Night before the launch

Whirlwind of a week. Airplane tickets, doctor's interviews, fees, financials, fedexes, clothes, laundry, cat care, cat worry, transport to the airport, transport to the site where we pick up the transport to the airport, mowing the weeds (it _rained_, the nerve), organize organize organize. Put everything into a pile then onto a list. Move everything from the first pile into other piles. Add some more stuff. Remove some more stuff. Wonder what stuff you actually should be taking.

Wonder what exactly does 20kg weigh. The final leg of our trip is on Air Astana, between Almaty and Karaganda and the checked baggage weight limit is 20kg per passenger. Hoping for a loophole, we checked on the limits for carry on. 8kg. Obviously someone saw the opportunity before.

Mitch ditched the travel iron and one of the computers he needed for his work. The primary one remains. It is in his checked luggage. I think he doesn't want to see it again, perhaps. He likes his work actually.

Thanks to everyone for the phone calls today. More phone calls in one day than in many months. It was great to hear from my mother, my Aunt Ann, my cousin Greg, my former coworker (and father for a fourth time, his 21-day old son!) Christos, Jacqui and my boss and my coworker.

Well my coworker was actually asking about work, as was my boss. That could be going more smoothly. Somehow I really did have to pack today instead of work. Sorry, Russ, about that crappy code I gave you. What do you mean, you want numbers to add up? Oh. I would love to do something about that.

It looks like travel restrictions are the same as two weeks ago for my last trip - just no liquids on the plane. I would like a bottle of water to tell the truth on a transatlantic flight, but it could be worse: folks on the Belgian flights are still bringing their cabin materials aboard in clear baggies.

Chris, and Don, and Larisa and Lola from Reaching Out have been scampering to put this trip (and adoption) together. Larisa, I will bring you those papers Chris told me to bring. Chris, I am almost positive I can remember those instructions for a little while longer. Though it might not be guaranteed soon.

OK thanks again to everyone who is wishing us well and who is helping us along our way. We bounce through a couple of airports and hotels before visiting the baby house on Monday and landing in our apartment in Karaganda on monday night. The internet could be waiting for us there to blog. I hope your blog visits are rewarded with something.

Best wishes, and signing off from the US
Bobi

The Plan (as of this moment)

On Friday, we leave ABQ and fly to Chicago (3 hours) then Frankfurt (8 hours). Wanting to look and smell and think my finest (or at least not as badly as possible) when I meet the babies, we will overnight in Frankfurt to recover and start changing time zones. On Sunday, we fly another 6 hours to Almaty, Kazakhstan. We arrive at midnight and do something until the flight to Karaganda leaves at 7:55 a.m.

Karaganda time is about 12 hours ahead of Santa Fe (Mountain) time. So while you sleep next Sunday night, I will be meeting the babies (as if this plan will go on any schedule.) It's possible that when you wake on Monday, we will have updated the blog with the day's report. Or that we have just gone to the apartment and passed out/freaked out. The very idea of "selecting" a child is preposterous.

On the up side, any choice will be the right one. This is the time to take your hands off the wheel and let destiny and fate and faith take over. Fate is sometimes confusing, but never wrong.

Most programs, some clerk somewhere takes a piece of paper of the baby paper stack and a piece of paper off the prospective parent paper stack and voila, Family! And that method seems to work too. So there is not much to sweat.

But this IS a dang lot like having the best Christmas present ever underneath your fingers and not being able to open it yet. What is in there? WHO ARE YOU [sing]?!!!

So by the time you awake on Tuesday, here in America, there might just be a name and a birth date and -- oh if the world were to spin just right - a photo on the blog.

Or not.

The bonding-period-clock starts ticking then. By law, I have to see the baby for 21 days or so before I can go to court and swear to the judge that I intend to raise this child exactly as if it were my own biological child, and that, in addition, I intend to raise it safely and lovingly and healthily. Bio parents aren't necessarily safe, loving and healthy, how babies need adoptive parents in the first place.

I should go work/pack/prepare something now. But now you know as much as I can crystal-ball for the logistics of the next week. Your crystal-ball results may vary.

Introducing the 2006 Den Hartog Baby Team #1

On the left, with a 30" waist and a 34" inseam, Mitch Chapman! (crowd roars) On the right, wearing the blue jersey, Suzanne Sloan! (fans scream). In the middle, dazed Mother-to-be!!

Mitch is videographer, external/backup memory/brain, luggage finder and general hero for the first trip. Suzanne, while staying in the comfort of her own home, must face two irked cats for a month.

I am so grateful for these friends.

Launch Day Minus Two (Or, Babies are Scarier than SARS)

Why is it that five minutes in a meeting can be excruciating, and yet yesterday the minutes just fell off the clock every time I turned around?

Things are sort-of ready. We get on the shuttle to the ABQ airport in 49 hours (note to self: actually arrange said shuttle.) and off we go. I have cash, my toothbrush, a basket of gifts, a pile of documents and Cipro. It's funny that things on paper can be worth so much more than paper itself. It's just ink and paper, technically.

Speaking of Cipro reminds me of a former boss, Terry. He carried Cipro in his everyday briefcase. And it wasn't for the flu. We had good work, analyzing reports on chemical compounds to see what was likely to be active against various conditions and diseases. And we studied HIV resistance by drug and genome. So Cipro for him seemed normal. I thought it was funny.

What ARE you going on about, Bobi, you could ask? Well, that study was going on exactly at the time I was preparing for an off-the-beaten-path trip. It would have been my third visit to China. Between working on genomic virus data and having some experience in China, the news was not adding up. I am no prude about some things - I was in the air to China in 1999 when the US State Department travel warning was lifted (Belgrade bombing of the Chinese Embassy). My friend Meg, who is part of Den Hartog Baby 2006 Team #2, was working in China during those riots. I visited her and had a great time.

But viruses, and new ones, are a whole different matter. And five days before another friend and I were to leave for the Three Gorges trip, I pushed the big red emergency stop button on the trip. I actually was much more diplomatic about it and found a really nice alternative - Melbourne, Australia - nice, nice! We'd already arranged time off of work. Current events also meant that airlines were scrambling to refund/reroute passengers without additional charge. One of those events was war in the Middle East. But that was not what had waved me off of southeast China.

Later that same day I called off the trip, Saturday March 29, 2003, Dr. Carlo Urbani of the WHO passed away. I've never been so validated about a decision in my life. Dr. Urbani died of a virus that was sequenced in a worldwide scientific community effort, the likes of which had never been seen before - and would be dwarfed should bird flu jump to humans or another aerosol influenza rage again. He had leapt into action, identifying, isolating and treating patients and it had cost him his life. You can go to the NIH genome libraries online and look at the series of alphabet letters that made up the genome of the SARS strain that killed him.

As someone once told me about the Eiger, you don't want a feature there named for you. Similarly, having a SARS strain named after you also means epitaph. You can tell Dr. Urbani is one of my heroes. And what it takes to make me not travel :)

So, now you know a) I am a geek b) I should know how to pack a suitcase.

b) is so proving to be not true.

Thermometers and masks (use HEPA not surgical) are an easy packing list of preparation: baby bottles and toys and caretaker gifts are another. Guess which one scares me :)

The baby thermometer REALLY scares me :) (I suppose I could imagine how the baby feels.)

I am too scared to think about the actual baby. One week from today and this little undefined entity will be exactly defined in the form of one tiny little human being with exact eyes and ears and toes. And permanent. So close to knowing, but so unknown. Off to hyperventilate now.

Oh wow!

Did you ever ride a roller coaster? The old classic kind where the first long seconds are spent chugging skyward, really slowly? You can't tell when you're going to reach the dropoff?

Then you feel the car start leveling and then start tipping forward?

And you get that delicious safe terror from knowing something huge and fast is going to happen, and that you can't turn back?

I don't think roller coasters would be half as much fun if it weren't for that moment of realization and of no escape.

I of course have no interest whatsoever in escaping. But I can tell you that the car is starting to level off and the dropoff is getting near.

The visas are in the passports and the passports are in the lockbox.
The BCIS (INS) fingerprint clearance was renewed last week and the I-171H is in the lockbox.
The flights between Albuquerque and Almaty are booked, the overnight hotel in Frankfurt is paid, and the tickets are winging their way to me via FedEx.
The catsitter has come and gone, knowing which fish and cat members of the household get fishfood (all but the black cat) and which members get thawed frozen peas (all but the Siamese cat) and shaking her head.
The neighbor is on the alert for unneighborly things.
My travel companion is on top of everything.
My employer is worried.

The mail is not yet stopped. The employer is not yet soothed. The bags are not yet packed. My will is not yet rewritten.

But I'm going.

I'm going to be presented to the babies of the Malutka Baby House in Karaganda, Kazakhstan on September 4th. Through the miracle of adoption and the grace of about a thousand social workers, notaries, public officials, and private sector guides, twentyfour hours later two humans will have gone from being absolute strangers to being lifers together.

We'll still be strangers, of course :)

God gets alot of thanks, too, for bringing this about. I just have had to pay fewer fees and stand in fewer lines and get fewer ornate and translated pieces of paper for Her office.

The placement agency thinks they can arrange Internet connectivity in the Karaganda apartment they have rented for me. So Mitch and I can blog from the comfort of our own temporary home. We expect to be there for three weeks. Nothing is guaranteed.

I have expectations, I know, hopes and beliefs, and these can be my worst downfall. But how do you do anything without some kind of expectation guiding your decisions and actions? If you step into the kitchen, at some point you should expect that you are making a cake or grilling a steak. So I think I am being reasonable when I expect to become the parent of a healthy child under one year of age.

I have reasonable, I think, expectations of what constitutes "healthy". A little underweight, a little understimulated, a little short of what we consider standard medical care. Nothing that can't be made up though. Nothing that will stand out still in ten years.

Young, too. Under a year. Still ready to bounce back, to relearn how to eat, be dressed, be diapered, be with an adult who is not just a professional caretaker.

That's what I expect. But I know better. I know that all I can say is that is what I am hoping for.

Anything can happen. I know this. If I were alone with any child on a desert island, I would be the greatest mom to that child. It's when we start comparing them to other children, other families, ourselves to other parents that the anxiety comes in.

So me and the mirror (sic) are having to work this one out.

I am going to be the luckiest and the most blessed of mothers (Sorry Mary, but I think it's me). No matter what.