Days 9 – 12 Guangzhou

We arrived in Guangzhou, in the south east of China, on Friday afternoon. The purpose of this leg of the trip is to have a medical appointment for Hannah to be sure she will not bring any communicable diseases into the US and to have her visa granted so she can enter the United States. She will travel on a Chinese passport with a  US visa, but will become a US citizen as soon as we enter the United States.

Our medical appointments were on Saturday morning. Our guide, Helen, met us early in the lobby to take us over to the medical building where each of the children were evaluated. We were so thankful she had arranged for us to go early, because by the time we left the place was a zoo. They are only open in the morning on Saturdays, and they had eighty, yes, 8 – 0, adoptive families to process that morning. Wow. This all went quite smoothly. Hannah was doing fine and we were really thankful that Samuel, the little boy another family in our group has adopted, also sailed through without incident. He had been struggling with a fever while we were in Lanzhou, and we were concerned that this could derail the forward motion for this family and potentially lengthen their stay in China.

On Sunday, we gathered as a group for a short time after breakfast and each family had a brief opportunity to share about how God has been working, either to bring them to the place of adopting or since we had arrived in China and met our children. This was a very special and meaningful time. After our little service we met Helen in the lobby again and we were off to do some sight seeing and shopping.

Monday, today, several of us had our US Consulate appointments.  This involved taking an oath on behalf of our newly adopted child and handing over the child’s passport for the visa to be processed. This all went very quickly and smoothly, for which we were very grateful.  After we got back to the hotel we found Grammy Bev and Daniel playing with another family on the children’s playground at the hotel. We then went back to Shamian Island, a place we had visited yesterday with our guide and the larger group. We took a taxi, with Jim and Tina Lutz and their children in the taxi in front of us, over to the island where we did some more independent shopping and had lunch. The Lutz’s are in the process of adopting their third child from China, so they have done this a few times and even know some of the shop keepers on the island. Daniel has really come to love the Lutz family, and he wants to be with them whenever he can. They have been so kind to him, including him in their family meals at times, carrying him, playing with him. It has been a joy to get to know them a bit on this trip.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Guangzhou. Around 3:00 tomorrow afternoon we will board a private van and be driven three plus hours from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. We will stay overnight in the Hong Kong airport hotel, and then catch a flight back to the US later on Wednesday morning. We are so ready for this trip to end. It has been incredible, unbelievable, mysterious, strange, wonderful, difficult, challenging, beautiful … and long. I walked past Hannah sleeping in her hotel pack-and-play a little while ago and looked down at her. She is barely more than a stranger, but she is my daughter. My daughter! Wow, I have a daughter.  That is what this trip has brought about.

Over on the other side of the room are piles of dirty laundry. With very few exceptions that’s all we have left in terms of clothing options for the next few days. We’ll pick the least dirty, least smelly things for the next couple of days and eagerly look forward to being able to wash and dry our clothes in our own laundry room in a few days. We sent out some laundry while we were in Lanzhou. We thought we’d have time for a few loads to be sent out, so we only sent out our light colored dirty clothes. They came back the next day with the bill. Over $50 US dollars!! Needless to say, our darks and reds never got washed. And of course it didn’t take too long before our lights were dirty again. We bought a couple of things over the last day or so. It was cheaper to buy new shirts than to have ours washed again!

Tomorrow we will pack again and begin the return trip. We are eager to get home. We are eager to brush our teeth in water we don’t have to boil first, or bottled water. I am so thankful for safe water that comes right out of our faucets in the US. I am thankful for our comfortable home with space to put things and that we can leave cramped living in a hotel room behind us for a little while. Most of all though I am thankful for our precious little daughter who is changing things up for us completely!  I am thankful for the precious families we have been on this journey with. They have become dear friends and a part of me feels like we can’t go on without them. We have been through this life changing event together and I wish we could just keep moving on in our lives as a group because there is mutual understanding of what we have all just been through. I know we will all stay in touch, and Facebook does provide a wonderful place for that to happen, as we will be eager for updates on the other dear little children who have been taken into their forever families on this trip. There will be surgeries and therapies for most of them, and we will be eager to know how each of them is doing through these experiences. We hope to be able to gather together with them from time to time. For four of us, our children have longer histories with each other than we do since they lived together for well over a year before they came to us.  We are enriched from knowing these families, and traveling this part of our journey together. We will never be the same. I’m glad for that.

Three Cheers for Grammy Bev

My amazing and wonderful mother deserves a post all her own. Nearing the end of our trip, I think it is fair to say we could not have done this without her. She has been incredible. She is gracious, patient, strong, uncomplaining, and up for anything. The other families in our group have also grown to appreciate and love her. She has impressed them with her tenacity and endurance. She is loving and kind and also no-nonsense. She helps us with advice when we ask for input on decisions. She helped last night when Daniel cut his foot to ease my anxiety with her nursing experience. She helps with the children in every possible way, from entertaining and carrying Daniel to feeding Hannah to changing either of them, even to sweetly pointing out to me this morning when Hannah pooped on me at breakfast, “Is that a glop of poop on your shoe?” Why, yes, Mom, it is. Thanks for looking out for me! 

Hannah YaLing

Well, the reason we are here of course is not to see the sights of China, but to adopt our little girl, and I definitely want to write about her, as she is surely the most interesting part of this trip!

Most of the first day with her she was very quiet. She had a very judicious look about her, as if she was assessing everything and reserving judgment for a future time. She did play some little games – waving and even initiating a little tongue movement game. She was very interested in everything that was going on around her and whenever we have been on a bus or plane she has wanted to look out the windows and see what is going on. By the end of the first day, she was warming up a little bit and was smiling and even laughing a little. I mentioned previously that we were a little concerned about her smile and wondered about some facial paralysis.

By day two, we noticed that her smile was not quite so down-turned and she was even beginning to form a dimple on one of her cheeks when she would smile or laugh. Our conclusion at this point is that her facial muscles have not gotten a lot of use in terms of smiling and laughing, and she may just not have learned how to do these things. This is very sad, of course, but encouraging that it is starting to look a little better. We also discovered on day 1, to our great joy, that she has ear canals coming to the outside, and she hears very well. I shook some cheerios in a cup and she heard them. Yesterday I unwrapped a snack behind her back and she knew what I was doing without seeing and reached back to grab for it. This is extremely encouraging. The positioning of the ear canals is a bit low, and we are wondering if there is some internal construction that is contributing the the somewhat odd appearance of her smile and appearance when she laughs. It will be very good to have this assessed when we get home to the States.

The evidences of institutionalization that have been the most obvious for her relate to food. She seems to want to eat ALL THE TIME. This is fine, and we are trying to make it obvious to her that food is there for her in abundance, and she can have it whenever she needs it. I mentioned on the first day how fast she drank her bottle. That has already slowed down, and she seems to be willing to take breaks while drinking now, which is so good. She has also already rejected some of the food that she had regularly in the orphanage. She has tasted some variety, and she likes it! So, we are letting her try a lot of things, which she seems very eager to do. Sometimes she spits them out, but she seems very eager in this area, so that is great. She is still drinking from a bottle, and having formula and rice cereal in the formula as her primary source of nutrition. At almost 17 months, this is not great, but she will make strides quickly in this area, we are sure.

The saddest evidence of change that she has demonstrated is quiet crying early in the morning right after she wakes up. She clearly knows that her world has changed, and for the most part she is handling it amazingly well, but she has had these early morning crying times, sometimes with no noise, just tears rolling down her cheeks. This is heartbreaking. The first morning this happened David saw it first and held her and just cried with her.

She has proven to be quite the little performer and socialite. Based on the information and photos we had gotten from the orphanage I would NEVER have predicted that she has the personality that she does, but she is hilarious and she loves being hilarious! She seems to accept us and already gravitate to us as her Mama and Baba (as they call Daddies in China), but she may also bond easily with many people, which is something we need to watch out for. This is often the case with institutionalized children, and some of her entertainment may be an effort to keep our approval and affection. We will see in time.

She is quite territorial, which is also very common for the children from an orphanage. They have learned to be independent and to get by, so she has been quite unwilling to relinquish toys and she pushes Daniel away quite freely. Daniel does seem to love her and asks immediately when he wakes up if she is awake yet, because he wants to play with her. I asked him early the other morning if he liked having a little sister, and he said, “Me a big brother!” I think he is demonstrating all very typical signs of having a younger sibling introduced to the family. He has asked to have a bottle, to be carried in the carrier, to sleep in her crib, and several other similar things. Honestly I think this trip has been very hard on him, but he is handling it as well as can be expected. He has harder and faster emotional meltdowns when things don’t go his way, but the rest of us would to if it were socially acceptable! This has been a hard trip. It is exhausting and while it has been good to see and experience things in China that we can later share with our adopted children about their heritage, there have been times when I have just wanted to say, “Look, we’re beat. Let us just stay in the hotel and rest!” But it is our only chance to see and experience these things, so we have participated at each level. But it is very wearing.

Neither child has had their normal schedule of naps and eating. A lot has been asked of Daniel and we are struggling to give both children the attention they need and deserve. Our worlds have all changed, but Hannah’s has been turned completely upside down. She has nothing of the life she had just a few days ago. We think she is doing incredibly well, but the trauma of it all has certainly had its impact.

A little more in regard to Hannah. She seems to be extremely smart – scary smart. She also seems to approach each new thing as if she’s been there and done that before. I can’t explain it, but she just seems to understand a lot of what is going on and it seems she has had exposure to things that surprise us. She picked up my cell phone on the second day and held it to her ear and babbled a little bit. She knew about swiping her finger across the screen. She has been very quick to pick things up by imitation. She learned on day one or two to slap her knee when something was really funny, and now if you say “that was a knee-slapper!” she will slap her knees. I think she is picking up on English very quickly and beginning to understand us at least at some level.

Her physical condition is so good – so much better than what I had expected or hoped. She is very small, but her motor skills are extremely good and she is crawling well and doing little acrobatics which are hilarious. We basically have no concerns about her at all, aside from the ear deformity, which at this point seems to be largely superficial. She is super cute, and we are definitely growing to love her!

Days 5 – 8 Lanzhou

The days have been zipping by and we are travel weary. Adjusting to life with two precious children and accomplishing the various tasks the trip requires have not left much time to write. So I will go for more of a summary approach.

On Monday the group met Steed early to go take care of our official adoption appointments. Daniel stayed at the hotel with Grammy which made things much easier, as it was a fairly slow, boring time (from the perspective of a three year old.) For us, it was the reason we are here.

We are officially Hannah’s adoptive parents!

 

Tuesday was a rest day and we all really needed it. Wednesday and Thursday were sightseeing days. On Wednesday we went to the Museum of Gansu (the province where Hannah is from). There is a lot of provincial and national pride displayed here.  We also saw a very interesting WaterWheel which brings water from the Yellow River to be used by the people. The water is filthy and all use of water in China requires boiling to make it safe.  On Thursday we went to a park and zoo. This was where we had the most fun, as Daniel was able to ride a little horse and to have his first carnival type ride, which he enjoyed a lot and did a great job hanging on.

Friday came and we needed to be ready early to leave for the airport for our flight to Guanzhou, near Hong Kong, where we would do necessary paperwork at the US Consulate and get Hannah’s visa for entry to the US. We left Lanzhou without passports, as they had not been processed on time. This is a little bit of concern, but Steed has assured us that they will be Fed Ex’ed to Guanzhou and we will have them in time for our US Consulate appointment on Monday.

 

Day Four – Gotcha Day Part Two

After we finally completed the picture taking, we all returned to the hotel where we met with Steed for a half hour or so to complete important forms for the processing of our adoptions in the Chinese legal system. When all this was over, we finally had some time to spend with Hannah and to begin to get a feel for our new, changed family.

For all this time, Hannah had never let go of that little snack and wrapper that she had with her when the nanny handed her to me. On the occasions when I had tried to help unwrap the snack a bit further so she could eat more she clearly resisted and became a little upset. She held on to that wrapper long after the snack was gone, and actually did not let it go until she had fallen asleep for the night and I took it from her hand. I have saved it and it will be kept in her album.

Observing Hannah was very interesting – or maybe it would be better to say watching her observe us was very interesting. She didn’t smile much and looked extremely serious. She was very alert and appeared to be taking in everything, but completely reserving judgment for the time being. I was very skeptical that she had the gross motor abilities that had been stated in her referral paperwork (that she could crawl). She seemed so little, and so still. I was stunned when I changed her diaper for the first time and she plopped her little legs up on either side of her body, laying them flat on the bed kind of in a V position. I was very concerned at that moment that perhaps she had a hip dysplagia problem. I was then relieved and surprised to watch her a short time later maneuvering herself around on the floor, in a split, but bringing her legs from back to front then crawling. It turns out she is a good little crawler, and is just extremely flexible. She seems to have quite good fine motor skills and has the tiniest, daintiest little hands and fingers which she moves with great dexterity. I have a feeling we will be needing to budget for gymnastics in the future.

Several of us walked to a nearby grocery store to get some essentials and this was more time to observe Hannah and connect with her. Then the guys went out to get dinner for us – really on quite an adventure to find the Pizza Hut with only sketchy directions from non-English speakers. It took them a LONG time to get back, but we did all enjoy pizza for dinner around 9:00 p.m. While David was gone, I gave Hannah her bottle. Wow – what an experience that was. She grabbed that thing (while still holding her snack wrapper!) and held on for dear life, sucking it down faster than I have ever seen a baby drink. When it was gone she cried for more, and I gave it to her, fearing I might see it again before too long. She kept it down and was clearly quite tired so I got her ready for bed and held her until she went to sleep.

All of this time, I really felt like I was babysitting. I didn’t know this baby, but I was taking care of her and trying to show her a mother’s love, but feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the activities and implications of the day. It seems clear that Hannah YaLing has been well cared for, but it has still been in an orphanage, and the amount of attention she received was as one might expect in such a situation. As we kissed her, snuggled her, tried to play with her and interact with her, she allowed it and didn’t protest, but was still keeping that very reserved orientation to everything. We wondered how the night would go, and it ended up being very quiet. She slept like a rock and we never heard a peep out of her all night long.

Day Four – GOTCHA DAY!

We all met early on Sunday morning and boarded the bus for the airport. It was interesting going through airport security in a Chinese airport. I was quite impressed with the thoroughness and felt safe. Four families were traveling together to Lanzhou, about a 2 hour flight west from Beijing. We were a bundle of excitement and nerves as we got closer and closer to meeting our children. We knew it was possible that there would be no preparation time once we arrived at our hotel, as it was possible the children would get there before we did, but I was really hoping and praying that we might be able to have a little time to settle into our rooms and prepare ourselves before we met Hannah.

Our guide, Steed, met us all at the airport and was clearly an experienced professional. He has been doing this work for 17 years or so, and he is very good at it. He was a fountain of information as we traveled about an hour from the airport to our hotel and I was so glad to hear that we were scheduled to meet the children at 3:00 p.m. They had left their orphanage early that morning and had been driving for hours, but Steed was in touch with the orphanage director and knew about where they were and that they were being delayed a little bit by traffic. The scenery between the airport and the hotel was fascinating. It was like driving through the desert mostly. We could see old cave dwellings in the hills surrounding us. There is also a “new city” being built closer to the airport. The concept here is so different – skyscrapers are being built there, yet noone is living there yet, and likely won’t be for a long time. Suddenly we came around a corner and there in front of us was a city of 3 million people that stretches out for 60 km. As we had been driving through this desert-like area I was expecting a small dilapidated city, so was shocked to suddenly find this modern city just right there! We went to our hotel where we learned our rooms weren’t yet ready so Steed took us around the corner for lunch. I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me. You think I can eat lunch when we’re about to meet Hannah in a short time??” but it turned out that I really enjoyed the lunch in the little crowded Chinese restaurant. The beef noodles were as good as I had heard from others who have come before!

We got back to the hotel with just under an hour to spare before we were to meet the children. I hurriedly put stuff away and got our gifts and duffel bag of donations for the orphanage ready. We prayed together and Dave took a little video for posterity and then we grabbed what we needed and headed down to the area designated to meet the children. Our four families stood outside the conference room and concluded the children must not have arrived yet, as it was absolutely silent inside. How could four babies be that quiet after being driven all day long to a strange place? One of the grandmothers poked her head in the door of the conference room and said they were in there!! Oh my! My heart rate went through the roof and I thought my knees were going to collapse as they had suddenly turned to jelly. Then Steed came quickly out of the conference room and told us to come in. Everything happened very fast then. Hannah was the first child to be brought forward and Steed called her Chinese name “Qing Ya Ling”! That was us!! We gestured that we were her family and I quickly dropped my stuff on the table and moved forward to take her from the nanny.

My first impression was that she was SO TINY! I couldn’t believe how little she was and I had the thought fly through my mind that none of the clothes I brought were going to be small enough to fit her. She didn’t cry but just kind of stared at us. I will try to attach the video of this moment, though it is a little long. She was wearing what seemed to be brand new clothes and shoes and she was clean and didn’t smell bad. She was clutching a little snack in a wrapper which she held on to for dear life.

The other families were receiving their children at the same time, and then Steed had us all sit down and he gave us instructions. We had ten minutes to go back to our rooms, get whatever we needed, and then meet in the lobby to go to have pictures taken for the official documents that were to be done in the coming days. This picture taking process took a very long time as the pictures all had to be approved by the police station before we could leave. This waiting time was also bonding time as we each were interacting with our new children and trying to figure them out. Hannah smiled for the first time during this time, and engaged in some little games with me, waving to me and doing little imitation games with her tongue. She cried for the first time when her picture had to be repeated and she had other clothes put on her (apparently the white shirt she was wearing was not approved at the police station). I had to step away from her and was out of view for a second or two and she was distressed until she could see me again. This seemed like a good sign.

While we had these first hours together we were definitely impressed with how cute she is and how well cared for she seemed to be, but we also were taking note of some things that concerned us. She was extremely quiet for the most part and her cheeks seemed very stiff and taught. When she smiled her mouth turned down and it looked like a frown or like she was going to cry. It appeared that there might be more to her condition than just her ear deformity and we wondered if there was some facial paralysis. This would be something we would definitely keep an eye on in the coming hours, as well as observing her for other delays.

(Gotta run! Will continue this post later!)

Day Three – Beijing

Today was a long, full day. God graciously answered prayers for sustaining grace today, even though my previous blog post hadn’t made it to FaceBook where most of you read it. We got sleep last night from 10 – 3:45, which was an improvement, but still terribly early. Daniel still hasn’t completely made the time switch and it is a challenge.

We met the rest of our group in the lobby at 9:00 a.m. and went to Tienneman Square, the Forbidden City, a pearl market, the Summer Palace and wrapped up with a group dinner. When we have some time, we’ll post photos. Tienneman Square and the Forbidden City are unbelievable in size and scope. I can’t really describe them other than to say it was hard to wrap our heads around – the Forbidden City goes on, and on, and on, and on. The cultural implications of these places are complex and coming from a completely different cultural orientation, they are somewhat hard to understand.

Throughout the day one or the other of us would comment about the big event happening tomorrow. In some ways, going through the cultural exposure parts of the trip was starting to get tedious, simply because in spite of their importance in understanding the cultural heritage of our new children, they seem to pale in comparison to the significant impact on each of us personally about bringing a new family member into our homes – TOMORROW! We are now mostly re-packed and will leave at 6:15 in the morning for the airport where we will fly to the home provinces of our children. Four of the families will be traveling together to Gansu province to adopt our children – who have all lived together in the same orphanage. It is interesting to consider the possible pre-existing relationships these little ones may have. Two of us are adopting baby girls just a few weeks apart in age, and another a little boy just 3 weeks older than our Hannah. These children may have played together, eaten together, slept together and really been like siblings to each other.

We head for bed desperately needing sleep, but also excited and nervous about what tomorrow may hold. It is all so surreal at this point. There are doubts aplenty – almost all sown by the enemy of our souls who wants to negatively impact this process however it can be done. I know all of the families here going through this together would be grateful for your prayers.

Father’s Day tomorrow will be like no other we have known thus far!!

Standing In the Need of Prayer!

Day Two – Beijing

This has been a hard day – not a bad day, just a very hard day. Please, please pray for us – especially Daniel. His little body has not adjusted much to the time change and he was awake from 2:30 a.m. until he finally fell asleep at the Great Wall of China at 2:45 p.m. We let him sleep for a couple of hours and now have woken him up to try to keep him up until bedtime. We are all desperately in need of a full (or even close to full) night of sleep.

It has been a good day in that we met the other families who are here with our adoption agency and four of us will be traveling on to Gansu province together on Sunday to meet our children. We went to a jade museum/comporium where we also had lunch together with the group. Then we went to the Great Wall of China where David proved himself a true hero. (According to Chairman Mao only a true hero can climb to the top.) I will let him tell about that – it was a wonderful experience for him, (even if he won’t be able to walk tomorrow.) Fabulous photos to be posted later!

We then stopped at the Beijing Olympic Village where we saw some famous architecture then ran from a rapidly and strongly approaching wind and rain storm. We are now on our way to dinner where we will meet with a recent America World mission team who will be headed to an orphanage to minister for the coming week or so. After that we will head back to the hotel and I hope we can all get right to bed. Never have I been so eager to go to sleep on such a hard bed!

Day One – Beijing

Our first full day in Beijing was mostly about rest and transition. We had a slow start to the morning which was very nice. The hotel breakfast is very extensive and lovely and I enjoyed trying a steamed bun, which I know Hannah has been eating for breakfast for some time. We were able to walk around the area of Beijing surrounding our hotel today and that was interesting. It does not take long for one’s stereotypes to be challenged. I think this is a good thing.

We all enjoyed a good nap this afternoon and then spent some time in the hotel pool before going out for a very nice dinner in a local restaurant.
While we have not yet had an opportunity to meet the other families who are here via America world, we expect to meet them in the morning when we begin our group sightseeing tour.

It looks like we will be pretty well transitioned to Beijing time by tomorrow and are looking forward to being a little more alert as we see such things as the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and others of the traditional Chinese cultural attractions.

Being here is really quite surreal. It is hard to believe we will have Hannah in our arms in three days. This is both thrilling and terrifying. Working with Daniel to ease his transition through the jet lag and being in another culture and hearing him ask to go home with some frequency, I find myself at times worried that I will not be able to care for both children and their times of transition coming soon. God knows, and he will provide the grace, wisdom, and stamina needed. For now, it’s off to bed.

The Joys of Jet Lag

2 AM harp playing in the hotel lobby next door!