You made some noise

I hardly think it's a coincidence that as soon as you all starting make some noise--and I mean some LOUD noise--that things starting looking up for the 80ish families stuck in China.  It seems like once we all started being real pains in the ass, things got moving.  I think you all had something to do with it, and we could never thank you enough.

You prayed, you wrote senators, you Facebooked and tweeted.  Parents here were up all hours of the night, emailing the President while their un-visa-ed children slept.  P and I wrote immigration officials and alerted the media.  It just seemed crazy that so many Americans were stuck, and no one was covering it.  If there's one thing that seems to work in America, it's the media.  Social media, TV media, any media.  And, just to be real clear, not ONE single family who was stuck wanted or expected people to walk into a building that was dangerous or contaminated.  All we wanted was a back-up plan, a contingency plan.  Move the interviews to another site.  Get another consulate to print up the visas.  Please, don't be so silly as to think we wanted ANYONE in harms way.  We all just wanted a way home.

The Consulate opened Thursday at 3:30pm for the visa interviews.  At first there was no info on the Monday people who had already done the interview and were just waiting on the visa.  The silence was pretty nervewracking.  Then, later today, we finally got the word that our visas would be ready late afternoon on Friday. Just. One. More. Day.

So, thousands of dollars and several days later, on Saturday we'll finally check out of the Holiday Inn Shifu and head to Hong Kong to fly home.

To the people who think the extra expense and extra days away from home are nothing to get worked up about, you definitely were not here living this.  And, you definitely have never been on an adoption trip when all you want by the end is to go home.  To get your baby home.  To get your family home.  To see the family you left behind.  To start bonding in your REAL home, not some hotel.  To get your new child to see their physician...their surgeon, their cardiologist, their pediatrician, their hematologist.  You want to clear up that rash they have, get prescription meds for that horrible cough, get them the blood they likely need.

So, again, thank you to everyone.  I've never seen such an amazing outpouring of love and support.  Of course, my family for being incredible through this even though they are a nervous wreck about the girls.  And a special, heartfelt, shout-out to the moms in the thal community.  You all know who you are.  For people I have never even met, the amount of concern and genuine care you have sent our way is just astounding.

Let's get packing!