Day 2 Civil Affairs stuff

On Monday China time after having breakfast at the hotel with two other adoptive families, we walked across the street to formally adopt our daughter, sign more documents, get interviewed by an official, & take a family photo for some legal documents. We then were taken by private van to the Police Station to for some notarization & then to another building for Mad's visa photo. The roads throughout the city of Nangchang are actually way more developed than I imagined, wish I could post pics & share more details of our civil affairs activities but the truth is, yesterday was very hard on Madi, and really hard on us emotionally. No time to take photos, or even bathe our girl.

It is 5:30 am ( when writing this ) & she's peacefully asleep over my shoulder. Last night was a bit rougher as she woke up several times crying. She was having night terrors & would scream each time I laid her down, so I had to wait until she was fully asleep. Earlier during the day though, after returning back to our hotel from being out and about, Madi took a step backwards. She was refusing to go with Kris & just screamed & hollered while he tried to comfort her. She is grieving for her foster parents, as she was hollering for "Mama" and it wasn't me. It was painful to witness and I just had to leave the room while Kris attempted to comfort her....for over an hour screaming. I ended up going to the hotel restaurant to order some room service then waited at the other family's room. The first time I tried to call our room Kris said not to come back until she was calm again as he said I would most likely make it worse by her seeing me. I was really sad for her. What if she never stopped her screaming? Thank God for the other family that comforted me by saying not to worry, she had to stop eventually. And after about an hour I called up to our room again & Kris finally said "come back now, she is asleep on my shoulder".

Upon returning we had half our food until she started on & off crying again, although not as bad. She is way more clingy to me for sure, but if Kris starts to ignore her bit she is slowly coming around. In fact, after walking her around the lobby she started playing with my necklace I gave her & she would pass it back and forth to him. Then back in our room she started pointing at food items as I held her & Kris would hand them to her. She had two whole bananas, Cheerios, some crackers ( & some noodles earlier, which btw she used her little fork to eat them with, pretty fast "Chinese style", which was funny to watch. We were already told before that if she clung to one of us more than the other than make sure to have the person she refuses to go to be the one to feed her so that she builds trust.

A few other things:

She has been cracking a smile each time she gets her hands dirty.

She picked up my glasses from a table and put them on my head like I was wearing them earlier.

This may not seem like like a lot, but it has been huge for us to witness from our little girl who's been so sad.

Here's a photo of what her face has been like on our first full day together. As you can imagine, she is frightened & confused. We wish we had known that she's been with foster parents all this time so that at least we would have expected this reaction. We have been told that it is always better if they are with foster parents as most likely she had more individualized attention than at the orphanage, but it is still very hard to witness. Please continue to pray that she can slowly begin to trust us so that we can see more of her personality.

 

 

Day One of Travel!

At about 10 pm Thanksgiving night we boarded a new airbus 380 on China Southern & headed towards Guangzhou! Much to our surprise the flight did not seem as eternal as we thought it would be. It helped that it was a night flight so we slept as much as we could. Earplugs & a night eye mask worked wonders! The service & food was great & the comfort wasn't bad especially after they gave us seats with more leg room, just behind first class. After snoozing some hours, & 2.5 meals later ( over a dozen water bottles & lots of trips to the bathroom for myself) we landed in Guangzhou safe & sound ( after 15.5 hrs )! In case you forgot that I've been a phobic flyer for years, I managed to do great on the flight if I say so myself. Honestly though, I've been prepping myself up for this trip for quite some time now telling myself that as a new mother to be I'll just have to suck it up in situations that cause me fear because I'll just be no good to my daughter if I act like a big baby. But in all honesty, the shorter 1hr flight we had to take to Nanchang was the one that I fidgeted the most as it was a pretty bumpy ride and way smaller of course.

& speaking of our flight to Nanchang.....our experience at the Guangzhou airport was a bit of a nightmare. First we walked like what seemed miles just to get to our boarding gate, then when we get there they make us go through security twice & made us dump out most of our items in our carryons & no one seemed to speak any English so we felt like we were just going in circles.

After arriving in Nangchang our local guide "Mary" met us & immediately had a driver pull up in a nice VW sedan & drove us to our Hotel the Galactice Peace, which is really nice!

The drive through Nangchang from the airport was also really nice, lots of greenery & clean streets. Mary called this the suburb area & kept saying "wait till we get to the city where your hotel is .....it's going to be very different than what you're used to". & boy was she not kidding! It was quite an adventure just trying to weave through traffic. All we can say is that it is fascinating to witness how people manage to drive their cars, scooters, bikes, feet...whatever through the streets with absolutely no traffic direction whatsoever! & even now as I type this, the horns are continuously honking away! Fascinating I tell ya!

Once at the hotel & we ate some sort of "pick a dish from the window & have it cooked" deal ( which was pretty good btw ), Mary took us to a grocery store she said was really close by the hotel. Let's just say that her idea of close by & our idea of close by are not the same ( especially if it means walking through the busiest streets you have seen with a gazillion scooters, horns honking & the stinkiest tofu you have ever smelled, little kiddos doing their business on the streets, you name it). So much adventure for our first day for sure! & Finally we arrived at the "nearby grocery store", which was pretty ginormous with electric escalators with 2 or three levels. Here we got some essentials for our daughter tomorrow, like formula, rice cereal, snacks, etc.

That's right! We are meeting our daughter tomorrow! It's all happening so quick now...don't have a clue what to expect, but there is no more time to think. It's barely 7pm in China as I write this, & we are so tired and might just make a peanut butter sandwich in our hotel room & call it a night. Hopefully well wake up more refreshed tomorrow so we can clean up a bit before they bring her at 4pm ( China time, 12midnight Sunday USA time. ) So surreal! But please continue to pray that her transition with us will go as smooth as possible for her, poor little one. She will most likely be tired herself from the long drive from her orphanage to our hotel.

Leaving you with a few pics....

By the time we knew it, we were landing in China!

Our first glimpse of the streets nearby our hotel in Nanchang.

At the supermarket with Mary our local guide, buying some formula & rice cereal for Madi.

Look! There's a crib in our hotel room!

 

Travel Dates!

On Monday we received our TA ( travel approval ) & the following morning we received confirmation of our Consulate Appointment scheduled for Monday Dec. 3, 2012 at 8:30 am in Guangzhou, China, which means our Travel Dates will be from November 22nd to December 4, 2012! 

So while everyone's having a late night snack from their Thanksgiving dinner, we'll be boarding a plane. 

It doesn't seem soon enough, and I'm personally still pretty angry that our daughter has had to wait at the orphanage almost 6 months after we received her referral because of additional bureaucracy ( but I will save that for a future post ) so today we can celebrate this milestone in our journey. 

Today, we are happy that we finally, FINALLY have our travel dates and we can officially count down the days on our calendar until we can meet her & hold her. 

To all our fellow prayer warriors: please pray that her care takers are preparing her as much as they can, even if that just means showing her our photos and referring to us as "Mama" and "Baba". She is turning 1 year and a half today, and most likely she understands language and may be able to speak a few words....in Chinese, oh goodness!  

We know just a few words like: 

"Wo ai ni"( "I love you )

 " Nie le ma?" ( you hungry? )

 "Ni yao wan ma?" ( you want to play?)

 "Ni shi piaoliang" ( you are beautiful )

....and just for a bonus, we are also going to practice asking if she wants candy ( Tangguo ma? )

Yes, we know it might be considered bribery from your point of view, but from ours we are thinking this might come in handy ;)

& here is "Baba" booking our tickets. We'll be flying China Southern from LAX directly to Guangzhou, China ( 15.5 hrs ), then to Nangchang, Jiangxi ( 1.5 hrs ), back to Guangzhou, then direct to LAX. So, since there are direct flights out of Guangzhou now, we won't need to take a train or private van to Hong Kong, saving us some time & money. 

Also, since we were able to get such a great price on tickets ( $912 each ), we ended up purchasing 3 round trip seats, the extra one there will give us the extra room so that a stranger doesn't have to be squeezed in with us & on the way back the seat will be for Madeline so she doesn't have to sit on our lap the entire trip. Not that we wouldn't love holding her, but she might not be digging us all that much still and she might want her own space to kick up her little feet or what not. 

We'll be happy to share the rest of our in country itinerary as soon as it develops during the week. But so far, and most importantly, it looks like we will be meeting our daughter on Sunday November 25, 2012, which is famously known as Gotcha Day!