We are home!

We are home after a really long trip.  We were really blessed on the trip home.  As our seats were seperated on our 15 hour plane trip, Brian got up at 4:30 am and made the trip to the check in desk at 5:30 am to check in at get our seats arranged.  He was the third on in line and the gate agent checked us in even though Richel and Megan were still back at the hotel.  He said your seats are taken care of.  Later we figured out that he had given us bulkhead seats with the possibility of using a bassinet.  This is huge as this was our 15 hour flight from Hong Kong to Detroit.  Later we left the hotel and went to get our boarding passes which was no problem since we were all check in.  We then proceeded to the security line.  We had trouble here.  They would not let us past this section as we only had two sets of boarding passes as we are holding Megan on our lap which our boarding pass stated.  We went back to the check in desk and a fellow there went with us to the security point.  He talked with the security guard and still made no progress and told us to stay and he went back to the counter.  He came back with another boarding pass with Brian’s name on it again.  The other boarding pass with Brian’s name on it had Megan’s Chinese name hand written on it.  With this in hand, the security guy reluctantly conceded to let us through finally.  Praise God!  Then on to immigration out of Hong Kong which went well with no problems.  Onto the actually security check which went smoothly with not questions about the baby formula.  Whew!!  We then had breakfast at a Burger King, which was a change after two weeks.  Wow. Now we can get on our plane to Detroit.  On our way on down the jetway prior to getting on the plane, they checked our carry-on luggage again.  We were fortunate that they did not give us much trouble with the baby formula while another family in an adjacent line with getting questioned about it.  Anyway, Megan has been very good for us and we made it to our seats.  Left Hong Kong at 9:15 am China time.  Good news when we got on our way that our flight maybe an hour less due to a tail wind.  It ended up being 14.5 hours and when you are on a plane for that long, a half an hour is a half an hour less on the plane.  Megan did really well and slept a good portion of the trip and was in a good mood most of the other times.  We got into Detroit at 11:30 am Eastern time.  We then got off the plane and headed for Customs and Immigration, we went through the line and the Customs people were very helpful with the adoption families.  We gave the all important packet to the immigration person who checked in Megan once we passed this point, Megan is a now a US citizen.  Since we got in early, we checked to see if we could get on the earlier flight to Minneapolis.  Found out it was overbooked, so we waited till our 3:15 flight.  Once on this flight we were delayed about a half hour or more leaving Detroit.  This made life interesting as we only had a 45 minute layover in Minneapolis.  I checked in Detroit what our arriving and departing gates would be in Minneapolis.  We did not think we would make our plane to Grand Forks as we were in the back of the plane from Detroit.  We arrived in Minneapolis at 5:00 pm, we only had 10 minutes to make our connection when we got off the plane.  We were going to try anyway.  We got to an information counter and asked which direction to B terminal and told the lady that our plane was leaving B8 at 5:15 pm, she immediately called the gate and told them we were on our way.  We got to the gate and the door was shut and nobody was there.  A cleaning lady came by and told us that the gate person was coming back.  After a few long minutes, the gate person came up to the door and escorted us down the gateway.  We had to go out the door at the bottom of the gateway and onto the tarmac and up into the plane and the flight attendant found us seats.  We were so thankful to be on that plane.  Praise God for His provision as we were really tired at this point.  The people around us were really nice once we told them that this was the third plane we were on and had come from China and Megan also gave them a couple of smiles.  We were the last ones off the plane in Grand Forks and were welcomed with a welcome home banner  held by our girls and were met by many family and friends.  We are so glad to be home and to have Megan as a part of our family!  She is joy in our hearts!

We will post more later.  Thanks for everyone’s prayers through this journey.  Continue to pray for us as we adjust back to this time zone and that Megan becomes more comfortable with the girls and family.

Sept. 14 The oath

Sept. 14  Megan slept good last night, but unfortunately was up by 6:30am.  Thankfully I slept good most of the night too.  We skyped with the girls for a little bit after breakfast before heading off to the zoo.

The Guangzhou Zoo is the largest zoo in southern China.  It was a warm day, but thankfully there was lots of shade at the zoo.  We saw bears, tigers, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinoceros, monkeys, elephants,leopards, jaguars, ostriches, various types of antelope and sheep, and of course a panda bear.  The panda was not feeling well, so the zookeepers were putting ice blocks in his cage to cool him down.  At the giraffe exhibit, you could feed the giraffes leaves for a small fee.  One of the older girls in our group did this.  There were 3 adult and 2 baby giraffes.  It was fun to watch them eat.  Megan just kind of took everything in.  She did pay attention to the animals she could see easily.

After a relatively quick lunch and afternoon nap, we headed to the US consulate.  The whole US consulate used to be on Shamian Island (hence the popularity of the White Swan hotel), but in 2006, the visa division moved to another location.  There is still a small consulate on the island, but it mainly deals with business affairs.  It took about 30 min. to get to the consulate.  I expected it to be a grand building with guards and lots of American symbols.  It was nothing like that.  The visa division is located on the 5^th floor of an office building.  All the people that work there are Chinese and you really have to pay attention to even notice that you are on US ground.  There was security though, like an airport.  We couldn’t bring a camera, so there is no pictorial record of the event. 

There were 49 families being sworn in today.  We all gathered in a large room and waited for our names to be called.  When our name was called, we went to the window and the worker verified that we all look like the picture in our passports.  Then we had 1 more form to sign.  This is the last thing we needed to do to get Megan’s visa to come to the US.  It only took about ½ hr. to get through all the families.  Then the US consulate general came out and spoke to us.  She personally went through all of the files.  She answered some commonly asked questions and reminded us that we our children go through immigration in the US, they will become US citizens.  Then all the families together did the swearing in.  It was a repeat-after-me oath swearing that all the info. we gave was true to the best of our knowledge.  And that was it. 

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were hungry.  We were going to try a restaurant in the hotel that another family recommended, but it was too expensive, so we opted for Papa Johns.  They do know how to make a good pizza in China.  Megan wanted to fall asleep too early, so we took her to the playroom.  After about 45 min she tuckered out, so we went back upstairs for a bottle and bedtime.

Shamian Island must be a popular place for weddings and pictures.  Last weekend there were several wedding receptions at the hotel and we have seen several bridal couples getting their pictures taken outside on the island.  We have also seen other people posing for what looks to be professional pictures also.

 

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Pearls and the Red Couch

Sept. 13.  Even though housekeeping gave us a feather tick to put on top of the mattress to make it softer, it still isn’t like home.  However, last night I finally figured out a comfortable way to sleep on my side, so I slept much better.  Megan did well too and only woke up once.  We also woke up to sunshine.  It was nice to get a full view of the city and the Pearl River.

Today was our US consulate appointment.  Ironically, we don’t even go to the appointment.  Our guides just take our paperwork to the consulate.  However, we had to stay in our room from 9:30-10:30am in case there were any questions.  While we were waiting, we skyped with the girls for about an hour. 

At 10:30am, we took a hotel shuttle to the pearl market.  The area is actually a big shopping center with indoor and outdoor malls.  The pearl market mall was an indoor mall with many levels and had more wholesale jewelry stores than you could count selling everything from pearls to crystal and all ranges of quality.  Our guides took us to a reputable pearl wholesaler.  We decided to purchase a couple of pearl pendants and some pearl earrings.  Then we decided to wander around the shopping area and finally had lunch at McDonalds.  When you are in China for 2 weeks, sometimes you just need comfort food.  We took a taxi back to the hotel.  Megan spent about 45 min. playing in the Mattel room.

As a general rule, China has definitely become more economically developed since we were in Beijing in 2005.  Pretty much everything is more expensive.  Even the exchange rate is less.  We got about 6.71 RMB per $1 US and in 2005 it was about 8 RMB per $1 US.  You can still find cheap stuff, but the quality is poor.  Most of the Chinese dress just like Americans, especially the young people.  I would say that the girls/women tend to be a little more dressy than we would be.  One of the sad things about China’s development is the # of smokers, especially men.  I don’t think I saw any women smoke.  Our guide in Nanchang said that 80% of Chinese men smoke.  This was very evident in Nanchang, but not so much in Guangzhou.  I would imagine the lung cancer rate is very high.  They don’t have any of the social norms about smoking (like not smoking in front of children or pregnant women) like we do in the US. 

At 4:30pm, we all met on the 2^nd floor of the White Swan hotel for the obligatory “red couch” photo.  I’m not sure where this tradition originated, but every family that I’ve ever read about that adopts from China takes a “red couch” photo, even if they don’t stay at the White Swan hotel.  I would imagine it has something to do with the fact that the White Swan is essentially the China baby hotel and someone just started taking pictures there and it stuck.  I thought that the “red couch” was some fancy couch that was something akin to a shrine.  Not at all.  There are actually 4 red couches that are just out in the open for people to lounge on just off of the lobby.  Most people dress their children up in traditional Chinese clothes.  We picked a lavender qipao (traditional Chinese dress) for Megan.  First we took individual family pictures with our babies.  Then we lined up all the babies on the couch and on the couch cushions on the floor.  This is the one that everyone talks about.  Of course trying to get 10 babies to cooperate for this ordeal is no small feat.  Poor Megan.  It was nap time and she could hardly stay awake.  She did fine for our family picture, although she didn’t smile.  For the group baby pictures she was literally falling asleep as we were taking the pictures.  She would nod off and then catch herself and try to sit up.  It was pretty funny.  One of the other families got about 15 sec. of it on video so we have to try and get a copy of that.  We also took a group photo.

After Megan took her much needed nap, we headed off on a Pearl River dinner cruise.  We had very nice seats at the front of the boat and sat with another couple from CCAI.  The food wasn’t very good, but the cruise was very nice.  The evening was comfortable and there was a breeze.  Megan fell asleep on the bus on the drive back. 

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Sept. 12 Touring

Sept 12.  Megan was up for a bottle a couple times during the night and then up for good at 8am.  She was a little constipated, so after that resolved, things were better. 

I forgot to tell you about a couple of things that happened yesterday.  First, I found out more about Chinese names.  I knew Megan’s last name was Tong, but I didn’t know exactly how Min Xian fit.  I had thought maybe Min was considered her middle name since all the babies from her orphanage have that character in their name and then Xian was her first name.  When we were filling out the paperwork yesterday, I found out that the Chinese do not have middle names even though Min Xian is 2 Chinese characters.  So Megan’s Chinese first name is more accurately Minxian.  Also, for official paperwork, her birth city is unknown, but her birth province is Jiangxi.

Megan also had another bath last night.  Since there was no baby bathtub, I had to get into the bathtub with her.  She enjoyed her bath much better this way,.

OK, now back to Sunday.  After breakfast, we headed on a city tour.  Unfortunately it was raining.  First we stopped at the 6 Banyan’s Temple.  This is an old Buddhist temple and pagoda.  Banyan is a type of tree that looks like it has roots hanging from its branches.  Apparently there are banyan trees in Florida too.  Next we headed to the old Chen House.  Chen is the most common surname in Guangdong province.  The Chen family owned the house until about 1949 when the gov’t took it over and made it into an academy of the arts.  Currently it mainly displays many different types of art such as porcelain, embroidery, sculptures, and wood, ivory, and bone carvings.  The most impressive art to us was the embroidery.  It was so detailed that it looked like a painting.  Lastly, we headed to an upscale arts and crafts store that sold high quality local arts and crafts-everything from paintings to jewelry.  We decided on some porcelain chopsticks and a chop.  A chop is a stamp that is hand engraved.  Megan’s stamp has her Chinese and English name engraved on it and a tiger on the top.  She was born in the year of the tiger.

Because we had done our paperwork yesterday, we didn’t have any more scheduled activities for the rest of the day.  After lunch at Lucy’s (the American food café), we went back to the room for a rest.  Megan didn’t take much of a nap, so then we decided to walk around the island.  We didn’t find anything too exciting.  For supper, we tried out a deli just outside the hotel.  We ordered BBQ pork with vegetables and rice.  What we got was rather interesting.  It was cooked cauliflower and what looked like romaine lettuce and tough pieces of pork with a sauce and a bowl of rice.  The pork was OK and we didn’t touch the lettuce.  Amazingly, the cauliflower wasn’t too bad and I don’t eat cauliflower.  I guess all the normal cauliflower taste was cooked out of it. 

It was a very nice evening with a cool breeze, so we went for another walk.  We found a store that sold paintings that were done with the artist’s fingers and fingernails and ink.  We bought a few bookmarks.  Since Megan wasn’t tired, we decided to venture into the Mattel playroom.  At first we were the only ones there, but soon 3 or 4 other families joined us.  Megan had a great time playing with matchbox cars and mega blocks.  She is getting closer to doing a regular crawl.  She can get up on her knees, but hasn’t figured out how to move her knees forward.  It was a great way tired her out.  When she started fussing, we headed upstairs for PJs and a bottle.  She went to sleep well, but it took awhile before she would let me lay her down.

Guangzhou is going to be hosting the Asian games in November, so the city is doing lots of preparation to have everything look nice.  I would say that this is something similar to the Pan Am games that we are familiar with.

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Sept. 11 First day on Shamian Island

Sept. 11  Apparently epic bedtime struggles make for a good night’s sleep because Megan slept from 12:15 – 8am and woke up happy.  After a nice warm shower we headed down to the breakfast buffet.  The restaurant was packed.  I think all the families that were in China from all the agencies came to the White Swan hotel last night.  There were people everywhere.  The buffet was amazing.  It was hard to know where to start.  Brian had a fresh made omelet and I just had a variety of stuff, all very good.  Megan opted for congee, banana bread (half of it ended up on the floor) and mashed banana.  One of our fellow travelers does not eat Chinese food, so he was thrilled to be here.

Let me tell you a little bit about the White Swan hotel.  This hotel is part of urban legend to those of us whom have never traveled to Guangzhou.  As one of the other parents explained to their son when we arrived, “This is the hotel that mommy and daddy have heard so much about.”  This hotel is on Shamian Island in Guangzhou right on the Pearl River.  The hotel is huge (28 floors) and beautiful inside.  It has an indoor waterfall.  Our room isn’t as big as our room was in Nanchang and the bed is hard, but other than that, it’s very nice.  The biggest bonus is that the air conditioning works well.  I would say that this is the hotel with the most adoptive families in the world.  We found out yesterday that the US is basically the only country that has their consulate in Guangzhou (I’m not sure about Canada).  All the other countries have their consulates in Beijing.

After breakfast, we took a short walk to a small store where we had Megan’s visa photo taken.  She had fallen asleep in the carrier and we had to wake her up for the picture.  Thankfully she fell back asleep afterwards and the picture was actually pretty good.  The international health clinic was our next stop.  This is where all the babies have to have a check up for their consulate paperwork.  Remember, lots of adoptive families arrived yesterday, so just imagine what this clinic looked like.  (I thought I heard someone say this clinic is only open on Sat.).  Anyway, think about a small town ER on the busiest day imaginable and 90% of the families have children under 2 yrs. old.  It was loud and crowded.  Megan had an ENT check, very quick “physical” and height, weight, and temperature check.  The only thing she didn’t like was the height/weight/temp. check.  Thankfully she amused herself for the entire 1 ½ hr. time frame by playing with a deodorized garbage bag dispenser that was attached to the backpack.  Weird what keeps kids entertained.  Some of the babies had to receive some immunizations, but we didn’t because we are a non-Hague family.

When we returned to the hotel there was a Barbie doll waiting for us.  Mattel gives out these Barbies as a gift to the adoptive families.  It is a blond Barbie holding a Chinese baby.  Mattel also sponsors a play room for the children.  We haven’t checked that out yet though.

There are lots of little shops on Shamian Island where the White Swan is located.  They sell all kinds of souvenirs.  One of the most popular things that they sell for adoptive families is squeaky shoes.  These shoes have a little toy inside the heel of the shoe that squeaks when you push on it.  This is another example of something that I have heard about for years, but have never seen.  We were told that Chinese families also buy these shoes for their children.  Chinese children are  often very spoiled and don’t want to do things for themselves, so they often don’t want to try to walk.  The squeaky shoes are meant to motivate them to walk by themselves.  I thought the shoes would be very cheaply made, but they are not.  The pair that we chose are pink leather with a rubber sole.  They remind me of a stride rite type shoe.

In the afternoon, Brian and Megan had some down time while I went to fill out paperwork for the US consulate appt. on Monday.  We had 5 things to fill out.  We also put all the required paperwork into plastic folders and our guides will take everything to the consulate Monday morning. 

Traffic in Guangzhou isn’t nearly as crazy as in Nanchang.  They follow the normal rules on the road, more like Hong Kong.  Incidentally, in Hong Kong they drive on the opposite side of the road and the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car because they are a former British territory.  There also isn’t any honking as it was outlawed in 2003.  If you are caught honking, the fine is 200 RMB (approx. $30).  There are also no motorcycles or scooters.  These were outlawed in 2007 because there was a gang that road motorcycles and scooters that were stealing purses and bags.  The city itself also looks more modern than Nanchang.  They don’t turn off all the lights at night and it looks more like a normal city.  The weather here is tropical, somewhat like Florida and very humid.  God obviously prepared the weather for people from ND, because it isn’t nearly as hot as accuweather.com predicted it would be.  I would say it’s been in the 80s today.  Unfortunately, it has been raining.  We didn’t have any rain in Nanchang.

For supper, our group went to a Thai restaurant.  The food was pretty good.  Brian had a sweet and sour chicken dish and I had a noodle and chicken dish.  Megan opted for baby food and a few noodles.  By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all very tired.  Megan was tired too, but didn’t want to admit it, so she fought sleep for ½ hr.  Finally Brian got out some of the Chinese CDs we bought and put them in the computer.  That seems to help her settle down.

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Sept. 10 Leaving Nanchang

Sept 10.  To say that today was long would be an understatement!  It started out very well.  Megan woke up happy and didn’t even want a bottle right away.  When we went down to breakfast, she ate like a pig.  We found out that she loves banana bread.  We broke it up in pieces and she couldn’t shovel it in fast enough.  She also had a whole bowl of congee.

At 9:30am we went on a tour of People’s Park.  It was a large park with a river, trees, and winding paths.  We saw many grandparents there with their grandchildren.  There were large paddle boats to rent, the Beijing opera singing at an amphitheater and even a small amusement park with rides.  At one end of the amusement park there was a larger area of water.  There was a big, clear plastic ball tethered to a dock that people could get inside of and “walk on water”, kind of like a hamster in a plastic ball.  The 13 yr. old in our group, Brandon, decided to give it a try.  He did pretty good, but didn’t get very far.  Our guides told us that the 5 minutes in the ball was equal to 10 times that amount of exercise on the land.

Next we went to a porcelain shop.  Jiangxi province is known for its fine porcelain.  They had many beautiful pieces, but they were on the expensive side.  I’m sure they would be double or triple that in the US.  They had many tea sets, dishware sets, plates, and mugs.  We decided on a tea mug with a lid for Megan and a couple of smaller things.

After Brian went to KFC to get us lunch, we had a group meeting to get the babies Chinese passports.  We also received back the corrected copy of our paperwork that was wrong yesterday.  Thankfully everything was correct on the passport.

After we finished packing, we decided to visit the pagoda that was just behind our hotel.  A pagoda is an ancient temple.  This one was very tall.  There were several people in the pagoda park that were getting things ready for the autumn Moon festival that starts Sept. 22.  They were making decorations.  There was also a large stage in the park and another building that had large figures in it and a large musical instrument that has bells that you hit to make them ring.

We left for the airport at 4:30pm.  Everything went pretty smoothly getting through the airport.  Megan wasn’t too impressed at first, but she did settle down.  We had quite a while to wait before our flight, so we just visited and walked around with Megan to entertain her.  After waiting for just a little bit, we heard an overhead announcement saying that our flight had been delayed, but we couldn’t understand what they were saying about why.  Then someone said that it was because there was a typhoon that had gone through Hong Kong and Guangzhou and the plane was delayed.  Now there’s something I didn’t’ plan for.  I guess it makes sense though.  If it’s hurricane season in the US, it’s typhoon season here.  Later, we found out that the plane was only going to be delayed 30 mins.  We never did hear if it was actually because of a typhoon or not.  We’ll have to ask our guides what the weather was like in Guangzhou on Friday. 

I have to say that China Eastern airlines definitely has the “one-up” on US airlines.  When we flew from Hong Kong to Nanchang, it was only a 1 hr. 20 min. flight and they served us lunch.  Tonight, from the time we boarded the plane to the time we were in the air was 15 min.  We weren’t served supper because we left at 8pm, but they did give us a jar of baby food for all the babies.  Megan was asleep for the first part of the flight.  When she woke up, she was NOT happy.  After I took her out of the baby carrier, she decided to ham it up with all the neighboring passengers.

By the time we got to Guangzhou, everyone was tired and/or cranky.  Mind you, none of the adults had eaten supper and we left the airport for the hotel at 10pm.  When we got to the White Swan hotel, over 50% of the babies were crying.  We finally made it up to our room.  Megan got a 2^nd wind and Brian went to get some supper.  It took over an hour to get our luggage.  After an epic struggle, Megan finally gave in to sleep.  Brian and I ate supper at midnight.  One of the nicest things about being in Guangzhou will be the easy access to food. 

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Delay in Nanchang

We have been delayed leaving Nanchang because of plane issues. It is a challenge understanding what the delay is and how long. Pray for our journey to Gangzhou.

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Sept 9 - Countryside and Aug 1st Park

Sept 9.  Megan went to bed at 8:30pm, woke up an hour later for a bottle, slept til 1:30am, then another bottle, and up at 7am.  She was in a good mood.  She played on the bed with some toys for a long time.  Brian made a make shift play pen with the quilt and pillows.  After breakfast we went to the countryside.  This is a misnomer.  I would call it a small town.  It was called Cao City.  Our guide Karen said that this would be similar to the area were our babies lived in their foster families.  The “countryside” was nothing compared to our small towns, but Karen said that it was a rich area because the houses were fairly new.  The houses were generally 3 stories and 3 generations of families usually live in them.  They are mostly built of cement or brick.  Generally, young people from the country want to move to the city because they think they can find better jobs.  The grandparents take care of the grandchildren while the parents work.  If they work in the city, the parents rent an apartment and come home on holidays and special occasions.  They also send money home to support the family.  Karen also said that some city young people want to live in the country because the homes are so much bigger.  An apartment or condo in the city is very expensive and only about 500 sq. ft. 

On the way to the countryside, Karen told us more about the one child policy.  This policy was instituted in 1979.  Parents wanted boys because the boys are responsible to care for the parents as they age.  The girl leaves her family completely.  In the country, if the first child is a girl, they can have a second child.  The gov’t also recently instituted a new policy that says if both parents are from a single child family, they can have 2 children.  However, the children have to be at least 5 yrs. apart.  The gov’t issues a marriage certificate.  Females must be 20 yrs. old and males 22 yrs. old to get married.  Otherwise the marriage is considered illegal.  You also must have a birth permit to have a baby.  If you do not, the child is considered illegal and will not be allowed to go to school.  Each family has a family book.  When a girl gets married, her name is moved to her husband’s family book.  It sounds like this is a legal document as illegal marriages and children are not recorded in this book.  This is how the school knows that the child can’t go to kindergarten.  Later we asked Karen what happens to the illegal children.  She said they can go to a small local school, but the education isn’t very good.  What they end up having to do is find the “right person” in the gov’t to help them get the child and ID (be legal) and pay a large sum of money.

When we were at Cao City, we saw a medical clinic.  Karen said they only care for minor things such as colds or fevers.  However, it is very common for them to use IVs to “fix” even minor things such as fevers.  We saw a young child get an IV that was inserted in their head.  This child would have been considered too old for that type of an insertion site in the US.  Karen said they give IVs because it “goes faster”.  I can’t imagine what type of needles they use.  One of the babies in our group has a scar on her inner wrist that they think was from an IV.  The babies also have scars from their immunizations.  Megan has a couple of them on her arms.  I noticed that our guide Karen also has one on her arms.  Imagine what kind of needles they must use.  In Guangzhou, some of the babies will have to have immunizations.  If you are a Hague family (I’ll explain that next) or your child is older than 2, your child must have about 6 immunizations in order to enter the US.  Because we are a non-Hague family, we don’t have to do this.  We did have to sign an affidavit stating that we would get Megan immunized within 30 days of coming to the US or at your doctor’s discretion.  I’m so glad Megan doesn’t have to be immunized here.  Maybe the needles are better in Guangzhou, but I don’t want to find out.

The Hague convention established international standards of practice for intercountry adoption.  If you are a Hague family adopting from China, it makes the process from referral to Gotcha Day much longer.  Hague families travel 8-11 weeks after referral whereas non-Hague families travel in 5-7 weeks.  Because the Hague convention was put into effect in the middle of our adoption process (April 2008), we were able to be grandfathered in with the old system as long as we kept our paperwork up to date.  We didn’t know it at the time, but it was a good decision not to let our paperwork expire.

After the countryside visit, we stopped at a bookstore.  Other adoptive parents said that CDs with Chinese songs and lullabies really help the children to calm down when nothing else can.  So we picked up 2 packages of CDs and 3 children’s books with English and Chinese words.

God mercifully gave us a break from the stifling hot weather today.  The wind was  cool (relatively speaking) and it was comfortable to be outside.  So we decided to walk to KFC.  It was about a 1 mile walk, but the sidewalk was nice and again, it wasn’t so hot like our trip to McDonalds a couple days ago.  Megan fell asleep in the carrier.  We were able to order a decent meal at KFC and then headed out to look for some formula for Megan.  The kind that her orphanage used is only made locally, so it’s more difficult to find.  There was a store nearby KFC that was supposed to carry it, but we couldn’t find it.  The Walmart was just across the street, so we went there quick to get some rice cereal.  Aug. 1^st park was just across the street, so we walked through there.  We did find out that the revolution that happened in 1927 was something similar to Tinnanmen Square.  On the walk home, we were able to find another small store that carried the type of formula Megan needs.

At 5pm, we received the documents back that we will need for the US Consulate.  There are 3 copies of each document:  one for the US Consulate, one for immigration in the US and one for us to keep.  The 1^st document is the adoption registration.  Then 2^nd is biographical info. and the 3^rd is a statement of Megan’s abandonment.  We had to check these documents over very carefully as there can be NO errors.  There were no typographical errors, but there was one blatant error in one of the adoption registration booklets—there was a referral picture of a baby that wasn’t Megan.  This can still be fixed, so Sissi, our guide will take care of that.  One of the other booklets came apart at the seam when I opened it to verify everything.  Sissi will fix that too.

For supper, we and several others families headed to the Chinese restaurant across the street.  I like having meals with the other families because it give us a chance to visit.  Megan took a 20 min. cat nap til about 7pm, so I don’t expect bedtime to be until at least 9pm.  Her congestion is better, but she is a little pill to get her to take her medicine. 

Yesterday we had our laundry done.  We filled out a sheet of paper with Chinese and English words describing which clothing items we were having washed.  For examples, 1 shirt, 2 shorts, 3 socks, etc.  We sent the clothing to the laundry yesterday and got them back today.  When the clothes was returned, all of it except pants were in 4 clear, plastic bags.  Each piece of clothing was also labeled with a small pink piece of paper that was either stitched on or put in a loop and stapled.  The sock pairs were stitched together with this pink paper.  Everything in China is some type of experience.

I was reading through our hotels courtesy booklet about all the services offered.  There are some pretty funny cartoons, but it also talked about souvenirs.  If we would like to buy anything in the room, there was a price list in this booklet:  everything from the soap dish to the mattress.  I wonder how often this happens.  The hotel also advertises itself as “Your green home”.  Probably the most obvious examples of this is the lighting.  Each of the hotel rooms has a switch as you come in your room.  You must put your room key jn this switch for the lights and air conditioning to work.  Of course the idea is that you take the card out when you leave the room.  We didn’t do this though, because the air conditioner has such a hard time keeping up.  We did turn the lights off though.  Some of the other parents said that at night, the lights all over the hotel are pretty much all turned off, even in the lobby. 

I’ve mentioned before that the traffic is crazy, but I don’t think it is nearly as crazy as it was in Beijing.  There is a little resemblance of rules, but nothing like the US.  Scooters are very popular and I can see why as they can weave in and out of traffic and even go on the sidewalk.  They range in size from almost as big as a motorcycle to some the size of a bike with a motor.  Most of them are smaller sized.  Men and women ride them.  Of course they don’t wear helmets.  There are bikes, but not nearly as many as we saw in Beijing.  I imagine Beijing has changed to more scooters too since 2005. 

This is a totally random fact, but Megan wears size 6-9 month clothes, although she will very soon need 12 month sleepers for length.

Thank you for praying for little Lily and her parents.  She seems to have turned a corner today.  She went to daddy willingly for the 1^st time and was doing somersaults and laughing.  She is still sick, but hopefully that will get better soon too.

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Sept 8 - Pavilion and Papa Johns

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Megan_Crawl2.AVI (10305 KB)

Sept. 8  Megan had more of a restless night last night.  First she had a dirty diaper and then she woke up about every 1-2 hrs. and needed a pat on the butt to go to sleep.  She finally decided to be up for good at 6:30am.  She spent quite a bit of time playing on the bed and army crawling.  This is good because for the last couple days, she didn’t want to play by herself.  We put various toys on the bed and she would go after them.  She seems to especially like electronics like the camera, remote, or GPS.

After lunch, our group went on a tour.  Nanchang is not known for areas to tour, but there is one place that is worth seeing.  It is a Tengwang pavilion near the intersection of the Gan and Fu rivers.  It is a large building that was built by an emperor.  It reminds me of the buildings in the Forbidden City in Beijing.  We went to the top floor and watched a little show with singing and dancing.  Then we explored each of the floors.  There were little souvenir shops on each level.  There was also a level that had a balcony that went all around the building.  It gave a nice view of the city and the rivers.  Because it is so hot here and we are near water, it is hazy all the time and you can’t see very far.  Megan spent most of the time sleeping in the baby carrier.  It must have been take all the adoptive families in Nanchang to the pavilion today because we had a good ratio of Chinese to American people there.  We also ran into the family from MN again, Paul and Gwyn Heglund.  After the pavilion, we ate at a nearby Chinese restaurant.

In the afternoon, our guides arranged for a Chinese calligraphist to make silk scrolls for us if we wanted.  Chinese calligraphy is very difficult and the lady that did the scrolls had been practicing since she was 4 yr. old.  The scroll is all in Chinese and lists Megan’s Chinese name, birth place, birthday, and special wishes of health, longevity, and blessing.  It is about 3 meters long.  We also had a nice time visiting with the other families.

For supper, we decided to order Papa John’s pizza.  It tasted just like home.  We also discovered that our TV has HBO and watched Kung Fu panda.  How ironic!

Here is a link to another blog you may be interested in.  It is the Stralka family.  They are in our travel group.  www.myadoptionwebsite.com.  Click on families and then look under families in China and click on “Sara’s journey home”.

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Sept 7th - Exploring Nanchang

Sept. 7 God bless Tylenol PM! I finally feel like I got a good night¡¦s rest. Megan went to sleep at 9:30pm, woke up at 2:30am, had a bottle, and slept til 8am. Wonderful! It was so nice not to have a rushed morning. We went down to breakfast at 9am. Megan had no interest in the highchair or breakfast.

This morning, CCAI provided a pediatrician to check over all the babies for no charge. The doctor is the head of pediatrics at a local hospital, so he is well-respected. Megan looked good except he felt she has an upper respiratory infection. She does sound congested at times and has an occasional cough. He ordered some amoxicillin and cough medicine. It comes in individual packets and we have to give 2/3 of a packet to her 3 times a day. Gotta love the measurement! ƒº I know you medical people are just cringing! Thankfully the medicine tastes good and she took it easily. We haven¡¦t tried the cough med. yet. They said that doesn¡¦t taste as good. I¡¦m not really concerned about her cough/congestion because she is eating, sleeping and behaving normally.

A couple of the other babies are also sick. One baby just has a cold, but is somewhat miserable. The other baby has been sick since gotcha day. Lily is 16 months old and she was in the same foster home until now. She is grieving the loss of her foster family. She has had several bouts of diarrhea. I believe this is the first child for her parents, Steve and Kathy. Please pray for this family.

After Megan had a bottle and a nap, we set out to find a McDonald¡¦s again. I must admit that a GPS would not have been on my packing list, but I¡¦m so glad that we have it. Brian spent quite a bit of time researching google maps and google earth to get good directions. So with GPS in hand, we set out. It is just as hot today, but there was a little bit of a breeze. After a mile of walking, we found the McDonalds. We had big mac meals and shakes. The pop was cold and tasted so good. After eating, we wandered around the department store that the McDonald¡¦s was attached to so we could stay in the air conditioning a little longer. We were also looking for a Diary Queen as Brian saw someone with a blizzard. We didn¡¦t find it though. Anyway, the department store was called Rainbow and it was huge! There were 9 floors. It was just like an upscale dept. store in the US with mainly western styles.

By the time we got back to our hotel, we were all tired and soaked in sweat. Megan drank a 12 oz. bottle and took a nap and Brian also took a nap. Apparently mom is becoming a little more popular as I put her down for a nap both times today. ¡§Who-loo¡¨ is ¡§don¡¦t cry¡¨ in Chinese. She seems to like to be cradled, swayed back and forth, and her butt patted while I say ¡§who-loo¡¨ many times to go to sleep. The cribs that the hotel supplies are a little smaller than a pack n¡¦ play. Because Megan is so mobile, sometimes when she moves around in the crib, she hits the side of it and it wakes her up. We might have to try the floor. Thankfully, so far it hasn¡¦t been too much of a problem.

For supper, our whole group went to a Chinese restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was meant to be a birthday party for the babies (a remembrance of the birth of their new families).

We are so thankful to our Lord that things have been going so smoothly. Thank you God for:

Good health ¡V both Brian and I have been feeling good. Our backs have not been bothering us too much. The Ergo baby carrier has been great. I carried Megan in it for 2 miles and my back did not hurt. We also have not had any digestive issues.

Megan¡¦s adjustment ¡V she has just been a wonderful 7 month old. So far she has not seemed to have a heavy grieving period. Please pray that her grieving will not be a big upheaval.

Good teamwork ¡V thankfully when one of us has been tired the other is able to take over. Yesterday I was exhausted and an emotional mess in the afternoon, but Brian had the needed energy. Today Brian needed a good nap and I took over.

Things I wish I would have packed: an umbrella (not for rain, but for shade) and a hand held fan, preferably one that also squirts water.

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September 6th, It's Official

Today it's official. In the eyes of the Chinese government, Megan is ours. It was a long, exhausting day. Thankfully Megan had a good night last night. She went to sleep at 10pm, woke up at 3:30am, had a bottle, and went back to sleep. Brian and I had to get up at 6am and she woke up too. If we had stayed asleep, I think she would have too. The beds are quite comfortable, but since we have to keep the thermostat up, it was hard to me (Richel) to sleep. Brian did OK.

We had to meet in the lobby at 8am to go to the registration office. There were many families besides the ones from our adoption agency that were also there. At the registration office we had a family picture taken, Megan's picture taken, and had to answer several questions such as: what is your occupation, why do you want to adopt a baby from China, how will you educate her, do you promise to never abandon or abuse her? Of course, these were easy questions. We received a Chinese decorative pot from the registration person. We also paid all the fees for the paperwork here. We were probably there a couple hrs. waiting for everyone to finish.

Back home we had been emailing back and forth with a couple from northern MN who were also adopting from China. Our babies are both from the Jiangxi province, but not the same orphanage. We found out that we would be in China at the same time. When we were at the registration office today, we met them and their baby Willa! We had to go all the way to China to meet someone who lives 5 hrs. from us! Pretty neat.

After the registration office, we went to the notary office. That only took 15 min. When we left there, we received the adoption registration degree. It is a fancier piece of paper that is in a red folder that says that the adoption is official.

It was noon when we got back to the hotel. CCAI does not arrange every single meal for us, so we had to figure out where to eat. They gave us a rough map of the area with KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut marked. So we decided to try to eat at McDonalds. We headed out on our adventure. After walking ½ mile, we still hadn't crossed any of the roads on the map. So we decided to turn around. I'm not sure how hot it is here, but I would say at least 95 degrees. It's hard to tell if it's humid when it's that hot. At some point it's all relative. Finally at about 2pm, we came back to the hotel and ate at the restaurant there. By that time I was overly hungry and a little dehydrated. Not a good thing. I was absolutely exhausted. We got Megan down for a nap and finally I could rest. Unfortunately, the group was going to Walmart at 3:30pm. I really didn't want to go because I was so tired, but we needed to get some diapers and water.

Walmart in Nanchang is large and very noisy. Lots of people were shopping there. There are 2 floors. We went down an escalator that you can take a cart on.

After we came back, we met the Tonggu orphanage director and 2 of the nannies. We received a wooden comb with some Chinese writing on it and the director's business card. We were able to find out more about the area where Megan lived. The most interesting thing was that Megan and another baby in our group, Phoebe, were in the same foster home. The foster parents actually cared for 3 babies. This is quite unusual. The orphanage sends out a staff member each Tuesday and Friday to give them food and supplies and to check on the babies. The foster family can't have any of their own children of the same age as the foster babies. The foster families bring the babies into the orphanage every 1-2 weeks to be examined.

The Tonggu orphanage was originally built in 1984 and was rebuilt in 2005. Along with the orphanage, there is a nursing home and rehabilitation center. The building is about 10,000 sq. meters in size. There are about 40 babies in the orphanage that are special needs and 30 health babies in foster homes. The special needs babies don't go to foster homes.

Jiangxi province is famous for a revolution that started Aug.1, 1927. I'm not sure what kind of revolution. In Nanchang, there is an Aug. 1 park and an Aug. 1 street. Apparently, Tonggu Co. was the birthplace for the revolution. Its population is 150,000 and the region is mountainous and has lots of lakes. They are famous for producing mushrooms, wood (for furniture and wooden floors), Chinese herbal medicine and computer mouses. It takes about 3 ½ hrs. to get to Tonggu, but they are going to build a new road and then it will only take 2 hrs. It is about 3 degrees Celsius cooler in Tonggu than in Nanchang. It is known as a summer resort. Jiangxi is also known for spicy food and spicy girls.

Our CCAI rep. told us a few reasons why the adoption timeline has slowed down so much: there aren't as many babies available to adopt, more babies are adopted domestically and more families are keeping their girls. Our rep. said that more and more people want girls instead of boys for an interesting reason. In China, when a boy gets married, it is his families' responsibility to pay for all of the wedding and they still pay a dowry to the bride's parents. I had not heard that before.

We also learned some more about Megan. All 4 babies that came from Tonggu have very similar names. Everyone's last name is Tong (Tonggu Co.) and middle name is Min (people). To get the 1st name, they just went to the dictionary and went down the line. Megan's name is the 3rd in the order of the dictionary. Her name is pronounced "min she-in". Megan is the youngest of all the babies in our group, but only by 13 days. We have also learned more about Megan's personality. She is very much a people person and is quite content to people watch. She's also quite the little flirt. At supper, she was laughing and smiling at everyone. Sometimes when we get back to our room, she isn't happy because it's just the 3 of us. She continues to be a daddy's girl. Thankfully she will go to me if she has to and she will let me carry her in the baby sling, but if Brian is around she is all about daddy. Megan is also very strong. Many Chinese babies are spoiled by their foster families and they do everything for them or they are weak from not enough stimulation in the orphanage. It was probably a good thing that Megan's foster family took care of 3 babies. The mom must have been very good with them. Megan can sit up, roll over both ways and army crawl. It's very cute. We will try to post a video of it.

For supper, we and 4 other families ate at one of the restaurants at the hotel. Our CCAI rep. Sissi ordered for us. Traditional Chinese meals in a restaurant are served on a large lazy susan in the center of the table. Each person has a small plate about the size of a saucer. You only take small amts. of each thing that you want and then get more. I think we had about 10 different dishes. All of them were pretty good.

I'm sorry that we didn't get this posted earlier. One of the families didn't have access to a computer or a way to call home and Monday was their son's birthday. We let them use our computer. Plus, we were exhausted from the busy day. However, you should be able to see 2 posts fairly close together since Tuesday isn't as busy.

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Gotcha Day

 What a day!  Today is known as Gotcha Day is the adoption world.  The day you receive your child.  It is often celebrated yearly.  Our day started out early as our luggage had to be placed outside our hotel room door by 7:30am.  Then we enjoyed the breakfast buffet.  A bus came and picked us all up at the hotel and took us to the airport.  The weather was quite rainy when we left the hotel, but by the time we got to the airport, the sun came out, so we had some nice views of the island and ocean.  The Hong Kong airport is huge.  Bigger than any airport in the US.  The inside looks like a shopping mall with gates for the planes stuck in. Hong Kong is really more of a province than just a city.  Hong Kong consists of Hong Kong island, Kowloon and the New Territories. 

9 CCAI families flew to Nanchang.  There was another group of adoptive parents on the same flight from a different agency.  We were met at the airport by 2 new CCAI reps.  They got a bus for us and took us to the hotel.  Nanchang is more what I remember Beijing being like.  It is not as modern is appearance, many of the people don’t speak English, we feel like foreigners, and the traffic is much more crazy.  We are staying at the Jinfeng Hotel.  Apparently it is a 5 star hotel and there are lots of adoptive families that stay here.  The rooms are quite nice.  There is a queen sized bed, crib, and bathroom with a shower stall and bathtub.  They even provide a baby bathtub. 

We all met in one of the meeting rooms at the hotel with our CCAI reps to go over what to expect in the next few hours and days.  Reality set in when they released us to go back to our rooms to get our cameras and toys for our babies.  When we left the meeting room, 4 of the babies were already here, but we didn’t know for sure which ones.  It turns out it was the Tonggu babies (Megan).  We were 3^rd to get Megan.  She wasn’t too impressed with us and cried for quite awhile.  They told us the Megan had caught a cold on the way to Nanchang from the orphanage.  The babies are not used to air conditioning, but on the ride to Nanchang, they had air conditioning (they told us to keep the room temp. at 27 Celsius.  This is probably how she got sick.  She has a runny nose and cough.  Hopefully it doesn’t turn into something worse.  Chinese babies take their bottles with formula and rice cereal mixed together and the temperature is very warm.  The Tonggu babies also have sugar in their bottles.  We will wean that in a couple of days.  After we finally convinced Megan to drink her bottle, she fell right asleep.  We laid her in the crib and she slept about 1 ½ hrs.  After she woke up, she was in a much better mood.  We had to have her footprint done for some paperwork and then we went to the hotel restaurant for supper.  She played on m lap and ate congee.  After supper we tried another bottle, but she threw it all up.  Then we tried a nuk and that put her to sleep.  Incidentally, she is a daddy’s girl.  They say that it is common for the babies to bond to one parent at first. 

Tomorrow is a busy day with registration of the adoption, so hopefully we will all sleep well.

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Day in Hong Kong

Well, we made it to Hong Kong. I can’t say that sitting in a plane for 12 hrs. is on my list of favorite things to do, but I guess I didn’t have a choice.  Our trip started off a little bumpy due to some confusion in Grand Forks. Delta’s computer’s thought that we were taking a baby TO Hong Kong, not just from Hong Kong. This little detail caused us to have to wait an hour at the ticket counter while waiting for someone at “headquarters” to cancel the extra passenger in the computer. Not exactly the way we wanted to start out the trip. Thankfully we arrived early and it wasn’t a problem in the end. We’ve never been so glad to see our boarding passes. One of my friends called it labor pains. After that snafu, everything went smoothly. We arrived in Hong Kong at 10pm Sept. 3. A CCAI rep. met us at the airport and took us to our hotel. The Hong Kong airport is on a island, so we went by taxi to the Regal Kowloon hotel and basically crashed.


Sat. morning we were up early because we couldn’t sleep. There is a complimentary breakfast buffet that we went to. It has Western and Chinese foods. One of the more unusual things we saw was a type of melon that was white and looked like it had poppy seeds in it. It tasted kind of sweet, but was mushy. At 8:30am we meet our CCAI rep. and most of the other families in the lobby for a tour. 2 of the families brought their adopted Chinese children with them. Another family also has Chinese children. There is a fairly large ranged in age. For some families this will be their 1st child and others have 1 or more children. For some reason I thought that most of the families would be younger than us, but everyone is at least as old as we are if not older. I guess that makes sense since you have to be 30 y.o. to adopt from China and it’s been 5 yrs. Since we started that process. There are 10 families in our group. We have not met one of the families because they missed their flight in the US. All of us except for one family will be going to Nanchang on Sunday to get our children.

We spent 5 hrs. touring the area. Our CCAI rep. was a good tour guide, telling us about the area and points of interest. We went to Victoria Peak to see an over look of the cities, a jewelry factory and showroom (Mikayla, they had all kinds of different gems. You would have loved it!), Stanley market (a bunch of clothing and souveniour shops near the ocean) and toured a harbor on a sampan (small boat). For lunch, we ate at a traditional Chinese restaurant near our hotel. (mom, we had sweet and sour pork, chicken with bean sprouts, fried noodles, fried rice, 3 different kinds of dim sum (dumplings), broccoli and watermelon).

After lunch, we had the afternoon to ourselves. We decided to walk to the Hong Kong history museum. It was quite interesting and we spent 3 hrs. there. I was even able to find a souveniour spoon at the gift shop.

In the evening we walked along the water way and watched a light show. The city is pretty at night with all the building lit up, but pictures don’t do it justice. We came back to the hotel for supper.

Hong Kong is very Westernized. It was a British colony until 1997. The Chinese people who live here experience freedoms that mainland Chinese don’t have. For example, they can stage a protest against the gov’t and not get in trouble and the 1 child policy does not apply to them. Their currency (Hong Kong dollar) is also different from the mainland. The people here speak the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Incidentally, there are 100 different Chinese dialects that all use the same written language, but are spoken differently. So all the Chinese can read the written language, but they can’t all understand the spoken words. Most of the people we have encountered speak at least some English. There are lots of people here touring and tour buses are everywhere. The traffic is much more controlled than in Beijing and the drivers actually follow the rules of the road. We can’t drink the tap water here, so everything is in bottles. We are able to get cold drinks though. In Beijing, it was always warm. There is a Starbucks right across the street from our hotel.

The weather in Hong Kong isn’t nearly as warm as I thought it would be. Our guide said that a cyclone just passed by and that cooled down the temperature. It is humid and was foggy this morning, but it was never uncomfortable.

Sunday morning we will all meet in the lobby at 8:30am to go to the airport and fly to Nanchang. We will meet Megan sometime in the afternoon. We haven’t heard a time yet. So our next post will have pictures of Megan!

Arrived in Hong Kong

Quick post that we made it to Hong Kong safely. Time to sleep on this side of the world.

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On our way!

We had some difficulty getting our boarding passes. It took an hour at the counter. Good thing we came early. Never been so good to get our boarding passes. Posting from MSP, taking a large plane to Tokyo. About 12 hours, then on to Hong Kong. God is good!

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Five Years! + Jelly

It was 5 yrs. ago today that we started the process to adopt Megan.  Back then, the wait was about 8-9 months from LID.  God has obviously taken us on quite a journey and something we never could have imagine.  However, he has been in every detail.  As I have mentioned before, there were some things that I needed to learn before Megan came and I only learned them 6 months ago.  Even the timing of our travel has been a blessing.  It has been very good to us to be home for the girls for the 1st week of school and the adjustments that entales.  Brian's parents also decided to come up over Labor Day weekend to give my friend a break.  Then my sister and my mom will be coming 5 days later. 

I think reality has set in for our girls.  They are nervous about being gone from us for 2 weeks and staying at someone else's house.  I think that once things start rolling they will be fine, but tomorrow might be rough.  I'm so glad that we can bring them to school before we leave. 

Some of you will laugh when you hear about what I did on my last day before we leave, but those of you know me well will not be surprised.  I spent 4 1/2 hrs. making jelly with friends.  Since you can't pack your toothbrush the day before, I figured I might as well keep myself and my mind occupied.  No sense staying at home and worrying if I packed everything.  So 4 friends and I made juneberry and choke cherry jelly and I came home with 24 jars.  Jelly anyone? :)