The Magical Mystery Tour

As June unfolded, I began to panic when it became clear that we weren't going to get Makena's referral, let alone travel to China. I was depressed even though I had huge work obligations to keep me busy. I wasn't giving Jack my 100% and now he was about to graduate from second grade and I had made zero summer plans for him. I was a hostage to the China adoption process. I was addicted to China Adoption Blogs and I had even stooped and tasted the Crack of all blogs, RQ (I am not posting the complete name to protect weak people, like me). This is a blog that is not for the faint of heart. Do not go there. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Here's the thing I've just begun to realize, and I don't even have my daughter yet, is that even though we are not physically pregnant, we are "virtually" pregnant. The internet provides us with an umbilical cord that provides us with more informative nutrients we could ever need on how to prepare for a Chinese adopted child. From the whack to the sane, a cornucopia of philosophies are available at the click of a mouse. Sick. All this information can become an obsession and really unbablance us and take away what natural instincts we have to mother/parent. Exhibit A: me.

The reality is, that as I hit the third trimester of this referral waiting insanity, I became hormonal and irrational. PMS from hell. My husband litterally sat across from me at the dining room table and had an "intervention" with me. He told me I had a blog reading addiction. He was right, of course. I did. So what did I do? I started writing one. He never said anythin about writing. Ha!

SO, when my crazy (in a lovable way) neighbor told me that she was thinking of taking her nanny's three-year old son to Guatemala and did Jack and I want to go? I said, uh, let me ask my husband -- certain that he was going to react by having me institutionalized for even thinking about taking such a trip. Wrong. He said, "Go for it." "Really?," I said. "Yeah, you're fluent in Spanish, what's the big deal? Besides, you need to get away." "O--kay." So I rush back to my neighbor and tell her we're on. We decide to travel the last weekend in June and I rush back home to book the non-refundable air and hotel tickets. I call her a couple of times. There's no going back. I even book a ticket for my housekeeper's daughter so that I, too, can take her to Guatemala to visit her relatives. I'm set. Except for one thing, my neighbor stops returning my calls, leaves town and does not make ANY plans to travel with me and the children to Guatemala. Yes, sir. Several thousand dollars worth of change-of-scenery-last-minute-purchase-get-rid-of-my-anxieties-vacation and I'm on my own. So my husband serves me a shot of Tequila and tells me to do it. To go. To make it a last hurrah for me and Jack before his world is rocked forever. Two shots later, I'm committed to the trip (not the institution) and I'm packing for my mommy-and-me adventure. So then I'm four days away from going and I'm returning some sweatshirt to another neighbor and bragging about how I am going to Guatemala BY MYSELF and she's so impressed with me, too. And I say off-handedly,"You wouldn't want to go to Guatemala with me, would you?" And she thinks about it. I give her the travel dates and tell her all the exciting things that I have planned to do and she says,"Sure!" Four hours later, she's booked on the same trip as me!!! Who's crazy, now? This could have been a disaster. This was a new friendship. She had a son the same age as mine and, other than that, I really didn't have a clue as to how she might be to travel with.

Bottom line, we had a blast. The kids had a blast and we had one adventure after another. The first one being that we traveled to Guatemala in the middle of the rainy season. We did pack raincoats but somehow managed to always be without them when it rained. I'm talking flooding in the streets, biblical deluge amounts. When I hear about mud slides in Guatemala, I know what they are talking about. Would I change any of it? No. Everything was perfect, down to the crocodile who could have eaten my friend's son (but never moved from his sunny spot), and the corral snake I almost stepped on (I have video to back me up). Why?

Because I'm practically eighteen months awaiting my referral and when does the CCAA decide to match our child to us and share that information with us? When I'm out of the Country, that's when. But you know, what? I would not have been any other place. Jack and I were in La Antigua in the middle of a rain storm when my husband called me on my cell phone to tell me about our daughter, Qian Li Han. We're crying with joy. It's raining cats and dogs. Jack wants to know all the details and the phone cuts out. I'll never forget it. My friend won't forget it. It will probably be one of the memories that flash across my brain when I die. That's how amazing and memorable the moment was. Jack was perfect. When we finally saw her picture a few days later, the first thing out of his mouth was,"She's beautiful." He's beautiful. My brave jungle-trekking junior adventure seeker. And my husband rocks for having encouraged me to go on what my friend and I dubbed "The Magical Mystery Tour," even if it was so that he could have full control of the remote for a week and watch ESPN 24/7.

I feel calmer now.

Now when the heck are our Travel Authorizations going to arrive?


Isabelle