It's midnight, Tuesday, May 20. In six hours Caroline and I will be zipping up our DaKine Wheelie bags, giving Kirby and Max their good-bye pets, buttoning up the house and making our way to the International Terminal of O'Hare Airport to board our 10:20 a.m. flight. It's been an amazing few days filled with all manner of emotion; one would be calm and focused, while the other was manic and scattered. One of us has been working with little sleep; the other tending to multiple to-do lists.

Having waited three years for this day to come one would expect a level of preparedness to be evident. In a sense, there is; visas received, emergency contacts provided, trip finances accounted, and litter boxes cleaned. Yet, in the scope of the pending life-changing reality, can there really exist any true level of preparedness? How does one embrace the magnitude of leaving an intact, comfortable, albeit hectic lifestyle, knowing that on the afternoon of June 1st all will be remarkably incomprehensible; a person whom we've never met will hand to us an infant whom we've never met, yet loved even before we knew her name...one for whom we will be her forever family. Perhaps our time on the Yangtze will provide some clarity. For this morning, it's simply enough to have everything packed and ready to go for our 6:05 a.m. departure to O'hare.