Estimated day to leave for China is October 25th. Our agency is hoping to book our consulate appointment for the week of November 5th. Earlier it is booked, earlier we get to return home. The way it works is once they notify us of the consulate appointment, we get sent tentative airline bookings from our travel agency. We have 24 hours to select and pay for our travel. We do not know exactly what hotel in Beijing or Nanchang we will be staying until 5 days before we leave. I've also started to pack. I've been relying heavily on those who just returned this week; known as the BTDT (been there done that) group. Suggestions for baby: Bring meds, a few diapers, bottles and packs of formula to get started, and buy everything else there. Leave Lice treatment at home. Adults: pack light. Lots of rave reviews from folks who just returned, saying everything was great. We checked all of our paperwork, and good thing because the one thing I had to get notarized turned out to be an outdated version of the form, so I need to do that over. (Yeah, think of it, stuck in China because my Affidavit to Get My Kid Her Shots was on the outdated version--probably was updated when I STARTED this thing back in 05, right?) There has also been controversy on our daughters Chinese name. Our agency informed us that (as usual) paperwork has to be exactly right on baby names, so I emailed back with the question, is our child named /// It was both ways on our referral paperwork. Stay tuned.
