The Verdict

The Consulate received Eden's paperwork today and they are now saying they are 95% sure they will be able to issue her Visa before the 30th. However, that does not matter much now since our flight home was canceled. After many hours on the phone and then emailing our travel agent we will now be arriving home on the 2nd of May. It goes like this....
fly from Guangzhou to Beijing on Friday - spend the night
fly from Beijing to Shanghai on Saturday - wait 6 hours then board flight
fly from Shanghai to Chicago Saturday - spend the night
fly from Chicago to Ft. Wayne Sunday.

We may rent a vehicle from Chicago to Ft. Wayne on Saturday - we will see how we feel before we decide to take on the 4 hour trip. Rob and I did not sleep very well last night as we were waiting on a phone call from the travel agent. We both woke up at 3 a.m. and checked email only to find out the agent could not do any better than the above itinerary. It took awhile to fall back asleep as we pondered our trip back.

Tomorrow (Thursday) there is a big "swearing in" ceremony at the US consulate. They basically group all the adoptive families together make them repeat something and then they issue the visas.

We are so ready to get home. Rob and I both feel like this trip has been a bit like labor - it's not fun, it hurts, it can be very long but in the end you get the prize of the baby. We are glad though that through this "labor" we have had our baby to enjoy along the way. We have been putting her on her belly for a few minutes a day and she is already so much stronger - she can hold herself up with her arms and she is showing signs of crawling. She loves to stand and tries to let go of your hands while standing. She will immediately fall over if we let go - which she then just laughs and laughs when she gets caught. It's a game.

Well thank you everyone for praying for us along this journey. It's almost over! Please pray for no more delays with the visa and our flights. We look forward to seeing you all soon.

Another Issue

Well after Rob's consulate meeting they told us they were 90% sure they could issue the visa for Eden before our flight on the 30th. That was great news. Then this morning we found out our international flight out of Beijing was canceled. Rob read on American Airlines website that we can be reimbursed fully for the flight. So he has been on the phone all morning with a rep for AA from China and now he is on the phone with a rep from America. Hopefully, we will get out of here on the 30th. The next AA flight out of Beijing is on the 5th of May! Rob just came back as I was writing this. As of right now we are flying out of Beijing on the 1st to Shanghai, then Shanghai to Chicago then Chicago to Ft. Wayne on the 2nd. Yes that's right the 2nd! Oh my maybe our China rep can come up with something different!
Even with all this - we are still loving having our girl and so thankful God has blessed us with her. She has been so fun! She gets more and giggly with us as she gets to know us. She has been doing better with diaper changes and doesn't scream as much as when we first got her. So even with all the issues it's been good bonding time for our whole family. Being stuck in a hotel room though is beginning to show on Abraham. He just needs some space and more work to do. Our main source of entertainment for today (besides looking at Eden) has been to watch the Chinese men down in the parking lot try and remove a tree that was previous growing out of the concrete!!

Here are some more pictures of our lovely girl!

US Consulate Visit

This is Rob posting. I spent a good chunk of the day in the US Consulate and found a sympathetic woman named Brook, who evidently heads up the adoption visa process. She said that almost any time adoptive families have issues like ours, they are with our adoption organization, which wasn't encouraging. She did say though, that they understand that it isn't the adoptive families faults, and we have payed the organization so much money, that to be treated like this isn't right. She said they will do all they can to get our visas issued by the afternoon of the 29th, but she can't make any guarantees, and wanted me to understand that if it doesn't happen - its not the Consulate's fault.

Thanks to all who have been praying for us - please continue, and please also pray that we will rest in God's ability to work things out for good in His time. We are so ready to be home, but at the same time, the time we have been forced to have here as a family of four - with no distractions - has been wonderful. A lot of the families are taking tours of the area and shopping etc...but financially we just aren't able to, so we end up in the hotel room for most of the day. We eat either instant noodles (Ramen style) or peanut butter and jelly for lunch every day, and try to find something local for supper. (The two photos above are the grocery store we bought our noodles and bread in - we stood in line to pay for 20 minutes).

Abraham is still doing an hour or two of school work each day, and then enjoys running back and forth playing basketball in our hotel room with a rubber ball another family gave him.

Today, Erin and Abraham did laundry in the tub, while I was at the Consulate. We did venture out for a decent Chinese attempt at burgers and fries tonight - it was a nice change, but I can't wait to get back to some beef from my dad's farm - that's real beef.

Tonight as Erin and I were getting ready for bed, we kept hearing Abraham and Eden laughing. She was propped up on her elbows looking at him, and babbling at him, he would babble back at her and then she would crack up - which made him giggle. It went on for 10-15 minutes, until we finally shut them down. It was precious to see him finally enjoying a sibling.

Update - not much news!

We have not heard anything yet as far as our consulate date. We are not surprised since it's the weekend. We are hoping that by tomorrow we will know something. I thought I would post some new pictures. Enjoy!

This is Abraham and Caroline playing in the fish pond at our hotel in Nanchang (where we got Eden)

Abraham and Caroline, she was adopted 7 years ago. Her parents were back getting an 11 month old.

This is what happens when a loveseat turns into a crib and you are not watching when your 10 month old is falling asleep. After she got quiet we peeked over and this is what we saw. I moved the blanket after taking the picture.

Two other babies that were adopted from the same city Eden was. Notice Eden's fist in Olivia's face? That's the same Olivia I was talking about in an earlier post.

The other families in Nanchang who were also adopting. The families in the front row are from Spain. There is one family from the US who is missing.

Possible Delay

Since stepping foot in the airport yesterday it has been nothing but drama here in Guangzhou. We were told at the airport as we were getting in the taxi to go to the hotel that we will be getting Eden's visa on the 30th (which is the day of our international flight). We told him that cannot be we were told before coming that we will be able to fly home on the 30th. Peter (our guide) just kept saying you will have to change flight. We were then sent to the hotel in a taxi. Then once at the hotel we were told we did not have a reservation. So after standing there for about 30 minutes they just booked us into a room even though we did not have a reservation. Not sure where the reservation went - more than likely we were just overlooked since the other family was booked in. Then this morning we went to get Eden's medical check which went okay, but it was a bit chaotic since there were about 20 other families there getting their checks.
After the medical we went to a hotel to go over all the US paperwork and make sure all things were filled out right. We discovered that one of the forms I had to get notarized before leaving, it was the wrong form. I was given this form by our agency but apparently I had the old one and not the updated one. So Wednesday Rob is going to go with Peter to the consulate to get the new form and fill it out again and get it notarized.

We emailed our contact in the US to tell them about the consulate appointment and how we need to have Eden's visa before the 30th. All the other families in our group are in the same situation, so somebody messed up. Our travel agent said if we were to change our tickets it would be $350 per person. Plus their is only one available seat on the 1st. We really do not want this to happen. Please pray that our consulate appointment will get changed to the 27th which is what we were originally told. If we can get in on the 27th to submit the documents than we will be able to pick up her visa on the 29th.

Sorry there are no new pictures - I wanted to get this out so people can be praying for this situation. I hope next time I post it will be with good news and new pictures. Thanks!

Slow Day

Today was our last full day in Jiangxi province. Tomorrow (Saturday) we fly to Guangzhou. Today we went to a museum which Abraham loved. They had a dinosaur section of replicated dinosaurs, no bones. He loved it though. Eden took her morning nap wrapped up in the sling with Mommy. After lunch we came back to the hotel and all took naps. Then this evening we were invited down to the lobby since one of the babies was having her 1st birthday. It was one of the families from Spain. They speak no English and our Spanish is not that good. Rob ended up talking to one of the contacts in Chinese who then translated into Spanish. We sang Happy Birthday in Spanish, then English then Chinese. We got the whole group together and took a picture with our newly adopted kids. It was fun! One of the families here adopting is from NY (Westchester county) - anyway they have a daughter 7 who they adopted from China as well and now they just adopted a 12 month old. Abraham has had so much fun with her. Tonight they were playing basketball in the hotel lobby. I think he was trying to show off his skills because he was dribbling all around and she could not catch him. He likes that kind of stuff!

We are looking forward to getting to the next step of our trip which means one step closer to getting home. Pray all goes well in Guangzhou and we are able to get Eden's visa without any problems. One family who's daughter is from Guangzhou has been emailing us about what the process will be while we are there. They said there is going to be another $500 fee that we did not know about. We feel like we are being hammered to pay out for things left and right that we were not aware of. This has been very frustrating. We trust the Lord knew all this ahead of time and again lean on Him to meet our needs. Eden is worth every penny!

Pics to go along with below post....

This is the outside of the orphanage where she came monthly for check ups.

i'm trying to do the pictures separate from the written post since it's been so difficult to load them.I love this picture of her!