork that needs to be done. Finally, we will spend about three days in Hong Kong getting to know ourselves as a family of nine. I quickly started to realize, however, that it isn't a simple deal to plan a trip to China with such a large group. I couldn't find any hotels that seemed to be able to accommodate us when I looked online. Even when I tried pretend plane reservations there didn't seem to be enough room on any plane. That doesn't even begin to talk about trying to find transportation for all of us while we are in the country. I was getting a bit frustrated with the process. I have done a ton of research getting ready for this trip. I normally love to take care of reservations and travel plans on my own using the internet, but this was quickly proving to be beyond my meager abilities. I finally decided the best thing was to turn things over to a travel agent. We decided to contact Lotus Travel. They specialize in travel to China for adoptive families, so they understood exactly what our needs would be before we met Minsy and after. They have been wonderful! I got an email from Sandy asking what we were interested in seeing in China. After sending her our list she put together a travel itinerary for us within a day. It is so exciting to see something concrete already set up for this trip. We want to make the most of this trip so that we can experience the best that China has to offer so that we can help Minsy to stay connected with her Chinese heritage after she arrives in our home. Even Sandy had to admit, however, that is a bit more complicated to set up travel for such a large family, so she needs a bit more time to see if she can find the best housing arrangements for us while we are in the country. I'm just happy that someone is able to make progress on a process that seemed to block me at every turn.
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| Minsy's Birthday Package |
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Minsy's birthday is next week on September 1st. She will be four years old. This is not her actual birthday. The orphanage just assigned her one once she was found because they found nothing on her to indicate when her birthday was. They used dental examination and a cognitive review to estimate her age as 16 months, and then gave her September 1st as her birthday. We will have the opportunity to change it if we wish, but I don't think we will do this. Changing her date of birth wouldn't affect her school attendance unless we made her a month older, and I have no desire to do this. If anything we would make her younger, but that would serve little purpose, so I think we'll just leave good enough alone. The kids often talk about how Minsy will be the one child in the family who could argue our age rules about makeup (must be 12), dating (must be 16), etc. She could always argue that we don't REALLY know when her birthday is. We'll see if that will work. I'm betting that it won't though. I am sad that we won't be there for her birthday this year, but we did order her a birthday package from Ann at RedThreadChina. She sent us a picture of the package that is being sent to Minsy from us. It was so fun to see! It includes a cute dress, some hair ties, a panda bear, a disposable camera, a card, candy for her friends, and a letter from us. If you zoom into the picture you can see the letter we wrote translated into Chinese. I kept it short and simple. That's all any of my four year-old children would have ever wanted to hear in a letter. But I also added a few questions about Minsy that I hope the foster family or orphanage will answer. A company in China will also deliver a cake to Minsy on her birthday. So fun! I just wish that we could be there to see her open the package. In exchange I hope that we could at least get some great pictures of her looking through the presents and eating the cake. We'll have a little cake and ice cream here on Thursday to celebrate. Next year we'll get to do the real deal with her at home. Yea!
So, I have a few more days of waiting, and waiting, and waiting. But after that the real countdown begins. In the meantime I'll spend the next few weeks getting our house in order -- and probably heading for a good professional massage. The stress has permanently moved to my neck and shoulders. Now I'm off for a bit of the next best thing to help me relax -- some relaxation therapy with a good book. Ahhhhhh . . . . . .
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