The Day in Which Patient Melissa Completely Lost It

The picture above is an excellent representation of what my face looks like at least twenty times a day as I have checked my emails over and over and over again.   I expected our travel approval from China to arrive sometime in the second week of September, maybe even earlier if we were lucky.  I have been patient --- so patient.  I figured that it would get here when it was supposed to get here.  And yet it never arrived.  Travel approvals aren't supposed to take a lot of time to get to us.  Three weeks waiting seems to be highly unusual, and yet, here I am, still waiting after more than four weeks.  I contacted our liaison in China last week to see if there was something wrong that was holding up our TA.  She assured me that things were okay, and she felt like this week would be the week that we would receive our approval.  I am not exactly sure who will let me know when the TA arrives.  If it is our China liaison, she is working in China, so she would send us a notice in the middle of the night.  If it is our agency, they are in the US, so we would find out during the day.  So every day this week (and really every day for the past three weeks) I have woken up around 4 am each morning, rolled over and grabbed my iPhone, checking my email immediately to see if anything from China had come for me.  Nothing.  So then I carried my phone with me everywhere I went, even propping it up on the shower edge so that I could hear if I got the bleep letting me know that I had a new email.  By the end of this week I was cursing the names of Victoria's Secret, Oriental Trading Company, Bath and Body Works, Lands End, Gap, and Sears for their constant emails.  Every time I heard the beep it was just another solicitation from one of these companies.  Grr!   A few weeks ago I would check my emails about once an hour.  Then last week it was about every half hour.  This week I have been absolutely neurotic, checking it at least every 15 minutes, and sometimes more.  Why oh why would this thing not just get here?

I feel like I am in adoption limbo -- hanging out and waiting for someone else to do something without being able to do anything to speed the process up.  I can't call my congressman or my senator.  I can't call the Chinese government.  I feel like I just have to sit here and wait.  There seems to not be any rhyme or reason to the awarding of these TAs.  People who got their Article 5s after me are already in China, yet I have heard nothing.  What is going on?  I have done my part.  Our little Minsy is there, just waiting to come home, and yet we can do nothing to get her here sooner.  I try to talk myself through this and say that maybe there is some higher reason for our delay.  Maybe it is necessary that we wait to head to China.  But I'm just not feeling that.  At one time I was worried that our cost for traveling to China would be way higher because we would have to travel during the trade shows in Guangzhou that raise the costs of travel and lodging.  Now it looks like that won't be a problem at all.  We kept our girls out of marching band this year because we were certain that we would be taking them away to travel to China right in the middle of the competitive season.  Mr. Stockmann even moved up the fall jazz band concert to the beginning of October so that Savannah wouldn't miss it.  Now it looks as if that won't be a problem at all. 

I have been trying to plan my life around our travel to China.  First I thought that we would be leaving in July, and that was going to be perfect.  When that didn't seem likely I planned for August, wondering how that would mess up the kids with the first days of school.  That was going to work out, but then that also seemed unlikely to happen.  I hoped for September so that we could avoid the problems that would occur with traveling in China in October because of the national holiday week and those trade shows.  September didn't work out.  Now I'm wondering if October is even a possibility any more.  I just need to know.  As long as I had a solid date in my head I could wrap my head around waiting for that date, but having no idea at all of a date is about to drive me to distraction.

Well, today I hit my limit for patience.  I had gotten it in my head that this week would be the week.  I gave it until today, and once again -- NOTHING!  As the hours passed today I found myself getting more and more upset.  I hate feeling helpless in this process.  I sat down at the computer, and I decided to google and see if I could find out some reason for the delay in our travel approval.  Maybe there was some sort of national hiccup in China that was holding back some travel approvals.  I wanted to see if there was any scuttlebutt on the internet about delays.  I didn't find anything at all, but I ended up being directed to a blog written by some lady who just returned from China last week with her new son.  She had gotten her Article 5 the week before me, and yet she had already gotten there and back.  As I looked at all of her sweet pictures of their travel, their Gotcha! Day, and their time getting to know their new son I just lost it.  This is how I felt:

 

I felt that burn letting me know that a torrent of tears was on its way.  I wasn't interested in freaking out the kids by breaking down in front of them unexpectedly, so I ran back to my room and collapsed next to the bed.  I felt like I needed to pray or something, appealing to Heavenly Father to get this show on the road, but as I knelt there I couldn't find any words to say.  I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.  I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father got the gist of what I needed.  I wasn't quite sure.  I felt angry, frustrated, and sad all together.  I got all of my pent up feelings out there, and then I felt a bit better -- not exactly calm, but resigned.  It'll be okay, I'm sure.  I just needed to have a little freak out. 

I pulled out my phone and opened up all the pictures of Minsy that I have.  I just sat and looked at them over and over for a bit.  I am just super grateful that she seems to be with such a loving foster family in China.  I am glad that they will have a few more precious days with her.  If she cannot be with me yet, I am glad that she can be with them.  I stood up and headed to my window, looking out over our backyard.  The trees are still green here, but they are getting that color where you can just tell that the leaves are itching to turn.  It won't be long.  I had always hoped that there would be leaves on the trees when Minsy got home.  I never had any problems with winters until we moved to Waynesville.  There are so many trees here.  Our house is almost in the middle of a forest, so when winter arrives the world looks so barren.  Unless there is snow, the land is just empty of any color.  I've never really liked that.  And now I was contemplating bringing my new baby home to Missouri to that barren landscape.  Now I know it will be fine.  It is mostly that I am just in a bummed out kind of mood, but it made me a bit sad to think that she wouldn't see the beauty of our trees when she gets here.  I sat and watched our trees for several minutes until I felt like I could return to the family as a reasonably happy mom. 

I managed to salvage the rest of the night.  We headed to the high school football game.  Katie was cheering with the future cheerleaders tonight.  It is always fun to see so many little girls cheering their hearts out.  Bonus -- Waynesville actually won.  We played Joplin High School, and our school donated all the proceeds from the admissions tonight to Joplin's high school to help them after their school was devastated in the huge tornado last spring.  It was nice to see the cups lined up on the fence that said WHS loves JHS.  I think all of the schools in the district actually are doing this this year for Joplin, and it is nice to see that sportsmanship and love from other schools to Joplin.  It was also fun to see the marching band.  I just love marching band.  The girls were a little sad to not be a part of it this year, but we were good cheerleaders for the band on the sideline.  They seriously need another tuba player to balance out their sound.  I'm sure they will love having Savannah with them next year.  And, since almost all of the French horns are graduating this year, if Laney decides to go back to the high school next year, they will be happy to have her playing her horn.  We are super lucky to be in a place with such a great music program.

As a fun adoption side note -- while we are waiting Laney is getting revved up for Minsy arriving.  She has made loads of bows for her hair, and today she decided that she was going to make her a dress without a pattern.  It is this cute little dress that I can't really describe.  I'll have to post a picture when Minsy actually gets to wear it.  She has also decided to learn some Chinese children's songs so that she can sing them with Minsy when she arrives.  The big one she is learning is called Ni Wa Wa, and I posted a youtube video of it at the end of this post.  Laney is pretty good at singing it, but it can be grating to hear it hour after hour after hour all day long.  But, if it helps Minsy to feel more at home, I'm grateful to Laney for her efforts.

So that's it for my blog therapy this evening.  Typing out my experience of today helps me work through my feelings in a way that doesn't involve throwing heavy objects around my house uncontrollably.  It's probably healthier to just type my way through this.  Now I'm going to throw all my prayers to getting this travel approval next week.  It has to come.  It just has to.  If not, the entire Chinese society basically shuts down for the next week as they celebrate their national holiday.  I don't think my fragile heart could take it if I didn't have some sort of solid travel date until after that first week of October.  Fingers crossed!

And now enjoy a little Ni Wa Wa with English translation, set up with some scenes from Mulan for some reason.  (There is actually another video using a doll that better shows the meaning of the song, but I think it is pretty creepy, and I have some fear that if I watch it too much I would start having nightmares of this song).