Today would have been extremely trying if it wasn't for the sweet and kind birthday wishes on FB or text that kept popping up on my phone while I was running all over town. Really....it made my day to hear from so many friends and family, near and far. Recent friends and old friends and everyone in between. It was awesome....so thank you for making a not so great day, a lot better. (And I'm not talking about turning 46, I'm really okay with that.) ;)
Here's the scoop...while I was in Hawaii last week with Miss M visiting the BYU Hawaii campus where she will be attending Winter Semester (we had a great time, btw), I received notice from our case worker, Carol, that the Civil Affairs office in Guangzhou had decided to CLOSE for the entire week we are there to complete the adoption papers and passport for our son. What?! Can they even do that?! They can do whatever they want to apparently, because our travel agent and guides over there tried to negotiate with them, letting them know that a family (us) had already purchased airline tickets and had a consulate appointment set....AND when we made all those plans, Civil Affairs had said they would be OPEN that week. But not now? They wouldn't budge, so after several attempts on our Travel Agent and guides' part, we had to come up with a Plan B. I don't like Plan B's, especially when Plan A is already in place and it would cost a good amount of money to change things up.
So Miss M and I took the red-eye home from Hawaii and arrived on Friday morning as planned, drove the 3 1/2 hours home and I started thinking up possible solutions to the dilemma. Dr. G and I went out to dinner that night since he was leaving on an elk hunting trip he had been planning for months at 6am. We basically had a few hours to come up with something. After thinking about a million different possibilities for the better part of the evening, something just came to me about midnight, while Dr. G was still packing for the trip. We agreed it was a good plan and so I called our case worker on Saturday and she said it was do-able.
Originally we were all arriving in China together on Sept. 16th, Dr. G and the school aged kids were returning on Sept. 27th, while Miss M and I and our son would stay for an additional week to wait through the "Golden Week" holiday when everything is usually closed to have the consulate appointment the week after, get his visa and come home. Since Civil Affairs was opting to close for an additional week prior to "Golden Week", we had to somehow get there earlier to complete the passport paperwork for him and the official adoption paperwork. Dr. G has six surgeries the Friday prior to our original departure date and needs to see those patients once, post-op, before leaving the country. He cannot change his schedule. I really didn't want the kids to miss more school if possible and I REALLY didn't want to pay $120 per ticket change fee plus the additional fare for ALL of us, since we are now just two weeks out. So Miss M and I are going to China four days earlier than Dr. G and kids and I will be able to do all the necessary paperwork while Civil Affairs is still open. Then Dr. G will fly into Beijing, arriving Thursday night the 17th and we (Miss M, me and our son) will fly from Guangzhou to Beijing to join the rest of the gang for a few days of sightseeing until it's time to go back to Guangzhou for the consulate appointment. The good thing about this is that our son will get to see Beijing which is a very important city in Chinese culture, whereas he wouldn't have been with us yet with the previous plan. Also, Miss M and I won't have to wait the extra 10 days because we changed our consulate date to the 24th. (That was a big "whew" we found out about today....that Carol was able to change the consulate date to sooner since the adoption paperwork would be done sooner.) The downside to this plan is that only Miss M and I will be there on "Gotcha Day". I had not envisioned meeting our new son for the first time with only a small part of the family there. The kids were a little sad about that, but really, it's our only choice. However, I was thinking about our boy and he is, of course, still anxious about the upcoming transition. I really think that it may be less overwhelming for him to just meet a few of us, and then after settling in for a few days, he will be able to go on an airplane for the first time in his life and meet the rest of us in Beijing. I know that the Lord's hand is and has been in this entire process the whole way through. I have seen so many miracles happen, so that things have come together financially and logistically to get us to this point. So I can't help but know that the Lord also has His eye on our son and his specific needs as well as ours, even though I can only see our side of the story right now. I am sure that these changes needed to happen for reasons I don't know at this point.
So Miss M and I traveling early required some special paperwork in order to complete the docs when I arrive. It requires a special Power of Attorney that I have exactly 11 days to get. Besides it being notarized, I had to overnight it to the Secretary of State today, they have to attach an apostille (verify it) and then overnight it to a courier in San Francisco who will walk it into the Chinese consulate, who will then take two or three days to authenticate it and then the courier will return to pick it up and overnight it back to us. All before I get on that plane. So most of this morning I was on the phone with the Secretary of State's office and the courier, and our case worker getting instructions on how to do this. It requires special forms, checks and money orders, so that had to be done, too. Then I had to run out and send it overnight and I barely missed the UPS Air pick up, so I had to run over to the UPS hub and send it from there. What a relief when I walked out of there this afternoon!
I got home and spent the next hour and a half on the phone with Delta Airlines trying to change Miss M and my flights, along with our son's one way flight home. The adoption agency's travel service had booked the flights. And truthfully I was elated that they had been able to save us even more money on already great fares that we had booked a month ago. BUT...with the changes now, they had their additional change fees besides the 120$ from Delta and each ticket went from $575 to $1200. No bueno. Delta had the same itinerary for $993. That's the fare I wanted but because a travel agent booked it, they were having a hard time being able to make the changes. They kept telling me they couldn't do it. So....I kept asking for a different department until I got someone who could. Never take no for an answer. Someone can always help you if they want to. And finally I got a guy who talked to his supervisor and he could make the change and give me the lower fare. AND there should have been an additional $50 per ticket fee because it was international, but he waived that when he found out we were going to China for an adoption. Happy Birthday to me! I was SO grateful to him for making an effort to make it work.
We came home in time to sort the school supplies that Miss M and Middle E had gotten with the lists, (I so appreciated that they did that while I was running around town and on the phone) and get kids showered and to bed. Dr. G was a sweetie and before he left town for the hunt, he bought me a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake and left it in the freezer in the garage as a surprise, so I could have a cake on my birthday. Since it was almost 10pm by the time I got everyone in bed, we will have cake tomorrow night and I will enjoy it since we won't be in a hurry. :)
