Part #2

So we started packing our bags while the first storm of the year was developing. To be honest I started to get a bit overwhelmed. I had said "I hardly need anything.  I will just put a few things in a bag and go". Well, there was a lot more to think about with leaving on a big trip like this. I was always a last minute hospital bag packer as well.  Once I was in labor I would slowly get things together and  sometimes be still adding a few things when it was over time to leave or our home birth turned into "we are going to the hospital now."  I realized that I was far from ready because I had been walking around like a chicken with its head cut off instead of being organized and intentional with my time in the last three weeks.  The fact that we got any school accomplished is amazing!

The first thing I needed to do was get a hold of my parents to let them know they needed to come today to stay with our kids!  However my mother stayed on the phones or an extended time that  (thanks to my wonderful Aunt Tina love you!) so I could not let her know that she should get ready!  I thought it was kind of funny because she kept saying she was ready anytime but I don't think that she really thought she would get such super short notice! Our children all felt in a daze and had an extremely hard time remembering what tasks they were doing and tears were easy to come by on my child who finds it the most difficult when we leave.  I felt much the same way so I did my best to shovel out loads of grace because they were getting their worlds turned upside down by this whole event as well!  

Since the snow was really coming down and the forecast was for the blowing to start in the evening and overnight we decided to book a hotel in Winnipeg so that we would not risk missing our 7am flight Thursday morning.  Instead of having the whole evening to prepare and spend celebrating Chalise's Birthday we would be leaving by 8pm.  We were getting close to being packed at about 5:30 and had just put our pizza supper into the oven when the power went out!  Out come the pizzas, into the freezer and onto our candle light cereal supper.

 Next we gave Chalise her gifts and sang for her around the table where the candles were lite.

 She would be turning 9 on Saturday when the Thiessen Christmas gathering was held.  This is the first time we have missed one of their Birthdays.  We had fun and it was a memorable way to celebrate our special girl whom Jesus healed from a seizure disorder as an infant!  We praise the Lord for complete restoration of her brain and 9 blessed years we have had raising her!  My folks arrived at 7:00 and we went through the few things that I could think of to tell them.  They are so accommodating that they just make do and figure things out even though I didn't have time to leave detailed lists for them. We know that the kids have fun with Grandma and Grandpa and they can keep things running smoothly while we are gone. So they have cake for breakfast sometimes and stay up past bedtime.  They are making memories!  We are thankful for them and their heart to serve!  

Travis's Dad arrived at 8:00 am to bring us to the city and thankfully the roads were ok and we arrived without incident.  Thanks Dad!

We checked into our hotel just before 10 and because we had only had a bowl of cereal for supper we realized that we were very hungry.  The hotel had no food so our best option was to order a pizza however for some strange reason I could not get a single take out place on the phone.  I was on hold for over 15 minutes at one place and the others didn't even answer.  So our only option was to run 3 blocks in the blowing snow to a Denny's down the road. The run did us good and we had a snack then ran back.  Kind of nippy at -7 when we were nicely acclimated to the +7 temps we had been treated to in Southern MB this fall/winter.  Once we got back we were ready to sleep but we still had to book a hotel online for when we would arrive in Varna, Bulgaria (a city on the Black Sea, 50 km away from our children's town.). We just didn't know exactly what to book so we decided we would finalize the booking in the early morning when we got to the airport.  Time to get some shut eye before our 4am alarm would ring.  It felt so good lie down!  I had a hard time falling asleep but I must have at some point because at 2:30am Travis's phone started ringing.  In his daze he shut it off thinking it was a wrong alarm setting.  I said to him " I think someone was trying to call!). Sure enough they call again. It is none other than Petco, the owner of our Bulgarian agency.  He was in a bit of a tither finding out from our Canadian agency that we had booked flights and just left without passing it by him and Bulgarian men can be harsh at the best of times!  However through his harsh mannerisms he had put things together in Bulgaria with out asking us!  I guess you get back what you dish out!  He said that he had negotiated with social services that we would be picking up our children immediately when we arrived in Bulgaria and then flying to Sofia the same day!  There would be an agency representative waiting at the airport for us.  Here we thought we would have the weekend to adjust to the 8 hrs time change and recover from 30 hrs of flying.  We planned to buy some cards and write thank you notes to all the staff involved in our process, pick up some Bulgarian gifts to give to the children on "gotcha day" anniversaries amount other things.  But no we would get off the plane and go directly to pick up Eliana and Justus!   OK, no vacation by the sea for us!  Needless to say we couldn't sleep the rest of the night! Then we got an email from the embassy saying they received the children's passports and they stamped the visas right away and put them back onto the Currier in the same day!  Now we really could not sleep!  Kiddos here we come!

5 am finally came and we got to the airport to await our first flight.  The interesting thing is that every single flight on the way to Bulgaria was packed to the max!  Not a single seat available!  We booked less than 12 hours before hand and we got a seat on those flights!  The Lord had gone before us and was working!  To be honest though, I was a bit miffed at the fact that Petco had made these arrangements.  I didn't think it was fair to expect us to do a gotcha day, with all the intensity and emotion that comes with it after travelling for such an extended amount of time!  It took me awhile to settle into the fact that we would be  exhausted instead of well rested for this monumental moment.  I felt like calling him up and letting him know what I thought about his actions.  I knew this would do no good since he had booked us flights and a taxi and an adoption worker and some of that could not be undone.  I also wanted to tour the children's village with them and take pictures at their home and school, meet their English teacher and spend some time with the children and foster father before taking them from.  So I hoped that the adoption worker would at least help us out with some of this.  

So we landed in Sofia at 1:30pm Bulgarian time, which is 3:30 am MB time.  We freshen up and meet the adoption worker and get into the taxi that they hired.  We were supposed to be in the Childrens village by 2:30 to pick them up and the taxi driver had other things to do so we were to head right back to the city following picking up the children.  We asked about going to the children's village and the taxi driver told our adoption worker that the village was probably 30-40 km in the opposite direction so he would not have time.  Then we realized that neither of them even knew the name of the children's village!  We knew that it was on the way to Dobrich and only 1 km outside the town.  Good thing we had access to google maps and the email with the city name.  Then we dug a little farther and found the exact address of the children's house.  So we asked since it was close if we could drive through.  The adoption worker said she didn't think that social services would allow it and it would be too hard on the children to do that.  So we proposed driving through before we got the children and that she finally agreed to but she told us that there would be no one home so we could not go into the house.  OK. We had wanted to break and enter but taking pictures from the road would suffice; )

Pushing for what you want is just part of adoption.  The squeaky wheel gets the grease so to speak.  We got the pictures we wanted to include in the children's Life Books and we were happy!

Coming up next... Gotcha Day!