Getting locked in

We were provided our partial travel itinerary today:

• Depart U.S. on May 11, 2006
• Arrive in Beijing on May 12, 2006
• Tour on May 13, 2006 (Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, etc)
• Fly to Changsha, Hunan on the morning of May 14, 2006
• Meet Maya!- May 15, 2006 (upon confirmation with the Beijing office)
• Fly to Guangzhou on May 20th or May 21st
• American Consulate appointment- May 23, 2006 at 9:00am
• Depart China- after 9pm on May 24th or anytime May 25th

This means that we get to meet Maya the day after Mother's Day! We need to have all of our travel finalized by Friday, but these are the pretty firm dates.

As for the fingerprints, I contacted our local Homeland Security office and they assured me that our fingerprints and everything else is up to date and we are all locked in. They are resending our case just to make sure everything is in order, but we were told that we have the paperwork that is needed. Hopefully tomorrow we will know more.

Packing and travel

So we spent this past weekend packing Maya's suitcase for the trip. It is still bizarre to me to be handling these tiny little clothes. This girl is already better dressed than me. We bought a pack of those space savers to throw all the clothes in and roll up to squeeze the air out of to gain space. They work pretty well. We have also jammed in toys and food and other things that we might need for her. We even ordered a medical kit yesterday of all the common things that first-time hyper-freaked parents think that they need.

We find out tomorrow when we are traveling. We believe it will be around 5/5, but we will have our consulate appointment tomorrow in which all travel is based. It is hard to believe that we will be with her in about 4 weeks. I have been cramming on the parenting books.

One snag we may have hit is that China has not received out fingerprints yet. When I get home tonight I will triple check that they are not expired and I have to call the CIS tomorrow morning to try and figure this out. We have already received the paperwork showing that we are golden, but we want to make sure that everything is in order before we go so as not to hold anything up.

When I talked to the adoption agency rep today she did inform me that our orphanage qualifies for wiring funds over. This means that about 60% of our adoption expenses can be send electronically and will not have to hang around my neck as we travel.

I am hoping that I will have more news tomorrow on how all of this pans out.