We Have Arrived! Travel and Day 1 in China

It took us three planes to get to Guangzhou, China. Tampa to Detroit, Detroit to Beijing, and Beijing to Guangzhou. Let me tell you, a 13 hour flight is no joke! Thank goodness for in-flight movies and melatonin. Between the two, our kids were entertained or sleeping almost the entire time. I had brought a bag full of goodies to bring out as needed, but it turns out all we needed were some coloring books, markers, crayons, and a TV! I felt a little bad giving the kids the melatonin gummies that I found, but they really worked! Both kids were out for a good 5-6 hours of the long flight, and slept the entire last flight from Beijing to Guangzhou. We are all completely exhausted from the traveling, and are so happy not to step onto a plane for two weeks!

This morning we took our time getting up and ready for breakfast. Caroline of course woke up at 6:15 and we had to wake Matthew up at 8:30 before Brian started eating children and/or body parts he was so hungry. Yes, we were that family who let their kids go to the fancy hotel breakfast buffet in their pajamas.

It was neat to see other families there to adopt children. They are quite easy to spot - American parents holding Asian babies. I guess that will be us soon! I wonder how the Chinese feel about this... Anyway, breakfast was amazing! Think of the best breakfast buffet you've ever had and then make it 50 times better. They had everything from the traditional American breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes to Chinese traditional foods like dumplings and bean cakes. Plus fruit, yogurt, pastries, juice, cereal, cooked to order eggs and omelets, and a bunch more Chinese food I didn't even begin to look at. We are so happy that we will be eating breakfast here every morning!

After breakfast we explored the hotel and gardens. It is absolutely beautiful! The favorite attraction for the kids was the koi fish swimming in all the ponds. Caroline was literally jumping up and down with excitement watching them swim and gulp air and jump. She has already asked to go back to the fish multiple times. There are two waterfalls, benches, a pavilion, and gardens all around. After running around the grounds for a bit we went back inside to climb the giant wooden staircase and ride the escalator that the kids had seen last night when we checked in. And yes, the kids were still in their pajamas this whole time. I'm sure thoughts of "those crazy Americans" were circulating among the many hotel employees. We found the fitness center, pool, kids' pool, playground, spa, and various restaurants on our adventures. Then we decided that we might want to put real clothes on the kids before we headed out of the hotel to find the Trust Mart (Chinese Wal-Mart).

I was feeling pretty exhausted so I took a short nap while my mom and the kids got ready to go. Then we used the handy map our guide gave us to figure out how to find the Trust Mart. It's right down the street from the hotel, but we almost missed it because the entrance is so small. It looks like the only thing inside is an information counter. But then you turn the corner and it keeps going, and going, and going. There's no such thing as organized rows and aisles or running in to grab one thing. It's more like IKEA where they make you walk this winding path through every section until you finally get to the checkout. And if you passed something and need to go back, forget it! You will never find it again! We grabbed some diapers and wipes for Lily, bread and PBJ for sandwiches, a few snacks, and some bottled water. I had it on my list to get paper plates and plastic utensils for eating in the room, but apparently I missed where those were and there was no going back! We'll be returning to the store tomorrow after we get Lily thankfully.

After the Trust Mart we grabbed some quick sandwiches at Subway. Brian was a little disappointed we weren't getting authentic Chinese food, but I told him we had plenty of time for that! Plus I actually wanted the kids to eat something and I knew that would be a challenge with unfamiliar food. Turns out mayonnaise is an unfamiliar food for Matthew, and getting him to eat a sandwich that was a bit overenthusiastically dressed with it was quite a challenge. Meanwhile Caroline was literally licking it off her hands. She will also have some pretty shiny hair from the amount of mayo that ended up in it! Thankfully Matthew finally conceded to trying the mayo (cue my "you don't have to like it but you do have to try it" phrase combined with the promise of a cookie upon finishing lunch) and, surprise surprise, he liked it! He then proceeded to eat his sandwich and the rest of Caroline's.

Brian forgot his tennis shoes at home, so we tried the Friendship Department Store next. I think there were 8 floors in it, and not one of them had anything for men! No clothing, no shoes, nothing. We're going to ask our guide tomorrow where else we can try. At this point it had started raining and everyone was getting pretty tired again so we headed back to the hotel for a nap. We were afraid if we slept too long we wouldn't sleep at night, so we set our alarm. Then we continued to sleep through it. I finally forced myself to wake up around 4:45. I thought doing a quick workout might help me wake up so mom and I went to the fitness center while Brian bribed the kids with lollipops to get them out of bed. They went and found the indoor playroom, and then I found them once again riding the escalators (what is wrong with those crazy Americans?!).

It was still raining so we opted to find some takeout and eat in the room and watch a movie. Brian and I ventured out to find a Chinese fast food place around the corner. Turns out the Chinese have an interesting system to determine restaurant cleanliness. Our Subway earlier today had a blue face with a small smile. This was considered a "B" in food safety. An "A" was a green face with a large smile, and a "C" was a red face with a straight line mouth. There is apparently nothing below a C. So of course this place had a C. Awesome. One step above being closed down. Well, we did say we were going to have an adventure!

Since I was unable to find plates and silverware earlier, we used our creative thinking skills to make plates and utensils. They did give us chopsticks, but I'm pretty bad at them and the kids would never get anything in their mouths. Thankfully my mom saved some plastic utensils from earlier in the trip so we used those, the lids of the takeout containers for the kids' plates, and the glasses in the bathroom for the adults' plates.

Then it was bathtime and bedtime! The kids are sleeping in mom's room tonight, so we are enjoying some kid-free time before number 3 comes tomorrow!

Things we've learned so far:
* Chinese people really must never see blond children because they LOVE Caroline. She however does NOT love them. During our 4 hour layover in Beijing a large group of girls was filming her and taking her picture and trying to get her to talk to them. You can imagine how well that went over.

* When you order something with chicken it comes with both bones and skin. Brian can check authentic Chinese food off his list for today!

* No one uses seatbelts in China. In fact, our van from the airport didn't even have any.

* I thought that I'd be completely overwhelmed being a country where I can't even pretend to speak or read their language. Turns out, I'm not! Even though everything is different, in a lot of ways it just feels like we're in any big city in the US.

* Electric curtains in the bathroom provide lots of entertainment for children, especially when they are upset during bathtime.

* Do not put your bag down while riding the airport train for fun. Brian's bag got lost somewhere in the Detroit airport, which unfortunately had our iPad along with some other things we would have preferred not to lose. You can pray that someone turned it in and we will be able to get it on our return trip through Detroit!

* They do a really good job cleaning glass doors here. Caroline ran into one at full speed today.

That's all for tonight! I'm off to (hopefully) get some sleep before we get Lily tomorrow! We are leaving the hotel at 2:00, so will get her sometime after that. I will try to post at least one picture shortly after getting her.

Riding the Adoption Roller Coaster

The past few months we have been on the worst ride ever! It's called the adoption roller coaster. It takes you up and down countless hills, causing you to fluctuate between joy and terror. Every time you think you're getting to the end of the ride, it takes off again! Teasing you with a break from the breathtaking speed and terrifying drops, but never giving you one. Well friends, the roller coaster has finally come to a full and complete stop, and we are getting off!

Let me take you back to September 23rd, when we finally received our LOA after waiting a cruelly long 160 days. It seemed like every time we were able to make some progress, something else slowed us down. Obstacles were appearing out of nowhere! But, just as quickly as they came, solutions would arise or we would find out that the information was false. I really felt like God was just moving things out of the way, but it didn't come without emotional highs and lows. So here's what happened:

Sept. 30: After our LOA came we were told to apply for our visas. I contacted a recommended courier only to find out that due to a new government regulation we were required to send our visa applications to the consulate in Houston, and they don't allow you to apply for visas until after you get your travel approval (which is the very last step and we were hoping to travel quickly!). After some googling (and crying) I discovered another courier that has special permission to process visas for adoption only from all states! A few weeks later we had our visas!

October 1: Government shutdown! Our paperwork had finally returned from (the unreliable and slow) Chinese government and was now with the (more unreliable and not working apparently) US government! Facebook adoption boards were lighting up with people speculating on what would be open, what would be closed, and what kind of delays were going to happen. Thankfully USCIS was still functioning as normal since they are fee-based and we would not experience any delays!

October 8: USCIS approved our paperwork! Yippee! Everything was forwarded to the National Visa Center

October 17: Our paperwork was delivered back to China, but this time to the US Consulate. I now was able to enjoy a 2 week rest period while everything was processed and I didn't have to wonder where things were, fill out papers, or deal with anything adoption related.

November 1 onward: We begin the wait for our travel approval (the last step before making our consulate appointment!)

November 4: Rumors starting circulating on Facebook that the US consulate would be closed for an unexpected training Dec. 5-12. We were hoping to have our consulate appointment between Dec. 2nd and Dec. 12th. There were also rumors that because there was a closure, all the appointments for Dec.2-4 were already full.

November 5: My agency confirms the consulate closure and appointments being full. The earliest we can get Lily goes from Nov. 25 to Dec. 9.

November 6: Our travel approval shows up in the computer system! But we are unable to do anything until the hard copy arrives by mail. Our agency says it might be here Friday (the 8th), but probably not until Monday or Tuesday.

November 10: We receive an update on Lily! We now know her height and weight, and that she can walk based on the fact that she is standing alone in her picture!

November 11: Our agency receives a package from China, but our TA is not in it!

November 12: People who already received TA report consulate appointments on Dec. 5 and Dec. 9, it seems that it's not closing after all! Other agencies confirm that the closure is not happening!

November 14: Our agency checks on the status of our TA, and is told that the CCCWA shipped it this week and it will arrive soon. I have really come to hate the word soon!!!!!

November 15: Our TA finally arrives!!!!!! We are requesting the first available date in December for our consulate appointment, but will have to wait until next week to find out our travel dates since it's already Saturday in China!

Well that's it folks, in just a few days we will know when we finally get to travel to China! The word "soon" will begin to have meaning again, and we can finally answer people with something other than "It depends on if we're in China or not" when they ask us if we can do something! Thank you so much to everyone who has been there alongside us in this journey, praying for us, comforting me when I go crazy and can't take it anymore (sorry about that life group girls!), and praying for our daughter in China. But don't think that just because we are actually able to go to China soon that you're off the hook - I'm sure the craziness of the journey is beginning!

So I painted a piano...

A few months ago we were having dinner at a friend's house. As my kids were hammering away on the old piano there, I mentioned that one day I would like to have piano so that the kids and I can learn how to play. My dear friend said that this one belonged to her mother in law and if the house they were living in ever sold (it was her mother-in-laws house) she would probably sell me the piano. The piano still played well but needed a bit of TLC in the looks department. I may have uttered something about painting it.

Fast forward a few weeks. Aforementioned conversation forgotten. My friend lets me know that (surprise!) the house sold incredibly quickly and they are moving out in a few weeks. Do I still want the piano? Rational part of the brain says: you don't even know if pianos can be painted, you already have 12 other projects to work on, the kids aren't going to playing for a few more years, you are about to bring your third child home from china and you should not be spending your time doing this, you are probably just going to leave it in the house unpainted for the next thousand weeks. My answer: when else am I going to get a piano so cheap, of course I want it!

So, 2 weeks later four very strong men bring said piano to our house and place it in the garage. Thankfully the bookcase I had been painting for Lilys room had just vacated the spot, but Brian's jeep was relegated to the driveway for the indefinite future.

Now to decide on a color! I knew the piano would go in the front living room with our green couches so I needed it not to clash. I definitely wanted it to be bright though. So I decided on a bright mint green. I know this may not sound like a real color, but I found just what I was looking for! The next several days were spent in the garage sanding, priming, painting, and repainting. Thankfully the weather finally started to cool off so the kids were able to play outside while I worked. Two weeks later it was ready! I love how it turned out!

When are you going to China?

This is the question that we hear more than any other. And unfortunately, it's the hardest one to answer! Now that we have our LOA, we can more accurately predict when we will be traveling. Of course, nothing is certain until we can actually book our plane tickets, which will be a week or 2 before we actually leave. But here's a timeline of the final steps to give you a better idea of what happens now.

• We file our I800 application with USCIS. It usually takes 2 weeks for approval (we got approval yesterday, in 13 days!)
• We get our visa approval from the NVC in China. This takes 5-7 days.
• Our agency "drops off" article 5 at the CCAA. It takes two weeks to be processed and then we have article 5 pick up.
• We await travel approval (TA) from the Chinese government and schedule our consulate appointment (CA) for when we are in China. This usually takes 2-3 weeks.

So, there is a total of 7-8 weeks before we receive TA and can book our flights and go! We are praying that our wait times are on the short end of things taking us closer to 7 weeks (another adoptive family we know got TA in only 3 days!) We plan to leave as soon as we can after TA which might mean that we leave a week (or possibly even less!) after that. We are really praying that we can travel over Thanksgiving, but if not then it will be in early December. We know that God has perfect timing, and we are praying that his timing involves Thanksgiving!

Here's a helpful diagram that documents the entire China adoption process. Please note that this is only applicable to China, other countries have different steps and timelines. We are on step 10 right now, should be on step 11 in less than a week!

LOA!!!!

Yes, I realize this post is a few weeks late, but things have been busy and I just got around to publishing it!

September 23, 2013

This morning Caroline and I were at home getting ready to head out the door to her dance class. She decided to throw a fit about having to wear her dance outfit at the same time that our home phone rang. We never use our home phone, it's really just the number we give to people we don't want to talk to. (Solicitors, people, none of you of course.) Well apparently we gave it to our adoption agency too. I grabbed the phone and ran in my closet to avoid the screaming coming from C's room while holding my breath. I figured the only two things they'd be calling about would be to give me news about the typhoon that hit the day before or that our LOA had finally come. Sure enough, our LOA was showing up in the system!!! After 160 long days of waiting (the average wait is 50-60 days) we were moving forward again!

Of course at this point we really have to leave, so after an excited conversation and a few instructions from our agency I grabbed Caroline, told her that Lily's paperwork that we had been praying for every day finally came, and ran out the door. I called Brian from the car, and called him, and called him, until he finally picked up. It may have been the CALL ME NOW text I sent him that did the trick. I told him the good news through tears, and he was ecstatic! Then I had to compose myself and go into C's class. I texted and posted the news on facebook, still in disbelief that this had actually happened. Amanda called me from her grandfather's funeral after she got her good news (their LOA showed up too) and we cried laughed and cried together. The rest of the day we sent each other "OMG" and "Holy cow!" texts.

While our wait was crazy, ridiculously long, I know that it was all in God's timing. Originally we thought that we'd be traveling to China in September, so back in March I signed up for a half marathon November 9th. The longer our wait got, the higher the chance that I wouldn't be able to do the race. Brian also has his annual ophthalmology conference November 13-15. Almost all of our friends from residency were going, but we were a maybe since we didn't know our travel plans. Again, the longer our wait got, the higher the chance that we wouldn't get to go. A few weeks ago I felt like God was telling me that we would travel over Thanksgiving. But, the longer our wait got, the less likely that seemed. Now that our LOA is actually here, we are better able to predict our travel dates. Get this: not only did God work it so that I can run my race (and not have to worry about training in China), Brian and I can attend his conference without kids, and no one will have their birthday in China (mine is Nov 2 and my mom's is Nov 19), but there is a definite possibility that we will be traveling over Thanksgiving! That means Brian misses less work, the kids miss less school, and there's a chance that my dad can come with us as well! There are a few more steps that have to happen before we can book flights and go get our girl, but we are praying that they all line up so that we leave the week of Thanksgiving. Also, did you know that Thanksgiving is really late this year? It's November 28th. Usually it's like the 23rd or 24th. Coincidence? I don't think so!

 

We (shockingly) had more paperwork to complete, so we headed to the UPS store with our LOA in hand and our I800 application. Poor Caroline thought that since Lily's paperwork had come that meant she was coming home now, and when we got to the UPS store she asked where Lily was. Soon, sweet girl, very soon!

Ireland

Much delayed Ireland photo book is complete!

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Fairy Tale Dance

We have been going to Playaway pretty much since we moved here. Matthew started and Caroline watched from her car seat, then last year Caroline got to attend the music and movement class while Matthew was in school. This year Ms. Tracy started a fairy tale dance class so we thought we'd try it out! The first week Caroline was not so sure. She just observed all the girls and took it all in. By the end she was participating a little bit. But this week she loved it! She did everything Ms. Tracy asked her to do. I couldn't resist taking lots of videos of her because it was just so precious to watch! Please note that I did manage to get my little tomboy into a dance outfit, but she insisted that it be blue and was not happy about putting it on :o)