Official China Travel Finally!

Well what drama. We thought we could leave a little earlier than our current schedule since Aiden was staying with a foster family. We all had plan to spend time with him outside of Gotcha Day (during Chinese New Year) and EVERYONE was on board until the orphanage got wind of it, then all things changed. In addition to that, Chinese New Years official holiday is Feb 2-6th, BUT the week before and after those dates things are still closed in China so no adoption paperwork can be done. So that means, any other time during the year, we could have been in China a lot quicker, but because of these holidays, we got pushed back in our travel times, UGH. With this said, everything is confirmed now and We officially leave Feb 10th from Kansas City and arrive in Beijing Feb 11th evening. The next day we have our adoption orientation. On the 13th, we have to travel 2 hours to the providence where the official handover will occur! then Feb 14th!!!! GOTCHA DAY..... How long have we waited?????

January 17, 2008, was the first time we saw his file, pictures, and videos and said " YES this is our son"!!! What a wait for for Dang Tian Ai to officially become Tian Aiden Stevens and to be in our arms forever.......( Click on our adoption story page to read all the details of why). Here's the breakdown of our wait!!!

Jan 17, 2008-Feb 14,2011: (1124 days) 3 years and 28 days (This is the day we found out he was available for adoption and his file was with WACAP)

May 27, 2009-Feb 14, 2011: (628 days) 1 year, 8 months, and 18 days. (We found out that our contact in China talked with Tian and he wanted to be considered for adoption and we said YES we want him, so she started the LONG process of petitioning the orphanage and CCAA to allow his file to be reactivated)

May 5, 2010-Feb 14, 2011:  9 months and 9 days (285 days)
(we received the call from Holt that his paperwork for adoption was definitely resubmitted and his file was soon to be released from the CCAA) **Ok so maybe this would have been a normal pregnancy**


October 17, 2010-Feb 14, 2011: 3 months and 28 days (120 days) (This is the time when his file was released up until Gotcha Day!!!  **had we not had Aiden as a PRE-ID case this is where the normal adoption process really starts, the moment you pick your child off the CCAA list, get your LOA, Travel approvals, etc!!!**

Those wait dates include the day we knew he needed a family up until the very last day we spent apart! Feb 14th, is not include in that because thats our Gotcha day he will be in our arms forever!!!

After Gotcha day, we will be in the Beijing area until the 18th. We will then take a train to Guangzhou overnight arriving on the 19th. We will stay here for his medical, consulate, and visa appointments until the 25th of February. We will then board a train back to Beijing from Guangzhou and arrive in Beijing on the 26th of Feb and spend our last night in China. In the am, we will board our Delta flight home and officially get into Kansas City Feb 28th in the afternoon!!! We do have some long layovers in Seattle and Minneapolis on our way back that we hope we can make good use of by going to the Big Needle in Seattle and the Mall of America!!! March 1st we hope to have a short afternoon at his school with some meet and greet along with testing. March 2 , 3, 4th,  we have doctors appointments ready to go so those days will be very light in terms of school. We will plan a full school day for March 7th !!! It will be an exciting week for Aiden as that is the week they celebrate Grandparents day and his grandparents plan to be here to celebrate on that Friday the 11th with him at School!!!!

We got lucky on our flights! We booked one way flights to Beijing on AA with Ray's mom mileage and our one way flights home on Delta with my Father's Delta miles (in addition to some of Ray & Mine miles)...How much did we save? Oh lets say about a good $2500!!! Whooooohooooo!!!

Stay tuned!!!