WE'RE GOING TO CHINA!!!

Hooray! Hooray! We are headed to China next Friday and we will have Louis home in time for Christmas! You would think this means that our travel approval has arrived, wouldn't you? Well, it has--or it had--and our agency apparently sent the e-mail to the wrong e-mail address.

This was my afternoon.

I had decided our travel approval couldn't possibly arrive today since a batch just arrived on Friday and ours didn't come--or, at least, I hadn't heard from our agency that it arrived. Then late this afternoon I checked my e-mail to find a message from our agency confirming our travel dates. Um...what? That can't happen until we get travel approval. I called the agency immediately to ask what was going on. The conversation went something like this:

Me: We received an e-mail from you with travel dates, but we never received our travel approval.
Man at agency: Oh, no. I must have hit the wrong button. I'm sorry. That's my fault.
Me: So this e-mail is a mistake?
Agency: Yes, I'm sorry. I've been having trouble with the e-mail system.
Me (swallowing the first thing I want to say, which isn't nice)
Me (swallowing the second thing I want to say, which is less nice)
Me (swallowing the third thing I want to say, which is even worse)
Me (swallowing the fourth thing I want to say, which is still worse)
Me: So. You'll let us know when our travel approval does arrive?
Agency: Of course. I'm sorry about that.
Me: Yes, for a minute there, I thought you had made my day.
Agency: And now I just destroyed it.
Me: Unfortunately, yes.
Agency: Wait a second. This is John and Rita?
Me (OK, he's just trying to show me he knows who we are): Yes.
Agency: Adopting Lou Jun from Hunan Province?
Me (thinking he's just torturing me now by reading from our file): Yes.
Agency: Born Nov. 10, 2007?
Me: Yes, yes, yes.
Agency: Then this is right. These are your travel dates. I must have sent the TA notification to the wrong address.
Me (stunned): So we are going to China?
Agency: Yes, you'll travel next week. I'm so sorry about...
Me: Stop apologizing. I need to go call my husband.

I called John, we celebrated briefly over the phone, and then my colleagues all gathered to congratulate me because, naturally, everyone was listening to my phone conversation as soon as they heard the phrase "travel approval." My supervisor said, "Did I hear you say the 5th? January 5th?" "No, December 5th," I said! "Next week!" I was completely giddy and thrilled!

Then I called my mother and casually said, "What are you doing next Thursday?" "I don't know," she said. "I might still be visiting Ricky." "That's too bad," I said, "because we need a ride to the airport." She fell into a stunned silence and said, "What? What?" "We're going to China!" I told her.

We have had so much paperwork to fill out along the way, and some of the pieces have been extremely complicated. This afternoon, filling out the simplest form I have seen during this whole process took me 20 minutes. I think it had five questions along the lines of "How many people are in your party?" I could barely see straight. I typed "Ricky" instead of "Rita" for my name. I was completely overwhelmed and excited. We have waited so long for this news, and I never expected it to come today!

We can't wait to meet our little boy, Louis, and two weeks from today we'll meet him and become a family forever! We are so very excited and happy and grateful--and a little nervous, of course, because we will be new parents and we want to be everything Louis needs us to be. But we will have him home in time for Christmas and then for many, many days to come!

HURRAH!!!