Another hump...

11:28am
And so it begins again. Just got word that we are no longer leaving on June 4th as expected, but rather closer to July 2nd. I am so sad, distraught, and feeling helplessly frustrated. The clock just keeps ticking and no baby. I want to meet Mali so badly, I am beside myself with grief at being so far away.

We are driving to Cleveland this afternoon to take some gifts up to the girls at the adoption agency, and also pick up some paperwork that will be needed for China. I'll try to update this later with more information on the details of what is going on. As far as we know right now, China has been quarantining people due to the "swine flu" (which is complete crap and has been blown ridiculously out of proportion by the media) and they are not letting many people into the country at all right now. In fact, the five families that went over there a couple weeks ago have been stuck in their hotel rooms for the last 10 days, and they don't even have their babies yet! How disheartening! I mean...getting all the way there, and not being able to be with your new child. Then having to fork over all that money to sit and do nothing in a hotel room. I guess I should be thankful we're not them and that the agency is trying to look out for us. It's just so maddening sometimes.

Will post more later, once back from Cleveland.


8:50pm
Ok, we're home again. Those girls up there are so great! We got to meet Uncle Zhou finally too and you can just tell he is one in a million.

It is bittersweet though. On the one hand we have every confidence that the staff at EAC is doing all they can to bring Mali home (in fact, after talking to Kim and Chris in the China Dept, I think they want this almost as much as we do), but at the moment, we are at the mercy of the Chinese government and there's not much more we can do for now. We are all just going to be crossing our fingers, focusing as best we can on positive thoughts, and hoping like crazy for a miracle. It could be worse I suppose.

We'll try to keep everyone posted as to what happens, but in the meantime we are going to be focusing on babyproofing, buying more cute clothes and supplies, cleaning out the house and making more space for Mali, and trying to enjoy all of this time, just the two of us, before our whole world is flipped upside down :)

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone - I hope you can enjoy some time off work with family and friends!

P.S. Uncle Zhou said that he would try to get an update for us (e.g. more pictures and information about Mali). I really really hope he can pull some strings at least with this...it could help satisfy some of our curiosity and ease the tension during this additional wait for our little angel.