Ready? Set! Set! Set! Set....

What a funny place to be. After three and a half years of mostly just waiting (if you start when we began filling out paperwork for this adoption), we are suddenly scrambling to get details knocked out, knowing we will travel in something like 5-8 weeks. However, we have no idea what the dates will actually be, and there is so much we still can't do.

• We can't book tickets, all we can do is run what-if scenarios to see what tickets might cost.
• We can't notify co-workers about when we will be out, only provide rough approximations.
• We can't make any plans beyond about 4 weeks out, because when the dates are set, we'll have about a week to buy tickets and drop everything.

Amy remembers this as being the hardest part of the process, where we finally have a face, a name, a place, but we have to wait on so many other people and agencies before we will have a date and will be able to go bring her home. I remembered this as the exciting time of making preparations, but it is hard, to be sure, to have so much left unknown. We would drop everything tomorrow and go bring our daughter home if we could, but it's not up to us...

Here's a brief list of what I understand needs to happen (I may be missing some steps...)

1. We sent back our signed letter of acceptance to our agency via FedEx Overnight service.
2. Once they get that, they will send it back to the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs, iirc)
3. Once it is received in China, some agency will give us a Travel Approval, basically saying they approve of us coming over to adopt our daughter.
4. Once we have the Travel Approval, our agency will request an appointment with the appropriate people at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou for the appropriate processing to meet the U.S. government's requirements.
5. Once we have an appointment date, all the other dates fall into place quickly, and we are left with about 10-12 days (we hope) to buy tickets and get ready to leave.

Did you notice that in all those steps, the only involvement Amy and I have until the very end is already done, and the rest is out of our hands? There is peace in knowing that it is in God's hands, regardless of what all those individual agencies think.