I Want My TA! (travel approval)

Dear China Travel Approval Person in Charge,


I know it must surely seem that you give, I take, you give I take. You give, I ask for more, and on and on it seems to go. Well let me assure you, you are not alone as my husband says this is what his entire life with me has been like! So that must make you feel better. right? ;-)

But here is the thing. for many days after I held that LOA, I swore I would be fine. I had approval, I was thankful for that. VERY thankful and had a huge peace over me. My husband said he figured that would last about a week. And I proved him wrong. It lasted for at LEAST 2 weeks. Honestly. But then.......


This sweet face began to remind me that approval is not enough. It is a wonderful thing to have, but this girl is the reason we are in the process at all. And I miss her. I am ready to hold her and get a smile on her face.
And here is what I am worried about. Because I promise you I have stared at the calendar over and over and over these last few months. I know the time frame I need to be there. I know that the trade fairs are coming up in Guangzhou. Meaning that the hotels are very expensive, and from what I understand hard to book. If that is the case, this could mean we miss Mavery's 3rd birthday. And I have already missed 2 birthdays, please don't make me miss anymore with her. I know SHE won't know(as my husband has pointed out I think trying to make me feel better, but so far it is not) but I know and I just want to celebrate with her. I saw her just days after her 2nd birthday. Who would have thought I would not have her for her 3rd. Sigh..
Which also could mean that we would be in China for the Presidential Election, and no offense, but that is no fun! My family enjoys a party, and they claim our house as the party house, and they like to sit in front of our TV and yell at it as the results come in. We would just be so happy to be home for that. Of course we promise to not let them scare Mavery or anything like that with their yelling. It is pretty exciting though, did you hear that our party is FOR adoption? Yep, he himself has adopted children. AND his VP has FIVE kids! But lets not get into politics.

And then there is this picture. This is the room she sleeps in. The wood floors are beautiful, the pink walls very cute. But before she gets to used to sleeping on the wood in these cribs, we want her to sleep on her mattress here, at home, that is waiting for her, next to my bed. Taunting me every day by reminding me that she is not in the bed. Which then makes me sad and if I am sad then that just throws off the whole house, ya know? And just in case you had not heard, there are alot of us in this house. Alot of us who are together ALOT. I mean we love being together so much that my husband works from home, the kids do school here, we barely leave! And the kids are tired of me saying Mavery will be here soon. When is soon they want to know, wasn't she maybe going to be home in July? (Not that we blame that on you, that would be thank you to the state of ILLINOIS, but don't get me started on that.) So back to the kids wanting to know when soon is. And us being together alot. And me being crabby, I mean sad that she is not home. Which then makes the kids crabby. And all that togetherness with a crabby mama and crabby kids, oh it can get out of hand. Top it off with one of those kids being a hormonal pre-teen, throw in a spicy girl and wow. We all NEED Mavery home!
I have also been going through all the pictures we have been blessed with of Mavery and it hit me, while we are so thankful to have what we do, we have nothing of her as a baby. We have missed so much and we just want her home so that we can start taking lots of pictures of her and be done with waiting and just move on with life. OH OH OH, and one reason we surely need to get to China NOW is that shopping for me is therapy, and so to make myself feel better I go out and shop for things for our trip with money Mark says we do not have and so that means you just have to get us over there now before I spend ALL the money we don't have so that I can spend it in China! If you just could send that TA NOW, and get me there SOON then I promise I will do my best to buy at LEAST a suitcase full of your things to bring home. I have my list made, I will have 5 kids to shop for! But I am telling you, if it takes much longer, Mark is going to limit me to a duffel bag instead of a suitcase for my souvenirs and I know neither you nor I want that!

So, simply put, I just would like my TA. I would like to come to China one month from now. I would like to be home for Mavery's birthday. I would like to stop bugging you, really I would. So if you could just send it on over, maybe today? I would be forever thankful. And I promise to tell Mavery how wonderful the TA person was!

Sincerely,

Mavery's mama

**Disclaimer**No, I am not really sending this to China, I am pretty sure my mom reads these and worries about me! Also, please no comments about the election. My blog, my opinion. Please pray for us as we wait for this final paper. It really SHOULD be any day. Our prayer is that we are waiting longer than we expected for it so that we can travel with my friend I met online who has a daughter with Mavery. You can peek at their blog here.

The last picture, Mavery is holding up her panda bear that we sent back in March/April. The bear of China, right? ;-)