Everything about our adoption process this time around has seemed to take longer than we remember form our past experiences dealing with the whole international adoption "system". Until now.
Yesterday, December 15, we were notified that our agency had received our "travel approval" from China. This was the last piece of paper we needed before we could actually start making our travel plans, and our agency had told us it usually took between 2 and 5 weeks to receive (most of the families we had been following online were getting their travel approvals in 2-3 weeks). Ours took only 9 days from the time China had received the last piece of documentation they needed from us. Our agency rep was very surprised, as were we.
When she called us with the good news, the girl from our agency also had 2 dates that we would be able to get our new daughter, January 9 or January 30. (Chinese New Year begins January 23 this year and the holiday is a VERY big deal in China, which is apparently why the weeks between the dates we were given were not available.) We did some quick checking with several travel agents and found that getting there in time to pick up our new daughter on January 9 would cost us several thousand dollars more just for airfare (and the agents suspected that hotels and in-country transportation would be more expensive at that time, too). So, we began making arrangements to travel at the end of January. With our own holidays coming up and a computer room that still needs to be converted into a bedroom for 2 thirteen-year-olds, we have plenty we still need to do, so the next 5 weeks will surely pass quickly.
Even though the process has felt very slow at times, the truth is that we will be back with our new daughter a little less than a year after we started on this journey. We can't think of a better Christmas present than that.
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