We are Parents... Again

This is surreal. What a day it has been. At 3:00 PM we all met the other 12 families in the lobby and waited for our guide to tell us it was time to board the bus for the short ride to the Civil Affairs office. The mood on the bus was tense and our guide tried to use some dry humor to ease the anticipation. While he got a few chuckles that was about it. After another harrowing ride in the Nanning traffic where there seems to be no rules to the road we arrived, filed off the bus and headed to the fourth floor.

We entered the stifling hot room that contained nothing but a podium and several flags. We all stood along the walls of the room and got ourselves ready for what was about to come. The wait was short. First a lady from the Civil Affairs Office gave a speech at the podium. Of course I can’t remember a word she said. By now we could see the “aunties” in the hallway with the babies so we were trying to catch a glimpse of Chloe.

The first set of children that entered the room were from our orphanage, Guiping. We were the third family to get our baby. They called out Chloe’s Chinese name, Jin Yu Yu, and that is how we knew it was our turn… and our baby for that matter. Oh my goodness! She was beautiful. A gentleman handed Chloe to me. At first she was fine. He said to her “ma ma” and pointed to me and then he walked away. That is when the state of things changed. Chloe cried and screamed. We did everything to calm her down but nothing worked. This went on for an eternity. We were not alone. Several other families had similar situations.

While Chloe cried while in Ted’s arms, she screamed while in mine. We quickly assessed that she was more comfortable with Ted than me, so he basically held her the rest of the time. We handed her toys and lovies. We made her a bottle and we changed her diaper hoping this would help, but it barely had an impact. We had to take a picture for the CCAA office and then we could leave. As soon as we arrived on the first floor of the building everything changed. I have no idea why. She not only stopped crying she was giggling at Ted.

We road the bus back to the hotel and Chloe was doing much better. A few tiny tears, but now they seemed to come more from the fact that she was exhausted. The poor little thing not only sobbed non-stop for over an hour, but before that she had a taken a four hour bus ride from the orphanage to the Civil Affairs Office. To top it off she was also teething.

Once in the hotel she was curious about her surroundings. She checked out the water fountain in the lobby and the garden area near the restaurant. When we arrived to the room Chloe warmed up even more. We pulled out a bunch of toys that we brought for her. She enjoyed the stacking cups, the teething rattle but her favorite toy was a little Baby Einstein “radio” that played classical music and lights would flash to the melody. We gave her a bitter teething biscuit which she enjoyed but she ended up wearing more then she ate. So we moved on to the ritual that I personally think could actually be the catalyst for ending wars and promoting world peace… the sharing of the Cheerios. She LOVED them! She let both of us feed them to her. She fed them to herself. And we even found another use for the stacking cups. It was also while eating Cheeios that Chloe did one of the most amazing things… she started to sing a song. We have no idea what it was but she was signing.

Ba Ba (Daddy) played peek-a-boo with her but it turned into hide-and-seek. She was sitting on the bed and he was on the floor. He’d duck down and pop back up which made her giggle. But then when ba ba would duck down again, she would lean over the edge of the bed and look for him. When she found him she’d giggle even more.

Remember how I said that Chloe took to Ted more than me. Well, we had evidence of this when Ted would attempt to leave the room because she would start to cry. If I left she was fine. Ted can’t go anywhere without her.

We gave her a quick bath (which she disliked) and then another bottle. Then she laid down on the bed with ba ba and fell asleep. After a short while she woke up and began to play a game with Ted. She was lying on her back and she would look away from Ted for about 30 seconds. Then she would turn to look at him to see if he was still staring at her. When she saw that he was in fact still watching her she got this gigantic smile on her face. This went on and on.

This evening we finished all of the paperwork to complete the Chinese portion of the adoption. We have to go meet with government officials tomorrow for an interview and to make the adoption official. We will let you know how that goes in our next post.

The Dragon Slayer and Peoples Park

Yesterday on the phone Skylar asked me if we have seen a dragon yet. She told me that when I saw a dragon that I needed to take a picture of it and bring it home. Then, just to be certain that she was perfectly clear she said, “Bring home the PICTURE of the dragon, not the dragon.” So now it seems wherever we go we are looking for dragons. Today we found one in Peoples Park.

Peoples Park is this oasis in the middle of Nanning. We are walking on the busy, dirty streets of Nanning, passing by tiny shops. Then, when you turn into this huge park tucked behind the shops and buildings it as if the city just disappears.

There is gigantic koi pond in the center of the park. On this Sunday morning, families can be seen riding small boats on the pond or sitting on the edge feeding the koi. Also along the perimeter of the pond you will find musicians and singers, most of which were performing together in small bands. Some were playing violins; some were playing traditional Chinese instruments. Other people were practicing their tai chi under the cool shade of the large banyan trees. There were carnival-style games and in one section of the park called “Happy Time” there were even carnival rides including a large Ferris wheel. Throughout the park people can be seen strolling along while their children ate ice cream bars or chased after silly mylar balloons shaped like a dog which was even weighted so it even looked as if you were taking your (mylar) dog for a walk. Elderly gentleman sat at tables and played mahjong while smoking a cigarette.

Our other adventure for the day was “crossing the street” that you saw in our post yesterday. Are you laughing? I’m not kidding. When crossing the street in China everyone basically has to fend for themselves. Yes, there are stop lights and cross walks but I’m not really sure why. People walk in between cars and scooters and will stand in the middle of the street until they have a big enough opening to walk between the next set of MOVING vehicle. It is not for the faint of heart.

We basically had a great day today… until we found out that the orphanage fee went up $500 and our agency didn’t tell us until today. Oh ya… and now we have to pay the money in Chinese yuan. Sounds simple until you realize that you are only allowed to convert $100 USD at the hotel per day, and we need to have the money by Tuesday. I guess instead of focusing on the small stuff I should just remember that after waiting 34 months we are going to have our daughter in less then 24 hours!

We are in Nanning

It has been a journey, but we are finally sitting in our hotel room in Nanning. Other than being a bit jet-lagged, we are doing well. Our journey started out with a drive to the airport in a limo. We made arrangements for a Towncar to take us to the airport so we could say our good-byes to Skylar at home. What showed up in front of our house was a long, black stretch limo. That was an interesting way to start things off. The trip only got better from there. We had Business Class tickets for the flights to China so this meant we got into all of the *short* lines at the airport. The short line at the ticket counter. The super short line at the security check. Once in the terminal we waited for our flight in the NW Club room. We also got early boarding where we were served beverages and handed newspapers while we waited for take-off. And those were just all of the perks BEFORE the plane left the ground. I am very glad we paid a few hundred dollars more for the upgraded tickets. Listen, this journey is emotional enough both because of what we left behind and because of why we are going.

The flight to Japan was smooth (once they removed the luggage for the passenger that checked-in bags but never boarded the flight) and is sure didn't seem like we were in the air for 10 hours. Once we arrived in Japan we found out that our flight to Guangzhou, China had been cancelled. The NW representatives were greeting all Guangzhou passengers as we got off the plane. They gave us tickets on a different flight with Japan Airline and walked us all to the proper place so we wouldn't miss the flight. They were wonderful.

We made it Guangzhou... and so did our bags thankfully. By the time we finished clearing customs it was after 11:00 PM in China. We made our way to the airport hotel and this is where we got our first lesson that we need to be careful. As we walked to the airport hotel a shuttle driver offered to give us a ride. He told us it would 380 yuan. We initially agreed until our jet-lagged brains finally kicked in and realized that he wanted to charge us over $50 for a ride that was going to take less than 5 minutes.

We spent the night in Guangzhou and then caught a 9:50 AM flight to Nanning. And here we are. We haven't had time see much yet. We spent the day getting settled in our room, adjusting to the time and ordering food by pointing to pictures on menu. And no, I didn't choose the dish that had the chicken head on the plate... and I also passed on the ox shin, turtle soup, ostrich and crocodile. The picture you see with this post is from our hotel room. The air quality is bad and the humidity is even worse. I won't even go into how they drive here on this post. I will save that for later, after I actually try to cross a street. Yikes!

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We are Heading to the Airport

We are packed! The red bag is 35.5 pounds and the green bag is 40.5. We are under the China requirement of 44 pounds per bag. Thank goodness! Now we are off. In less than an hour we are heading to the airport and leaving for China. This is bitter sweet. We are excited to go and bring home our daughter, Chloe, but was are also sad to be leaving Skylar for 14 days!! Uggg. I know she is great hands. I can't thank my dad and grandmother enough for coming here to take care of Skylar. Family is wonderful!!! Next post will be from China (hopefully)!

A Baby Shower!!

Today my coworkers threw a baby shower for me! I’m not used to people making a fuss. It was VERY nice. I received lots of wonderful gifts for Chloe (and even some gifts for Skylar, the soon-to-be big sister). Chloe received many adorable outfits, shoes and hats, the cutest little pair of Vans that I’ve ever seen, baby bibs and two beautiful baby blankets. One of the blankets was a hand-made quilt made specifically for Chloe. I’m at a loss for words.

Thank you everyone!!

Father’s Day

I walked into the family room tonight to find my husband and my daughter sitting next to each other on the couch watching Episode One of the Star Wars Trilogy. (My daughter has this fascination with Princess Leia. To heck with the Disney princesses, Skylar wants to be Princess Leia Organa for Halloween.) Skylar is sitting there with this big silly grin on her face and “daddy” wasn’t watching the movie so much as he was watching her. I just stood there and stared at the pair of them.

I am truly blessed. I have a beautiful, intelligent little girl, another one on the way and a loving husband. One of the gifts Skylar gave daddy today was a picture of the two of them holding up a trout they just caught together. She decorated the frame with seashells, colored rocks and wavy blue ribbon to represent the water. She also gave daddy a card that she made herself at pre-school which had a beautiful little poem about a child walking in her daddy’s footsteps. The gift and the card definitely moved Ted.

My little Tomboy is usually not too far from her daddy’s side. They could be watching grass show (that is what Skyar calls golf on TV), or maybe warming up by passing the soccer ball before her soccer class, or even building robots and other cool stuff out of Legos. And Ted is always right there for her… and for me for that matter. Yes, I am truly blessed. I can’t wait to see what Father’s Day is like next year.

Posting Comments Made Easier

I've changed the setting for posting comments. I didn't realize I had the restrictions set up the way I did. So please feel free to post your comments.

Cheers!

The Timeline is Almost Complete

Today we found out that we'll be meeting Chloe Yuyu for the first time on Monday, June 30 at 2:30 PM. Wow, this is starting to feel real! After waiting for so long it's hard to let my guard down... but this is REALLY going to happen.

Now I can concentrate on some items at home that need some serious attention. I have a pre-school graduation to attend, a post-placement medical exams to schedule, details for Skylar's 5th birthday party to work out and plans to make for co-hosting my friend's baby shower. These will all fall into place. Heck, I'm great at project planning and multi tasking! Don't believe me? Stop by and I'll show you all of my spreadsheets outlining the details and timelines for this adoption.

Ah, it will be a wonderful day when I can highlight the Adoption folder on my computer, right click and select "delete". Now that is what I call therapy.

More Details About Our Travel Plans

After everything that has happened in the last week, I didn't want to post actual travel info until we were 100% certain it was a sure thing. So here are the cliff notes version of our travel plans:

• We leave home on Thursday, June 26.
• We have to spend one night in Guangzhou before we make it to Nanning on Saturday, June 28.
• We will be meeting Chloe in Nanning on either Sunday, June 29 or Monday, June 30. Theses details are still being worked out.
• We stay in Nanning for a few days while the Chinese portion of the adoption process is completed.
• We leave Nanning on Saturday, July 5 and fly to Guangzhou. This is where we go to the American Consulate and complete the U.S. required paperwork.
• We head home on Thursday, July 10. Because of the time difference we will actually arrive home on July 10 just 25 minutes after our Guangzhou departure. (I sure hope the flight home with an 11-month old feels like a 25-minute flights. Haa-haa-haa.)

I am ecstatic that we will be home for Skylar's 5th birthday. I'm also very happy that I get to keep the promise that her little sister will be at her birthday. Now I just have to figure out how to celebrate her birthday. This jet-lagged super mom is buying a store-bought cake this year. Ummm, well maybe.

We FINALLY have our Consulate Appointment

We know we are leaving for China on or around June 26. Thank goodness this has finally been taken care of.

**I will add more to this post later today.**

When are we going to China?

That’s the million dollar question. Well, it won’t be June 12th… and it won’t be June 19th. Will it be June 26? Maybe… maybe not. So what in the world happened? That's the TWO-million dollar question. All we know is that our adoption agency has not gotten the U.S. Consulate appointments for all of their 23+ families and none of us can leave for China until we have our appointment dates set.

Is this unusual/unexpected/upsetting? Yes to all of the above. More so when we know that other families who signed-up with several other adoption agencies have already received their Consulate appointments and have their airline tickets in hand. We are among the last groups in the U.S. waiting for permission to leave.

Those that know me know I’m a planner and I’m a risk manager. So when I asked the agency today if I would make it China before my “Approval to Adopt” from the State Department expires in September you can just imagine how shocked I must have been when I was told:
"I think that September is pretty far off right now for that to be a consideration, but I am not completely ruling it out. Anything is possible as you know, but I would say that is probably not a very highly probable outcome. I would say that would probably be a worst-case scenario."

Where was the reassuring "oh, don't be silly" statement? Why did it have to include the "... but I am not completely ruling it out" fear inducing phrase?!

A fellow “waiting” mom asked me today “What is harder… pregnancy and childbirth or adoption?” Gee, I didn't even have to stop and think about that one... it's adoption by a mile! Of course this will all be worth it, but as you are going through the "labor pains" you still can't resist the urge to scream.

I honestly have to say that adoption is not for the faint of heart. We started this process 1,008 days ago on Sept 1, 2005. Now I sit here with a picture of our beautiful little daughter’s face and I have no idea when I will meet her. I’ve made many promises to Skylar during this journey about when her sister would be home. Surely she’d be home before Skylar’s 4th birthday. Wrong. Well, surely she’d be home before Christmas 2007. Wrong again. With a May 2 referral we felt confident that Chloe would be home before Skylar’s 5th birthday so I made yet another promise. Silly, silly me.

Where in China are we going?

When we go to China we are going to spend most of our time in south-west China (Nanning city in the autonomous region of Guangxi) and south-east China (Guangzhou city in the province of Guangdong). For those who are interested, here is some information about China and the areas where we will be going.

The People’s Republic of China
Population = 1,321,851,888 (in comparison to the U.S. with a population of 301,139,947)

Area = 9,596,960 km2 (in comparison to the U.S. with an area of 9,631,418 km2)
Ancient China was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. Archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest humans in China date from 2.24 million to 250,000 years ago. It has the world's longest continuously used written language system, and ancient China is the source of such major inventions as paper, the compass, gunpowder, and printing.

The People's Republic of China has administrative control over twenty-two provinces (and considers Taiwan to be its twenty-third province). There are also five autonomous regions (Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang and Tibet); four municipalities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, Tianjin); and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau).

Guangxi Autonomous Region – Population 49,250,000
Guangxi borders with Vietnam, has a short coastline on the Gulf of Tonkin, and has a mountainous terrain. It was given provincial level status during the Yuan Dynasty and in 1949 was designated as one of China's four minority autonomous regions. The capital city is Nanning. Another famous city in Guangxi is Guilin which is located along the banks of the Li River and has long been renowned for its unique scenery

Nanning City – Population 6,480,000
[This is where we will meet our daughter for the first time.] Nanning is located 100 miles from the border with Vietnam and is a very green city because of its abundance of lush tropical foliage. It sits on the north bank of the Yong River which is the main southern tributary of the Xi River and is situated in a hilly basin with elevations between 70 and 500 m above sea-level. Qingxiu Mountain dominates the southern part of town.

Nanning's climate is sub-tropical and monsoonal with more the 51 inches of annual precipitation. The average annual temperature is 71°F. It is also frost-free for all but 3 or 4 days a year and it never snows in Nanning.

Guangdong Province – Population 113,040,000
Guangdong Province is on the southern coast of China. As of 2005, it is the most populous province in China with 83 million permanent residents and 30 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months. The provincial capital is Guangzhou is one of the most important cities in China.

Guangdong is the country's richest province with the highest total GDP among all provinces. Its nominal GDP for 2007 3.06 trillion yuan (US $422 billion). Guangdong contributes approximately 12.5% of national economic output.

Guangzhou City – Population (Metro) 9,754,600+
[Guangzhou is where we will get Chloe’s U.S. visa.] Guangzhou city is also known by an older English-language name, Canton. It is a port on the Pearl River, navigable to the South China Sea, and is located about 75 miles northwest of Hong Kong. Guangzhou has a humid climate, and flowers bloom there all year round; hence its name as the City of Flowers. It is the largest and most flourishing industrial and foreign trade center in south China.

Guangzhou is a famous historical city. As recorded in historical documents, in the year 214 B.C. a wall was constructed at Panyu. Panyu Town is regarded as the starting point where Guangzhou developed into a big city. In 226 A.D. Panyu was made the capital city of Guangzhou.