It’s been far too long since Brian has witnessed me have a meltdown at a UPS/FedEx store. Well, it’s about time!

On Sunday morning after church, we packed up a small care package to send to Alexander. Although there are many reliable in-country companies that can send small gifts to children waiting for their families, we wanted to send something directly. Additionally, because the foster family caring for our son does not have access to special cleft bottles, we requested and were granted permission to send one for his use. I think I might have mentioned this in an earlier post, but we were told to hope for the best but expect the worst when it comes to package delivery.

We included:

• small soft photo album with photos of us together and separately, a photo of our cuddly cats, our home, and of our flower beds– all with captions in English and Mandarin
• special cleft palate bottle
• small soft security blanket
• two bags of candy for caregivers/nannies/foster family
• a disposable camera labeled with Alexander’s name
• small labeled USB drive

The last two items are often included in care packages so caregivers and foster families can share any photos and surroundings with future adoptive families. We would love to have a full USB drive and completely spent camera returned to us on placement day.

We also extend our sincerest gratitude to a friend and former co-worker who translated our photo captions and cover letter into Mandarin for us.  Thank you so much, Chris! We can’t thank you enough!

But back to the melt down. We tried shipping our box out yesterday afternoon via FedEx, and were quoted over $200 for a box weighing less than 3 lbs! I ship things for a living (though mostly dead animals), but that price was crazy. I promptly melted down in the store, but after some advice from the adoption forums, Brian successfully shipped our parcel out this morning via USPS Priority for less than $50. Problem solved!

We’ll keep you updated if we hear back at all about our package, but for now we’ll just cross our fingers that our small tokens of love and hope reach our son soon!