Five sleeps and counting!!

I can hardly believe that this time next week I will be in Shanghai, getting ready to board a plane to Nanchang, the capital of Alice's home province of Jiangxi. OH. MY. GOODNESS. If I think too hard about it, I start to get completely terrified! I am a walking contradiction at the moment - ecstatic one minute, terrified the next, and scared out of my wits after that. As the moment of truth approaches, I am finding myself thinking more and more about Alice's birth parents, and her foster parents. I can only inagine how hard it must be for them. For Alice's parents - that they felt they had to give her away in order for her to have a better life, and for Alice's foster parents, who will soon be relinquishing the child they have nourished, cared for and loved for the past nine months. I have so much admiration for these people who take babies into their homes, care for them like their own children, all the while knowing that one day they will have to give them up. I am so very hopeful that we will either be able to meet Alice's foster parents at handover, or track them down somehow (I know this can be done through several organisations based in China). I would love to be able to personally thank them for caring for our sweet girl in those early, formative months.

I must head off now and have a look at the list for today. I have crossed off one thing already- a trip to the dentist - and I have also bought a book to read on the plane. Now off to tidy out DS's wardrobe. Be afraid, be very afraid......