Travel Dates

Yes! We are scheduled to pick up Alex at St. Lucy's Center at 10:30 AM on Wednesday, April 16th. We'll go for our visa appointment at 8:00 AM the next day. By coincidence, both the US adoption coordinator and the in-country coordinator will be at St. Lucy's teaching a class at that time, so they'll be with us on our orphanage visit.

We haven't figured out any details yet about when we'll leave or where we'll stay. We were really quite surprised to be given a date just 4 weeks away. Most of the other families we know from our agency have traveled 5-6 weeks later.

A baby changes your life forever, and we're getting "broken in" quickly on making changes. Leigh had scheduled a research trip to California April 10-13. He was supposed to give his last lecture and a final exam the week of the 14th, and the girls have spring break that week. Laura's 6th birthday is on the 10th. I guess we'll have to change some plans before we hold Alex in our arms. I hope we'll get another update about him before then.

Meanwhile, the good news is that our social worker told me not to worry--we can get everything done in time for us to leave in 3 weeks. The bad news is that USCIS informed me that the extra 17 days on Alex's age requires us to file "form I-290B" and pay a fee of $585. It hardly seems fair, since they changed how they look at the age midway through our adoption process. But as with other adoption requirements, you just jump through every hoop and fork over every penny they ask for, because you don't want anything to delay getting your baby home!