Oh..What a week!!

and it's only Wednesday??!!?

Last Friday we were given the tentative travel date of August 13th. Over the weekend, Steve and I checked airline prices. Returning on a Thursday, they went from $1700 on Friday to $3000 on Saturday and $6000 by Monday morning!! This is the price for this particular week! Multiply $6000 by 6 - not in our budget!!

There are no seats available on another airline and still another going a different route was priced at $3000.

Monday, I left a message for my specialist. Tuesday heard back from her that they were still waiting to hear the results of Samson's TB test but they were working on sending a group on August 5th, one of their off weeks and was not originally scheduled with the embassy. However, we would not hear more until the end of the week.

August 5th appears to be our only hope to travel in August. We sit and wait. We checked with one travel agency for prices for leaving August 5th but they would not hold seats for us on KLM.

This morning I received a message from a friend on the forum (thanks Paula) who got a travel agent to hold seats for 72 hours for August 5th.

I contacted the same agency, left a message. Got a little impatient after waiting 15 minutes, called the agent again. Got him this time. Yes - he would hold seats for us for 72 hours. He confirmed that finding a flight to Ethiopia mid August through the end of August would be extremely challenging and that our only hope to travel in August would be the August 5th date.

He checks the August 5th flight while I'm on the phone. He pauses (remember, we need 5 seats) and says there are two seats available. I said, "oh no! We need 5 seats. He says, "wait, I found three others, which makes 5" He hangs up to plug in all the information just to make sure he gets those LAST 5 seats. 5 minutes later he calls back to confirm that he got them and that we are very lucky!! Not only that but they are still very reasonable.

I got off the phone and began to pray that our agency would be able to send a group on August 5th.
Just a few minutes ago, I received an email that our agency got the clearance to send August 5th group!

However, we are still waiting for TB test results on our son!! So, we our agency still cannot confirm our August 5th travel date. Please pray that the results will come before Friday so we can keep our seats.

Three weeks from today we are tentatively scheduled to fly out to Ethiopia!! Three weeks from this Friday we could meet our son for the first time!!

It has been a stressful and emotional week! Am I not suppose to be spending my energy towards getting ready for this little one instead of stressing over travel arrangements!!! These have been anxious times indeed!