[mya'smom]

We are trying to decide if we should bring our older daughter (she will be 13 by the time we travel) with us and leave our younger one (6 at time of travel) at home. I would love to bring both girls, but our youngest just doesn't travel very well. Has anyone else done this and did you regret it later? I'm torn as to what to do. I would love to hear others experiences.

TIA, Cindy

[drmalcolm]

Hi Cindy,
I've not adopted yet (in fact, I am not even DTC yet!), but I noticed that no one had answered your post. I thought I'd give it a little bump for you and also post the link to a similar thread that we had going a week or two ago. It might contain some thoughts that could help you with your decision. Traveling w/siblings to China

As you can see from my post on that thread, I personally am kind of a "worst case scenario" planner. I hate to be negative and bring up a remote possibility, but I guess I would just be scared that, in the awful case that something happened to you all, your younger daughter to be the only one left in your immediate family.

That said, this is a very personal decision for you, so you will realize and do what is best for you, your family, and your new daughter.

I wish you the best of luck and hope maybe some people who are more experienced than I will have some thoughts to share with you.

Christina

[mya'smom]

Christina, thanks for the link, I will have to read it and see what others have said. It is funny you should mention about what if...... my husband said the same thing last night. That is the reason he is holding back bringing our older daughter. My reason is our youngest has never been away from us for more than one night and i'm worried how she would be if the three of us went and she was left behind with my sister and her family. This is so hard for us to decide (we have lots of time, we probably won't be DTC until April). I know this would be a great opportunity for our older daughter, but not if it is at the expense of our younger daughter.


Cindy

[drmalcolm]

Cindy, good luck to you, I know it's quite a decision.

Do you think this next year of finishing your dossier and waiting for a referral might make a difference with your younger daughter for travel? I know that nothing can truly prepare us for a trip of that length, but maybe she will mature enough so that it would work to take both children.

My husband looked up flights in our area last night just to get an idea of where we'd fly out of--we live in Maryland and are lucky enough to have 3 major airports close by from which we can choose. We were laughing when he realized that we'd fly to Detroit, then still have an 18-hour flight to Beijing. He said, "Are you sure you don't want to just go by yourself and have some much needed time away from us?!" Sometimes that IS tempting... wow, 18 hours to just read a book!

Take care, and welcome to the forum!

Christina