Homecoming

Yesterday was a long, long day. We all got up around 5 am and headed to the airport for Hong Kong. It was a bit cloudy when we got there but Hong Kong looks beautiful. I wish we could have spent some time there, unfortunately we were just passing through. Here is a pic we took from our gate.


At the airport we got a quick bite to eat and then we were off for our fourteen hour flight. Luckily there were no delays leaving Hong Kong but the flight was pretty rough. Grace actually did really well, she slept quite a bit, we on the other did not sleep much at all.




We were seated at the back of the plane which helped a little as were were able to mill around when we or Grace got a little stir crazy. Finally we arrived in Chicago for our layover which turned out to be 2 hours longer than we expected since there were some weather issues in Boston. Not something you want to hear after being awake for over 24 hours. But we muddled through and finally we took off for our final leg of our trip home. We had a nice reception waiting for us at the airport: Grammy, Grandpa, Stephen, Maura, Kristen and Lauren had signs, tears and hugs for all of us. We were seated on the last row of the plane so they had to patiently wait for everyone else to get off the plane to greet us. Some pics of our reception below.





When we got home to find our nieces had been by to decorate the house with welcome home messages for us and Grace. By the time we were all able to get to bed it was after 1am and we were all pretty wiped. Grace went to bed pretty easily and slept until around 5am and then we all went back to sleep until about 11am. We are still pretty tired but we don't feel too jet lagged. I think we will all get back on US time pretty quickly. Today we had a doctor's appointment for Grace, just a quick check up and we are happy to report that we have a healthy girl.


Tonight we put Grace to bed at her normal time as she was pretty tired and didn't nap much as we had some running around to do. We really can't believe that we are finally home with her. We are so looking froward to introducing Grace to all our family and friends over the next few weeks. It will be nice now that we can get into a routine and really start the bonding and attachment. We really do feel so incredibly lucky to have Grace home. I have some many cool things that happened on our trip that I want to blog about in the next few weeks, just no time for that now. We are off now to try to get the house re-organized and get some much needed sleep.

Red Couch Chaos and Last Night in China

So sad to be leaving China tomorrow, we had such a good time here and got the most precious gift that anyone could imagine, our daughter. But we will be glad to finally be home, we are just not looking forward to that 14+ hour flight. We just hope the trip home isn't as crazy as some of the flights getting here. This will be my last post from China since we are leaving the hotel to catch our flight at 6am tomorrow morning. We first fly to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong we go to Chicago then finally home.

This morning our travel group met in the hotel lobby to take the traditional red couch photos. If you have ever tried to get an 8 month old to look at a camera you know how difficult it can be....now imagine trying to do that with 14 babies. It was just chaos....babies crying, falling over and bunch of parents trying to get it all on film.

After our red couch photos we went out one last time to finish up our shopping. Since Grace has a seat of her own for the flight home she also gets to bring home her own suitcase of loot. After shopping we had an appointment at the US Consulate for Grace's swearing in ceremony. This was our last step in the process, although she isn't a US citizen yet but she will be once we get through immigration in Chicago. They wouldn't let us bring cameras into the consulate but I was able to get one outside.

We had dinner tonight at an Italian restaurant in the hotel with a couple other new parents. It wasn't quite North End quality food but it was pretty good and we had a good time reminiscing about our time in China. Just a pic of some silliness from dinner tonight and an obligatory cute pic of Grace. See ya on the other side!!!!

Just a couple more days...

We are getting a little sad that we only have one more full day in China and then we leave early Wednesday. As much as we can't wait to get home and introduce Grace to everyone we are really going to miss China.


Today our guides went to the US Consulate for us to file the final paperwork we have to complete to bring Grace home. We had to stay around for a couple hours to make sure everything was OK and in case they had any questions. Around noon we got work that we were all set so we were free for the rest of the afternoon.


First we needed to go back into town and pick up Jen's new eyeglasses. We took care of that in less than an hour so we had plenty of time to continue shopping for souvenirs and gifts for Grace. We just love walking aroud Shaiman Island and visiting all of the shops. The parks here are really beautiful and all of the people working in the shops are so nice. Grace has gotten a ton of free gifts from the shop owners when they see her chubby little cheeks.



This evening we had a dinner cruise on the Pearl River. It was a bit of a rainy night but Grace made the most of it by allowing us to feed her noodles and watermelon with chopsticks. Many of the cities here in China are very Las Vegas-like with high rises being all lit up.






After dinner another one of the new dads and I headed over to the bar at the White Swan for a drink and a celebratory cigar. Tomorrow morning we have our red couch photos scheduled to be taken. The red couch photos are taken on some red couches at the hotel. It is a tradition that all families get photos of their travel groups taken on these couches before we leave. Tomorrow afternoon we have Grace's swearing in ceremony at the US consulate where she becomes a US citizen. Just one last pic of our happy family from today.

Buddhist Blessings

We took off pretty early this morning to go to the Buddhist temple to get the babies in our group blessed. When we got there there was a ceremony already in progress so we had to wait a while for it to finish. It was so peaceful to just walk around the grounds and listen to the monks chant in the background. When it was our turn we were allowed to enter the temple. We had to take off our shoes and kneel down. The monk chanted for a few minutes and then walked around and sprinkled water on all of the babies' and parents' heads. It was definitely a spiritual and moving experience.









After the blessing we went to another jade store for some more shopping. Jen was able to find a jade pendant for herself and one for Grace. When we returned to the hotel we had to finish up a bit of paperwork and then we were off on another adventure. Jen realized after our flight from hell the other night that she had lost her glasses somewhere in the plane. Jen is pretty much blind without her glasses so we really needed to do something about it. We figured there is probably not much of a chance of finding them so our guides suggested taking a taxi to the eyeglasses market to get some new ones. In Guangzhou there seems to be entire streets dedicated to selling certain things. We saw an electronics markets and we wandered through a hardware market. So we made our way in and found ourselves on a street with hundreds of eyeglasses stores. We were pretty quickly able to find a store where someone spoke English and Jen was able to order herself a new pair of glasses pretty inexpensively. We have to head back in tomorrow to pick them up. The only problem we had is it was so busy in the area that we had a hard time getting a cab to bring us back to the hotel. But we did have fun wandering around and being stared at by people wondering what a white couple with and Asian baby was doing there.

When we got back from the eyeglasses excursion we were able to get a bunch more shopping done. We are trying to find a gift for Grace for each of her birthdays until she turns 18 so we have a bit of shopping left to do. Tomorrow we have a little more shopping planned and a dinner cruise on the Pearl River.

Grace was so good today as we dragged her around shopping and through the markets but I think we may be in for a rough night tonight, Grace has a cold and has woken up a few times already and it is after midnight.

A couple pics from our excursion and of Grace from today.

Loving Guangzhou

We had a really great day here in Guangzhou. This afternoon our guides took us to a local pearl market where it seems most of the women in the group (Jen definitely included) made a sizable contribution to the local economy. After the pearl market our guides brought us to the local supermarket so we could all stock up on much needed baby supplies. For dinner we went with a two other couples to Lucy's which is a western style restaurant. A burger, fries and a beer was a great change of pace after eating Chinese food for the past week. We also found a coming home barbie in our room this afternoon. Mattel gives all adopting families staying at the White Swan one of these dolls holding a baby as a souvenir.

Tomorrow we have a tour planned to the Six Banyan Tree Temple where we can have Grace blessed by the monks. Then we may be going to another jade market to make an additional contribution to the Chinese economy. We are hoping to have some time in the evening to do some shopping in some of the local shops around the area. They sell all kinds of Chinese crafts, clothes and souvenirs that will be nice for Grace to have as she grows up.

Grace continues to amaze us. She is such a good baby, she is always happy and is really getting used to having us around. She no longer cries when having her diaper changed or being bathed and actually seemed to enjoy her bath today after I showed her how to splash mommy. She also has discovered her feet and on top of that realized that she can put them in her mouth. A couple pics from today below.

Babies On A Plane

Sorry for the late posting today, we arrived in Guangzhou around midnight last night so we were pretty tired. Let me just say that the flight was pretty much like the 7th circle of hell. Let's back up first though....

Yesterday morning was reserved for getting the paperwork together for the US Consulate here in Guangzhou. I spent about two hours with the other families getting the forms filled out for the US government to bring Grace home. After the paperwork was done we were really hungry and were getting kind of tired of eating in the same two restaurants in the hotel. We weren't feeling very adventurous so we decided against trying any of the local places. So we just went back to the local supermarket and picked up some peanut butter and bread and made sandwiches. We really love the food here but after eating the same things for a week it was nice to have something familiar.

Grace also received her Chinese passport yesterday. Getting her Chinese passport was the last thing we needed to do before we left Nanchang. Around 3:00pm we all met in the lobby for our bus to take us to the airport to leave for Guangzhou. When we got to the airport there was another large American adoption group there from another agency. We got to talking to them and found that they would be on the same flight as us. I think there are about 14 babies in our group and the other group had around 11. That is around 25 babies...do you see where this is going? Grace was pretty good in the airport, we needed to change her poopy diaper in the airport and gave her a bottle to keep her happy. She actually fell asleep in my arms while we were waiting. We finally got in line to board the plane. After about half the flight had boarded the line stopped and a few minutes later we noticed the guide for the other group yelling at the people at the gate. Our guide back in Nanchang told us that because of the dialect people from Nanchang always appear to be yelling at each other even though they are just saying hello. We were pretty sure the guide was not exchanging pleasantries with them however.

After a little while we found out that there was some Chinese aviation rule that a flight could only have so many babies on it and were were over that limit. We waited in line for about and hour and finally they let us all board the plane. Once on the plane we were in for more fun. Someone from the airport boarded the plane and started talking to the flight attendants. Since we were over the baby limit two people had to volunteer to get on the next flight so we could take off. Two families from the other group quickly volunteered so we thought we were good to go. Apparently the second part of the "too many babies on the plane rule" is there can one be one baby per row so a bunch of families (including us) had to play musical chairs and switch seats. This process took about another hour and then once again we were thinking we were good to go as we taxied out onto the runway. Next we found out that there was some bad weather between Nanchang and Guangzhou so we would have to wait for it to pass. After about an additional hour of waiting we finally took off. Out total delay was about 3 hours.

Grace was quite a trooper through the whole process. We had prepared her ingredients for two bottles which we thought would be enough for an hour and a half flight. Grace went through those two bottles before we even took off. They took our baby food at security but we were able to make her some rice cereal on the plane. We also had Cheerios which I must say is some kind of wonder drug to stop babies from crying. Grace got pretty fussy in the third hour of the delay but we really can't blame her since I think most of the adults on the plane were ready for a meltdown at that point as well. Once we were in the air she fell asleep pretty quickly and was pretty much out through the night. The things babies can sleep through is pretty amazing.

So we finally arrived at the hotel but the fun was not over yet. They put is in a room with twin beds so we asked to be switched. Not for our sake but for Grace's (trust me there is no hanky-panky going on with this trip). It is really nice a large area for her to play which is difficult in a hotel. So they switched our rooms and the new room had no crib so we had to wait for them to bring that up.

But we survived. Grace is all smiles again this morning so I guess her venture into hell didn't scar her too badly. This morning we had to go get a photo taken for Grace's US passport and then had a physical which she passed with flying colors. This afternoon we have an outing planned to the pearl market. I am sure Jen is going to do some damage there.

So here we are at the famous White Swan Hotel. This place is really nice and is pretty much Shangri-La for Chinese adoptive parents. There are a bunch of stores outside the hotel that cater exclusively to adoptive parents so Jen is really looking forward to doing some shopping over the next few days.

Some pics from yesterday.

Porcelain, chicken heads and meltdowns

Unfortunately we were unable to get out to Yifeng today. Our guide said there was some issue with the roads so it was not safe to make the trip. We were a bit disappointed but really weren't looking forward to spending two hours in a bus. I am sure in the coming years we will make some trips back to China and Yifeng will definitely be on the itinerary

So instead of going to Yifeng our guides planned some shopping for us this morning. First we went to some Porcelain stores where we picked up a nice tea set to give to Grace when she is older. After the porcelain shopping they brought us to a typical Chinese department store. The store looked like a typical Macy's that you would see in the US except shopping in a Chinese department store is a bit different. Jen saw a cute dress in the baby section that she wanted to get for Grace. So we went up to what we thought was a register to pay for it. The woman took the dress filled out a slip and gave it to us and told us that I had to go to the other side of the store to pay for it then come back to get the dress. When we got to the real register we found out that they did not take credit cards which we thought was a bit odd as the little porcelain shop we were in earlier did take credit cards. We finally got the dress paid for and then it was time for lunch.

We have been eating mostly in the hotel since we have been in Jiangxi so it was nice to get out and try something new. Jiangxi is known for its spicy food and this place did not disappoint. We also got to meet one of the courses of our meal.

When we got back Grace was really tired and had her first meltdown. I think you can really only classify it as a mini-meltdown as it did not last too long but it was the first time that we were not able to immediately calm her down when she got upset. I am sure there will be many more where that one came from. This pic is pre-meltdown.

Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou, the flight there is pretty short so it will be a good test run for the 14 hour flight home. Before we leave we have a little more paperwork to take care of and we need to try to get our bags under the weight limit again.

We just had to post this video of Grace laughing. She really is too cute.

Third day with Grace

It was a pretty quiet day here today. A silk dress maker came by this morning. Jen ordered a dress for Grace, a shirt for herself and a tie for me. No paperwork to do until Friday so our guides planned a trip to the Teng Wang Pavilion.

The pavilion was just a few blocks from our hotel. Unfortunately it was raining while we were there so we didn't get to tour the grounds as much as we would have liked to. We did get to the top though. Not quite as much history here as the Great Wall. The original pavilion at the site burned down in the 1920s and was rebuilt in the 1980s. So it is a pretty modern building but built with a very classic Chinese style. The view was great from the top though. You can see our hotel in the below picture, it is the one with the spires and ball on the top.

I think most of the families that we are here with are starting to get a little stir crazy. We wish that we could just go home now but there is still much paperwork to do. Only two more days in Nanchang, then we leave for Guangzhou for our last leg of the trip. Grace continues to do very well. Yesterday she would fall over when we sat her up and today she was sitting up on her own. She was a little fussy this afternoon and evening probably because she has a couple teeth coming in which you can see in the below picture. She still went to bed pretty easily and we are hoping for three nights in a row of 8+ hours of sleep.

Tomorrow is another off day for us so the guides have some tours planned. Jiangxi is famous for its porcelain so they are taking us to one of the local porcelain factories. There is also a possibility that we will be taking a tour of Yifeng which is the town where Grace's orphanage is located. It is a two hour bus ride away but I think it will be worthwhile to see the town where Grace was probably born. Not sure if we will actually be able to visit the orphanage but we are hoping that we will.

Lots of Firsts

We had a surprisingly good first night. Grace slept for about eight hours, she didn't even wake up during the night. She did wake up fairly early since we put her to bed around 7:30 so we kept her up for an extra hour tonight. We shall see how tonight goes. Based on conversations with the other parents it seems like most of the babies are really good sleepers.

We are starting to pick up on some of her cues. When she is tired she makes this little moan that sounds like na-na-na-na-na. We think we finally figured out how to make her bottles how she liked them as we were able to get in around three bottles today. We went and got some baby food today and she tried some pear which she appeared to like. We actually haven't found anything that she doesn't like yet. Except maybe a bath, she had her first bath this morning and wasn't too happy about it.

We spend the morning today doing paperwork. Our first stop was Civil Affairs office to pay some fees, get a family picture taken and we were interviewed by an adoption official. The second stop was a different place but more pictures of just Grace this time. The last stop was at the notary office where we were interviewed once again and officially became Grace's parents.

Tomorrow we have kind of a free day. We are doing some sightseeing at the Teng Wang Pavillion. Only three days left in Grace's province until we leave on Friday for Guangzhou so it will be nice to get out and see a little more of the area. We will just leave you with a couple pics from today.

What a day

So we woke up early this morning and headed down for some breakfast. After breakfast we had an hour or so to kill so we stopped by the room where we would be meeting our babies. The room was dark and there was nobody there so we went back to our room to put together a diaper bag with some things that we would need for the day.


We headed back down to the meeting room around quarter to nine and there were a couple families there already waiting. Everyone was very antsy waiting for the babies to arrive and trying to figure out who would take pictures and video for that special moment. At around quarter past nine the babies started to trickle in. There were around 14 families in the room so to say things erupted into chaos would be an understatement. The actual hand off process is all very official so we couldn't just walk up and grab our baby if we recognized her. I think this may be the just about the cruelest form of torture known to man. After waiting almost three years for your baby that last 5 minutes is probably the hardest.


Finally it was time to start giving the babies to their new families. They call the families up one by one to make sure everyone has enough time for pictures and video. I think we were the 4th or 5th family called. They handed her to Jen and I got my turn to hold her a few minutes later.

The next few hours were spent filling out paperwork. We finished all of the paperwork by noon and went for a quick lunch and then pretty much had the afternoon to get to know Gracie a little better. So far things are going really well. She has cried a little bit here and there. Mostly she just wants to be held and fed...this girl likes to eat. Which is probably why she weighs in at 20 pounds. She is definitely not a malnourished baby. She was well taken care of and has the rolls to prove it.

Around mid afternoon a group of us took a little field trip to a local grocery store to pick up some baby supplies. We got quite a bit of strange looks as we were walking along the street. Imagine the spectacle of a dozen white families with Chinese babies walking down a crowded street in China. After our field trip she took a little nap but we had to wake her up to take her down to see the doctor that is traveling with us for her checkup. She passed the doctor's examination with flying colors.

Tomorrow is another day of paperwork and we sign the official adoption agreement. We are right now in what they call a harmonious period. Kind of a trial before we officially are her parents. She seems to like us ok and we are just in love so I think she is stuck with us for the long haul.

Overall our first day with her has gone really well, she has cried a bit but that is to be expected given all she has been through. Our arms are really sore from carrying her around everywhere but she deserves all the attention we are giving here. She has eaten pretty well and we even got a few laughs out of her at lunch when feeding her congee. We haven't really figured out the whole bottle situation as they feed babies a bit differently in China than they do in the US so I think we are going to need to work with each other on that one.

Our real test will be tonight I think. We put her down about and hour ago and were told she sleeps for eight hours so we will see. We will just leave you with a couple more pictures of our angel. Pretty amazing isn't she...

Finally a family

Wow, is all I can say. The moment of seeing and holding our daughter for the first time was amazing. She seems to be doing well. We have had some laughs, some cries and a bottle. So I think we are doing OK. We have a busy afternoon planned so I will post more later.

We're in Nanchang

Just got into Nanchang an hour ago, we haven't seen much of the city as it was dark when we got in. I am sure we will get to know the city better in the coming week. It was a pretty uneventful flight so that is good.

Today was a pretty busy day, most of it spent touring the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City was great, the place is just huge and the history there is pretty amazing. We spent about three hours meandering our way through.

One interesting thing that has happened to us a few times (well mostly Jen) is Chinese locals will come up and ask to have our pictures taken with them. The first time she was asked Jen thought they wanted her to take a picture of them. But that is not the case. Apparently they don't seem many pale skinned curly haired women in China so they just want to pose for a picture with her. Jen will probably be in quite a few Chinese family photo albums. Most people just stop and stare but it is actually kind if fun. Will be interesting to see what kind of looks we get from the locals once we have Grace.

We did have a little scare at the end of the tour of the Forbidden City. Our guide gave us an hour to tour the rest of the city but we didn't hear where she told us to meet up. We assumed the meeting place was back where she left us. We started to get nervous when we no longer saw anyone from our group about 15 minutes before meeting time. When meeting time rolled around and still nobody from our group was around we knew something was wrong. Luckily our guide gave us her cell phone and we were able to call her get directions back to her and the rest of the group. They were only 5 minutes away but this place is just huge and it would be really easy to get lost. A couple pics from our day below.

The biggest news is that we were told that tomorrow morning at 9:30 the babies will be brought to the hotel. So in less than 12 hours we will be united with our daughter for the first time. Kind of unbelievable that after all this time it is finally happening. Although when we walked into our room this sight made it seem very real.

Great Wall

We got up pretty early this morning and headed out the the Great Wall. It was pretty close to 90 degrees which made climbing rather difficult but we made it to the first tower in the picture below. The steps are pretty steep in parts so this is not a climb for the faint of heart but Jen was a trooper and stayed right with me. It felt pretty amazing to finally be walking on the Great Wall.

On the way back our tour guide took us through the area where they have built (or in some cases it appears) are still building stadiums for the upcoming Olympics. We saw the Bird's Nest stadium as well as the swimming stadium.

It is pretty amazing how much construction is going on right now all around Beijing. Everywhere you look there are new buildings and cranes. This is one of the cooler ones we saw while driving around.

After the Great Wall we went to a Chinese acrobat show. The show was great but my jet lag caught up to me in the middle of the show and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I think I got just a couple hours of sleep last night. We were told that the mattresses here are hard. I did not realize that it would be like laying on a slab of cement. I have a feeling I am going to sleep tonight though.

Tomorrow we tour Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City and then hop on a plane to Nanchang. The plan is for us to meet Grace early Monday morning. Not long now....