Carmi and I had a conference call with our case manager at 3:30. We were indeed going to have some extra time in-province so we were given 2 options:

Scenario 1 is that we fly out of Charlotte on February 23rd instead of February 27th. This isn’t a good option because there would be a considerable increase in cost across the board for airfare, hotel, food and sightseeing (and shopping).

Scenario 2 is that we still fly out of Charlotte on February 27th but have no time in Beijing. We would fly into Beijing, board another plane and fly straight to the provincial capital. We would also pay an additional (relatively small in the grand scheme of things) “fee” to expedite our son’s passport process. This isn’t a good option because, if nothing else, we’d like to see the Great Wall again.

So what did we decide?

We chose a slightly modified version of scenario 2.

We fly out of Charlotte on Thursday, February 26th which will give us some much-needed rest after our trans-atlantic flight and also one full day in Beijing on Saturday. We fly to the provincial capital on Sunday and meet our son on Monday, March 2nd.

I like the sound of that.

We meet our son on March 2nd.