Aeroplan springs into action...

The time came three days ago and with a vengeance. Not only did we get the green light to travel from our adoption agency, but we had only a very quick turnaround to inform them of our travel plans so they could start booking all of the internal travel and appointments. Add to that, we found a giant Air Canada seat sale that advertised Economy seats to China down to about $1000 – sale ending shortly. If we couldn't get those Biz class seats, we needed to know fast so we could benefit from the airline's announced specials. Crunch time had come. We called Steve.

He tolerates my stressed out emails…

This man, Steve - this virtual stranger (and complete stranger to me), literally flew into action. Back and forth he went, calling the Montreal office where Mindy Goldberg at Executive Customer Solutions took the lead, desperately trying to find us a direct flight so we could bring Beckett home in the lap of luxury. He tolerated my stressed out emails, my overt manipulation (I sent him a picture of the baby which I knew was 'dirty pool'). He listened patiently to my pleas and tales of woe. I even lied! I promised to name the baby, 'Steve'. (So sue me.) Steve laughed via email and good naturedly told me I was 'killing him'.

Confirmation comes in...

Lo and behold, this morning, I got confirmation directly from Mindy in Montreal that the deal was done. They had checked and double checked, looked under rocks, probably called in a few favors, and allowed themselves to be led by their hearts – and the glorious result was two return Air Canada Business Class seats to Beijing, including a lap seat in the name of Fu Li Zhuang (Beckett's Chinese name) which made me cry when I saw it.

Thank you Erica for your generous and smart present. I will never mock your loyalty point hoarding again. Thank you Mindy – Queen of the Deal and thank you Steve Allmen – the guy who had nothing to gain but good karma, and chose to go above and beyond the call of duty. Russ and I are sending you extra love and good karma. And thank you Aeroplan for having a program like this in the first place for people like us.

And when Beckett gets on that plane in Beijing and looks around, she’s gonna be thinking “WOW – Major score on the parents”. Little will she know that Russ and I may not have the big bucks, but we sure have the best people.

JW helps to bring 1st granddaughter home...

Bringing an adopted child home is an incredible journey. It is the fears, joys and emotions of nine months wrapped up into two weeks. Journeywoman accompanied her daughter, Leslie when we brought her first treasured daughter home. It is an experience I will never forget. Our trip back to Canada took 22 hours in economy class and Leslie and I took turns holding Lotus for all that time. You can read about our experience in China by clicking right here.