It's been a blur

Last Thursday rumors surfaced that there were three final approvals issued in Kathmandu, but no official word until Monday morning when we were informed that Shanti’s final approval had been issued. We were thrilled, and hoping we could travel soon. But as in all things, be careful what you wish for…. Because of recent political instability and major upcoming Nepali holidays, our agency asked us to make travel arrangements to be in Kathmandu by no later than Saturday. Now from our home to Kathmandu is somewhere between 33 and 46 hours depending on your route, and don’t forget you lose a day crossing the international dateline, so in order for us to get to Kathmandu we needed to leave by Wednesday…yes, less than 48 hours after we were notified….oh yes and not to mention that I had a full clinic and surgery schedule Monday and I was on call until Tuesday morning at 7 am for my clinic and citycall (the doctor responsible for anyone who comes to the hospital who does not have a regular doctor --- and trust me that’s a lot of people these days). So I don’t know how I managed it, but in less than 2 days I somehow did the following:

Took care of my patients and call patients.
Arranged for child care for the boys (thanks mom!)
Wrote, signed and notarized temporary guardianship, consent for medical treatment for our boys and our updated will
Arranged travel – can you believe we managed to get to Kathmandu on frequent flyer miles?
Rescheduled my clinic for the next 3 weeks (thanks Vita! and everyone else at the front desk!)
Stopped the mail
Got Notarized and State Certified Power of Attorneys for DH (J) and myself if one of us has to stay longer in Kathmandu
Got our travel documents for Shanti’s adoption together and notarized
Packed the boys stuff for their stay at Grandma’s
Packed our stuff for Travel
Found enough clothes for Shanti for 5 days worth (I hadn’t done any shopping because I am so superstitious to think that if I did, something would fall through – Thank you Laurie for the hand me downs! – they’re adorable.
Put together our medical kit (being a doctor, it’s pretty extensive)

That’s just my list. J’s list was equally long..you get the idea. Lots of stuff, no sleep. Not to mention, torn up by having to leave my two little boys for 3 weeks.

I think I was really looking forward to the 13 hour LAX to Seoul portion of our trip (sleep was pure bliss). The travel was amazingly smooth. Minimal layovers, good food all the way (gotta love frequent flyer business class – Korean Air is incredible!) and generally on time connections (there was one brief panic about making connections in LAX – but that was quickly forgotten).

We made it to Kathmandu 45 min ahead of schedule, so waited at the airport for our ride. The people were wonderful. There were the usual touts trying to get you to come to their hotel or tour (really pretty minimal). But what I found amazing was that when we said that someone was meeting us but was late, several of the touts offered to help us by calling our contact from their cellphone. Turns out our contact was caught in traffic so we arranged to meet him at our hotel (our hotel van had arrived at the airport for our pickup).

Once at the hotel (Yak and Yeti – beautiful grounds and a children’s pool which will be really nice once we have Shanti), we met up with our agency rep. He was late to the airport because he had been at the ministry arranging for us to be able to actually go to Shanti’s orphanage and see her. He casually asked when would we like to go see her. Would today be ok? What? I thought maybe I was misunderstanding his English, we were not expecting to be able to see her until Sunday at the best. Yes! Absolutely! Without a doubt! So after 38 hours of travel, now shower, grundgy travel clothes, flat hair, unshowered, unprepared. We hopped in his car and made our way to meet Shanti.