Impatiently Waiting to Travel...

As soon as I saw Elizabeth’s face, I wanted to leave for China to bring her home! As that wasn’t possible, I occupied myself by making ‘to-do’ lists of all that I had to do before travel. I confirmed that my Aunt Sylvia (my mother’s brother’s ex-wife—did you follow that?) would go to China with me to bring Elizabeth home. She turned out to be a perfect travel companion! I received the ‘Notice of Coming to China for Adoption’ (my travel approval) from the CCAA, and I mailed my and my aunt’s passports to AT so that AT could get our visas for us from the Chinese Embassy, but I couldn’t make plane reservations until I knew the date for the consulate appointment. The very last thing that you do in China is to go to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou to obtain the baby's visa to enter the United States. Once you know that date, you can plan the rest of the trip. AT finally notified me on September 28th that our consulate appointment was on November 1st. I immediately made our plane reservations through Forte International Travel Agency in Washington, D.C. I would leave on United from the Portland Jetport at 7:04 am on Tuesday, October 18, and meet up with Auntie Sylvia, who was traveling from Texas, in Chicago for our flight to Beijing, and return to Portland on Thursday, November 3, 2005, at 5:41 pm. I prepared a packing list and revised it constantly right up until I left. I spread everything that I planned to take to China out in Elizabeth’s room so that every surface was covered. I think I finished packing shortly before leaving for the airport…I also mailed a package to Elizabeth at the orphanage. In it, I placed a fleecy blanket; a stuffed dog (of course!); two disposable cameras; a photo album with pictures of Elizabeth, Baxter and I, the cat, my parents, my sister and her family, and the house, all with English and Chinese captions under each photo; and Hershey’s chocolates for her caregivers. I put it all together at work, as you can tell from the photos...


When we went to the Civil Affairs Office in Nanchang, I was given everything but the blanket and chocolates back; when I got home, I took the cameras in to be developed and discovered that I had priceless photos of Elizabeth with her fosterparents, taken in front of the orphanage. But of all that I did before leaving for China, easily the dumbest thing I did was to break my foot on Sunday, two days before leaving. My parents were to arrive later that day because they were going to stay at my house and take care of the dog and cat for me. I was up early doing all sorts of last minute things around the house. I walked down the four stairs from my house into the garage, and when I stepped onto the garage floor, I turned my right foot. It really hurt, but I thought, OK, it'll be better in a few minutes...Well, it wasn’t, and I limped around the house until my parents arrived later that morning. My mother (sensibly) wanted me to go to the hospital immediately, but I (of course) was in denial. I wrapped my foot in an ace bandage and iced it and tried to keep it elevated, but nothing seemed to help. The next morning, I gave in, and Dad and I went to the E.R. X-rays confirmed that I had broken the 5th metarsal on my right foot, which is a little bone at the base of the little toe. I was given an ace bandage, a boot contraption with Velcro strips, and aluminum crutches, and sent home.

I called Sandy at AT when I got home from the hospital and told her my news. She wanted me to delay travel for a month or even for a week, but I said, I don’t think so! I think she understood...One of the last things to happen before I left was that I received an email with updated height and weight information for Elizabeth. I thought, This must be a mistake! Her referral stated that on June 1st her weight was 6.04 kg (13.3 lbs) and her height was 66.5 cm (26.18 in), but the updated information stated that she now weighed 9.0 kg (19.8 lbs) and was 74 cm (29.13 in) tall. It turned out to be very accurate--Elizabeth was by far the largest baby in our group of five babies, even though two babies were older and two babies were younger than her. Not all Chinese babies are tiny!