Travel Approval!

When I was pregnant with Camdyn it was during my clinical rotations in medical school.  I spent the majority of my second and third trimesters working around the clock in the hospital.  I would work for thirty hours or more, go home and sleep for a few hours, then get right back up and go again.  There are few things more miserable than being a pregnant third year medical student.  Trust me.  Miraculously, I was able to finish my last big rotation on the 29th of the month and she was born on the 30th.  She came at exactly the right time.

Three years later, I learned that if there is anything more difficult than being pregnant as a medical student, it is being pregnant as a resident.  During a month that I worked a St. Jude's, I had morning sickness so bad, the kids on chemo felt sorry for me.  I spent a month in the NICU taking care of babies born too early, praying the entire time that my own baby would just keep cooking.  Let me tell you, if you have not experienced what it feels like to suction blood from the hemorrhaging lungs of a baby boy who was due to be born the same day as your not yet born son, watching that baby die while your baby kicks fiercely in your belly, almost as if he is protesting that his momma is up and making noise at 3 in the morning....then your pregnancy was just plain uneventful.  

For the majority of both pregnancies I worked at least 80 hours a week, took call every third or fourth night, and only had four days off per month.  Those were long, long months.  I don't regret one single second of them.  

But this last month?  It took all those other months and made them look like a cake walk.  

When we finally got to the point that we were waiting for our TA, most families were waiting on average 6-14 days.  Then all of a sudden, things slowed down.  When you get this far, when this is the only thing you need before you can get on the plane and go, every day seems like an eternity.  One day can mean you are waiting another week or two or even three before you get to travel.  Another holiday came, which meant more days of waiting and then we thought the TA would come.  But it didn't.  We watched other families get their TA's, fly to China, and meet their babies while we were still waiting.  I think the hardest part was not knowing.  Was it lost in the mail?  Did we get skipped somehow?  Were they going to change their minds and tell us we can't have him?  Are we leaving next week, or the next, or the next?  I'm not sure all of the details and exactly what happened, but once our agency figured out what was going on, they performed some kind of magic and within 48 hours, we had our TA.  And just like that, all was well with the world again. 

I am sure that when we hold our sweet boy and see his face for the first time, this month will seem like nothing.  At least that is what I have been told by every adopting momma I know.  The joy in the end makes the hurt along the way seem like nothing.  

"At just the right time, Jesus died for us..."  (Romans 5:6)  At just the right time.  I have known for a while now that the timing of all this is not just random circumstance.  Maybe Carter needs more time with his foster mother.  Maybe she needs more time with him. Maybe Camdyn needs to play in one more soccer game before we leave.  Maybe Charlie needs one more hit in a baseball game.  Maybe Justin needs to be present for one more student in crisis.  Maybe I need to see one more patient.  We will never really know.  But I do know this is all happening at just the right time.  

We are planning to leave next Friday and will meet Carter on Monday, May 19th.  We still have to confirm our consulate appointment which is the last thing we do in China before we return home. Hopefully, we will get this confirmation Monday morning and will be able to book our flights and then go get our son!