day 77
Yup, another week. And today, I am working from home and it is much too quiet. David is in Fort Worth, Cheshire is done with summer school. Josh and Heather's wedding is over. David has an interview next week but that is the only thing calendared for some future day. I am just working, ready to jump at the quiet phone when it rings, wishing to engage in some mind numbing experience until it does.
Later: Several TAs were reported today with time lines very close to ours. FTIA received referrals today. I wonder if that means that whatever was in the package that FTIA received today is all they are receiving this week. I heard from Jen and Angie, and neither of them heard today.
A China Moment
Interesting China moment today: I went to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago this morning to apply for our travel visas (no TA yet, but we are advised to apply to travel). I was there 35 minutes before the Consulate opened to get a good place in the line. I was third. The guy who was first was a travel agent who was getting 60 visas for a travel group. His process is a bit different from ours. We chatted about this and that. I asked about his process of getting a "group visa" and he explained it. He had driven from Michigan to get this done because there is no mail ins for visa applications. He goes to China a few times a year and after four years of guiding tours, he feels pretty comfortable traveling.
The Consulate opened and we straighten up our line. The travel agent went up to the window with his paper work and 60 passports. The woman at the window explained that he did not have everything that he needs. He must not only have the 60 original passports but a copy of the first page of each passport which has a signiture of the passport holder. He told the woman that he has done it the way it is now prepared each time he has come there. He has been coming for four years. He told her that he called yesterday and asked to make sure the process was the same. She told him that her way is the way it has always been and she will not deviate. He asked to speak to a manager and was still there when I left.
The travel agent wanted what he had done previously to work this time. Is that his American-ness coming out? Did the woman at the Consulate mean that once they changed the process, it was as if it had always been in place as she was now explaining it? She had no pity on his insistence was regularity. Was that an older culture which has endured many hard and fast upheavals talking?
We are stil waiting for TA. Rumors are flying -- next week, end of the month, beginning of August, middle of August. I am intensely interested and yet they make no difference.
dropping pins
I am waiting for a pin to drop. Weary and sensitive to every vibration and ring of the phone.
Julia's room is finished -- well, not the closet. I've packed up everything for Julia--but undershirts-- and ourtoiletries/meds -- but perscriptions. The travel preference sheet was faxed yesterday. Tomorrow, I'll stop by the China Consulate for our visas. This weekend, I'll get the papers in order and tinker with this blog some. I still have thank younotes from the shower to do. And I am trying to work.
And I sigh a lot.
Gossip, hints, and rumor
Last Saturday, David and I went to the FTIA picnic. We met Maury and Betty, and meeting them was like seeing old friends. Although their faces were new to us, I have kept in such close touch with Betty that we resumed our conversation from the last email. They suggested that our TA could come this week, and did not say 'no' to our traveling with the group who received their TAs a week ago. We try not to get our hopes up but how can we do otherwise. We came home and got into gear for the packing we could do -- stuff for Julia, medication/toilettries -- and did more on her room. We finally printed out the document list to bring and prepared to submit for our visas.
We could be traveling by the 8th of August. This has been my wished-for travel date for a long time.
Still, it is only a wish, backed only by gossip, hints, and rumors. And I think, there is a Magic 8 Ball in there somewhere.
We also met our travel mates -- two families who I have corresponded with. I was good to meet them, to feel their commitment to what we are all doing, and also to feel like they will be good travelers and companions in China. If we are permitted to travel on the 8th, our group will grow, or rather we will join into an established group of another 4 or 5 families.
And I was wrong in my last post. At least two of the families who received TA last time, had the same time line as we did. It was hoped that we would all get our TAs at the same time. Just as well I didn't realize that. I was pretty bummed before the last TAs came because I had been told that FTIA would get no TAs at all.
I feel rather buoyed up, floating above the fray. Good or bad, I am not in the emotional stream of all that is swirling around us right now. Not a bad place to be for a little while.
Day 63
There are some families who received TA today but most of them waited about a month longer than we have waited. By the measure, we will be waiting until August 18 or so and travel during the first weeks of September. Someone commented that the weather will be better if we leave later; however, I am so disappointed that if we leave that late, Cheshire will not be able to go with us. But what happens, happens. And I have to ease into this total loss of control. Another month -- there will be those who will worry and fret with us and I appreciated that burden that they take on. And I will begin packing what I can. Julia's room will get done and set up, and later I will visit the school that Julia will go to. There is plenty to do. Not that I would rather be doing something else, but I will take on the tasks that are there to do.
shower
On Saturday evening, Marcia, Lisa, and Cheshire threw a shower in our back garden. And a bevy of lovely friends joined us to welcome Julia to our family. It was a wonderful evening -- seeing friends from the court who I have no seen most of this last year, from book club, from writing group. And it was a shower! My little girl who did not have much to call her own apart from an emerging room and pictures all over the house now have a bike, a scooter, roller blades, tiny dolls, a dinosaur washcloths, games, puzzles, art supplies, play dough, and some of the best clothes in the universe, including a bathing suit with matching hat, cover up, and bag. And orange flip-flops and many, many books that I do not know. Our adoption feels very real in some other way -- maybe just a retail way! Really in a community way. People have been welcoming her home ever since we first found her, but this massive amount of support and love poured out to us felt like pillows, a soft bed, like floating on the Dead Sea, like flying. Warm, good, very happy. It would be so great if our TA came at the end of this week.
