Three years ago today.........

We left to fly half way around the world to adopt a beautiful little baby named Qi Jia Min. It was the day we waited for so long. We traveled about 8 weeks after our referral. I carried her picture with me everywhere I went and showed it to anyone who would look at it. I packed us up using all the information and packing lists that I had gathered online. We were so well prepared that we did not want for anything in China. I did have to pay an overweight fee on my suitcase but it was worth it.

After waiting ONLY 9 months for our referral and then waiting 8 weeks to travel the day finally arrived. We left from Newark, NJ and flew direct to Beijing. We traveled with our friend Kevin and his Mom. Karen stayed at home with there daughter Maddie who was born premature at 26 weeks the Oct before. We met Karen and Kevin at our homestudy agency adoption class. There were a total of 4 couples in the class including Dan and I and Karen and Kevin. The other 2 couples were adopting domestically. Not only were Karen and Kevin also adopting from China but they were using the same adoption agency as us. Great Wall of China Adoption in Austin, Texas. Since we were both PA residents we needed a local agency to do our homestudy. Karen and I exchanged phone numbers and became fast friends. We got our paperwork in at the same time and had the same LID(log in date). We were so excited to travel together to adopt our daughters. Karen's sister(Carolyn) was also adopting from China again and had our same LID. She lives in Georgia(remember the road trip Karen and I took with the 4 kids to Georgia) and we were going to meet up with her in China. A few months into our wait I also met my friend Kate online. She lived only 20 minutes from me and she was using the same agency GWCA and her LID was 2 days after mine. I was so excited another local family that I would travel with. We had 60 families total that traveled with GWCA that month but then we split into province groups. We had 11 families that traveled with us to adopt our daughters from Hubei.

Since I started blogging 2 years after adopting Katie, over the next 2 weeks I am going to post pictures and blog about our trip to China.


Dan and I outside of our house getting ready to leave for the airport. We are holding our passports.


Kevin and his Mom Carol on the plane. As you can see the plane wasn't crowded at all. After take off we all spread out into our on rows. I took a sleeping pill and sleep most of the flight.


Dan sleep too.