IA... How much time?

srmmm09

So, long story short, we may adopt a little girl in Uganda who's in a foster home (as in a wonderful woman in a poor area of Kampala has her and 5 or 6 other LOs that people have given to her to watch).

The agency suggested that we go visit her, which we would never consider doing except that my father has so many airline miles that he can get us there and back for two trips (!!!).

We would literally just be going to visit her; nothing official would happen (unless we wanted to take her to the doctor, oh my heart!). So, I was thinking, how many days would y'all suggest? I was thinking 4...? The first day not even to see her but just to kind of get over jet lag. I know when I've made a 7-hour time difference trip, my brain doesn't work the first day. I won't remember any of my Luganda (or have the composure not to cry!).

Anyway, what do y'all think? It'd be months before we travel again, so we want it to count, but it's not like we'll get a lot of time with her at each visit either... 

jillianmb

When we met our little man for the first time we had a 7 day trip and it was perfect. 

Day 1- arrival

Day 2- nothing, just adjust to time change etc

Day 3- visit

Day 4- visit

Day 5- visit

Day 6 - visit

Day 7 - home 

 Granted, we only had 2 hours with him each day so it went by fast.  The first day he was really just shy, the second day coming out of his shell and then we had 2 awesome days of fun together. By the last day we were also SO ready to sleep in our own beds and eat our own food etc. 

Exciting news for you!!  I hope you can share pictures if you go! 

srmmm09

toothpastechica:

Maybe if you don't visit with the child/foster family every day a day near the end to do some sightseeing or something and some time just getting to know the childs culture and lifestyle by going into the markets, etc (with or without the child depending how the first couple days go and if you are even allowed to take her on outings?). I think when adopting internationally if you are  blessed with the chance its always a great thing to try and understand the childs "home country" life so that you can relate to them a bit better and help them to remember thier own culture as they grow up.

The nice thing about this is that when we travel to actually adopt her, we'll be there about a month, with a LOT of downtime, so we have plenty of time later to spend time in the culture. 

IRR

I would say minimum of 5 days for travel that far.  Two of the days are wasted with the travel portion and how close is the nearest airport where you are going?  That may eat up another day back and forth.  JMO.  Very exciting.

srmmm09

luckily Entebbe airport is only 45 miles from the heart of Kampala. I'm not sure where LO's home is, but I'd assume in the middle of the city because she's in a poor neighborhood. But maybe that's just western big cities.

Well, we'll see what happens! We may plan a week including travel, just for evenness' sake. 

miss1180

That sounds pretty good... maybe a little bit longer if possible.

  it does seem such a short time after the long trip to get there... BUT thats what we did :-) we adopted our son from Korea in August. Here was our time line

Thursday AM- Leave our house in NJ for Korea!

Friday night- Korea time, we arrived in Korea

Saturday and Sunday- Toured around

Monday PM-"got" our son

Tuesday- hung around with our son, getting to know him

Wednesday PM- flew home.

so, in the end, we were in Korea for 4 days. It was definitely a WHIRLWIND trip... but we just wanted to get home and start getting settled in with him. We spent all day of the four days out and about, so we feel like we got to experience his culture. AND we can always go back when hes older and he can experience it again with us.

 

Mrs.Slick

I would suggest a minimum of 3 days visiting with at least 2 hours per day. You'll then have travel dates around those 3 days. We didn't need a day to adjust to the time zone, we just made ourselves stay up and adjust as soon as we landed so when we woke up the next day we were mostly ready for anything.

You'll also want at least 3 days so you will have time to communicate with international pediatricians if you plan on going that route. Ours responded within 12 hours with every email we sent some were within 4 hours just depending on when we sent them but I know not all doctors are as timely.