It is afternoon on Tuesday in China as I type this (see my new widget on the side bar) and our NVC Letter is being hand-delivered to the Consulate in Guangzhou. In exactly 2 weeks we will have our Article 5 granting us guardianship of Hu Jing upon arrival in her province. No chance of this coming sooner, it's a standard 2 week process - in today, out on Tuesday the 17th. Now onto a post about our travel plans.
In the interests of posting this for other adoptive families making travel decisions, here is a post about our thought process.
We've known all along that sending both of us to China would be outrageously expensive, but we wholeheartedly wanted to make it happen. The joy of meeting our daughter together and sharing in that moment as husband and wife, mom and dad and daughter is a dream. We've been in this adoption drama together and we want to see it through together. And we certainly dreamed the impossible dream of taking our boys with us and making this happen as an entire family. Unfortunately, it won't happen that way.
It was a hard decision to make, but only I will travel to China. No, we don't have any fears about the plane going down and leaving our 2 boys, plus our new daughter as orphans. It just came down to a few slices of reality.
For the most part, it came down to dollars and cents. Had we been able to fundraise both airfares, we wouldn't have struggled with the decision - we both would be going. But we didn't meet our fundraising goals and had to use funds from my retirement account to pay off the final adoption fees, not even including the travel fees. We had to trust God with the money He gave us, the money that we had chosen to save for decades from now. A lot of adoptive families use their retirement accounts. It's just what needs to be done and God asks us to trust.
The idea of leaving our boys on one side of the globe with 2 of us on the other side didn't sit well with me either. We don't live anywhere near family who would come out and care for them during our absence. And in my opinion, our boys have been shuffled around enough in the last 6 months and the thought of shuffling them around for 2 weeks between friends' houses without mom and dad during our trip to China just doesn't seem fair to them. We have enough behavioral struggles as it is these days, let's not compound things.
And lastly, my husband's back played a pretty good factor in the decision. While he'll tell you that he'd be fine in China, lifting heavy luggage and carrying around a toddler just didn't seem to mix. And I don't think anyone wants to be hurt or sick away from home! We don't need his herniated disc rupturing in China, thank you very much.
So, friends, we've made the decision to send me to China alone. I'm certainly sad that Jay can't go and I'm bummed that we can't make it a family trip with all 4 of us going on this trip of a lifetime. I know Jay is sad to be missing out on those first moments with Hu Jing too. I'd appreciate your prayers for him and his tender heart.
I choose to look at it this way. I've carried 2 baby boys in my womb and with each c-section delivery, Jay has always been the first to see our boys, to hold our boys, to kiss their faces and hold their hands. He has been the one to place our sons in my arms. With just me going to China, I get to experience that first meeting, that first touch, that first kiss of those sweet round cheeks. And when I come home, I get to be the one to place our daughter in my husband's arms. That's a pretty powerful moment for me that gives me goosebumps.
Having traveled to Japan for a year back in my college days, I'm not afraid to travel alone to a country where I don't speak the language. Once there, I will have guides at my disposal. But I know Jay will have a hard time putting his wife on a plane and not seeing me for 2 weeks. I hope I can borrow someone's laptop (I only have a 10 year old dog of a desktop PC that's packed up) so that I can update the blog and Skype with my family to remain connected. And I hope my husband can enjoy the male bonding time with his sons before a certain little brown eyed girl comes home and steals his heart.
My visa application is being shipped to the courier service this week and I hope it gets returned to me soon. It's always nerve-wracking to put your passport in the mail not knowing when you'll receive it again, but knowing you'll need it in a couple of months.
I'm hoping these next two weeks fly by quickly. Between spring break and Easter, I think we'll be able to stay occupied. But "Article 5" will always be in the back of my mind.
