Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

So what about this second trip to pick up little Victor? Here are the answers to a couple of common questions:

How much more do you need for your final adoption trip to be fully funded?

The cost of this trip is a bit more than our last one… we will be staying longer in order to complete the immigration/visa process. Here are the funds that will be needed:

Flights

Our flights, including a one-way ticket home for Victor, will cost around $2500. (Of course, this is just an estimate – it will depend on when we get to travel.) We are working with an adoption-specialty travel agent who can get a child’s one way ticket for pretty cheap – about $500 – otherwise it could cost around $1700 alone!

Lodging

Since we will have to stay about ten days for this trip, our lodging will be about $125 a night for a total of $1250. Our lodging for our last trip was much less because we were staying in a smaller city. Hotels in the capital can be twice as much as other areas of the country!

Food/Miscellaneous

We anticipate about $750 in food and miscellaneous expenses like taxis to the airport and emergency diaper runs. We may be able to get by with less than this, but won’t know until we get there.

Grand Total

$4500! Quite a little speed bump in our race! However, we already have around $1600 of this so the amount we still need is only $2900! That number looks so much more do-able!

When will you go pick him up?

WE DO NOT KNOW!

It is horrible. It is awful. The suspense is killing us... but we do not know when we can go pick him up!

But we are ever so eager to go… we are like racers at the starting line – waiting for that shot that will propel us forward at full speed toward the finish line. But until that shot is fired, we are poised to start at any moment, focused on the track ahead! The shot will probably not be fired for another two months or so; please pray that we can remain focused, yet restful, for the long wait! 

After the court rules in favor of our adoption of our little son and all the legal processes are complete, we will receive “the call” – we will have a week or two to make our travel arrangements and then we can fly over the ocean to the son of our heart and wrap our arms around him and never let him go again! The very first thing we will do upon arriving in Bulgaria is to travel to his little town and free him from the orphanage! We will thank and say good bye to his nurses and the director of the orphanage and walk out of there forever! I get goose bumps just thinking about it!

We will then travel back to the capital city and begin the long process of medical exams and tests, all for our visa interview. We will get his new birth certificate – with our names in the Mother and Father slots! We will answer many questions and spend a lot of time waiting. This process is supposed to take about ten days.

It will be very cold then – the coldest time of the year in that area of the world. This will mean a lot of time spent in the hotel room, so we will have to bring lots of toys and be inventive to keep our boy entertained and happy– all the while bonding with us and getting to know each other. It will be scary for him – it will be the first time he has not been either in the orphanage or in the hospital. He will be used to being left alone for hours on end and now he will constantly be in our company – his Mama and Tati – complete strangers who love on him more than he has ever experienced before. I can imagine even this will stress him out and we will possibly have a very cranky three year old on our hands: all within the confines of a small European-style hotel room.

Soon everything will be finished and we will get on our plane… his first flight and into a strange land too. Eleven hours or more of travel. I hope he sleeps most of the way and is not too frightened.

When we land in the States, we are planning on having an airport welcome party with a few of our friends – we will have much to celebrate and people will want to meet our newest addition! I am sure I will cry and shout for joy and sing Hallelujah all at once. It will be a short, but joyous, occasion and then we will go home and sleep. Our new life will begin as a family!