Our first night

Hi everyone! So our first night w/Jing Jing went really well. I think I told you all that after we took care of the constipation, our little sweetie began to feel much better. We were able to get some great family play time in and even went into the swimming pool for a little while before bedtime. Anita, our CCAI guide, had given us a heads up that she might wake up in the middle of the night and if so, just give her a little pat and say “Hala Hala Hala” which means “it’s ok” in Mandarin and then she’ll go back to sleep. She only woke up once and we did as directed and right back to sleep she went! Thank God ‘cause I am seriously homicidal if I get too sleep deprived! Our bed is roomy but not very comfortable so I’ve been waking up w/knots in my back. Thank God that I have a chiropractor appointment set up for when we get home!

I had another “Yea God” detail that I wanted to share with you. A few weeks after our match, we sent a care package to Jasmine w/a few different items of either toys or clothes and a baby picture book of our family. Our agency had given us labels in Chinese to put on the pictures so that way everyone could be identified. They also let us know that there was no guarantees that we would get them back or that they would get passed along. So I’ve been praying that of all the items, I’d love to have them give her the picture book & a little teddy bear that I had sent her. My “yea God” is that they did give those 2 items to her and they returned them back to us so they’ll be keepsakes for her! I love that even those tiny details are ones that God cares about!

Thanks everyone for all of your prayers! We can’t wait to get back so that we can post some of these videos and pictures! Our itinerary tomorrow is to go finish our adoption paperwork w/the registration office and the notary. Once complete, our adoption will be final! Yea God! Well, I’m going to finish this so I can get off to sleep. Talk to you soon!

Gotcha Day – Part 2

Good evening, everyone! Well…..we’ve got her! It took us about 40 harrowing minutes to drive to the orphanage! I have to say that I’ve never seen anything like it! Lanes, lines, signs, lights, pedestrians, other cars and buses – they mean absolutely nothing in traffic in Chengdu! We narrowly avoided 1 accident on the way but managed to arrive safely – Praise God! At any rate, once we arrived, they brought us into a room at the orphanage where we started our paperwork and suddenly looked up and there she was! We barely had a chance to get our cameras out and start shooting before they were walking over to us. I, of course, sobbed my little heart out and the next thing I knew, she was in my arms. She did get a little overwhelmed and due to us arriving at nap time, promptly fell asleep in my arms. She’s beautiful and seems to be in good health despite a good case of constipation. We’re so incredibly thankful for our CCAI rep, Anita, who has been with us every single step of the way. We ended up being at the orphanage for a total of an hour and then braved the crazy traffic to get back to our hotel. The afternoon was a little rough for a while but once we were able to treat the constipation and get some fluid into her, Jing Jing (her nick name. We’ll eventually call her Jasmine but want her to feel as comfortable as possible.) started to perk up and play a bit with us. We even got a couple of smiles and thankfully, the evening has gone much better than the rest of the day!

Thanks to all of you for your amazing support and powerful prayers on our behalf! We are continuing to trust God in all areas of bonding, sleep strength and multi-tasking! Our itinerary has slightly changed. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to finalize our adoption paperwork at the registry & then the notary. I believe that everything is final tomorrow, instead of Wednesday. Wednesday, we’ll be touring the Panda reservation and on Thursday, Anita made plans for us to shop for cultural souvenirs for part of the day. On Friday, we depart to Guangzhou.

That’s the scoop for now but in the meantime, enjoy 1 of the pics of our new little girl!

Gotcha Day – Part 1

Good morning from Chengdu! Well, it’s definitely looking like our communication will be more limited while we’re here! Sniff, sniff. At any rate, we’ll see if we’ll have a better ability to communicate when we get to Guangzhou. We’ll be here until 2/5 and then we’ll fly to Guangzhou for the remainder of our trip. In the meantime, we’ll still keep a journal and take lots of pics that we hope to share with you, worse case scenario, when we get back into the states!

So TODAY is GOTCHA day! Yea God! It’s hard to believe that this day has finally come! We’re going to be meeting in the lobby of our hotel and will actually get to drive to Jasmine’s orphanage to get her and Bodie (the new son of the other family we’re traveling with)! We’ll have an opportunity to meet the nannies and see where she’s been living this past year. We were told that she has been told that she’s going to be adopted so we’ll see how she reacts when she sees us. I had sent a care package to her months ago w/a little baby book with our pictures in it and I’ve been praying that they’ve been showing her the pictures all of this time. Regardless, God has been preparing our little daughter for us just as He’s been preparing us for her and we are trusting Him to work all of those details out!

At any rate, thank you all for your prayers and support! We'll be talking to you soon!

Chengdu

Well, we have made it safely to Chengdu! We left this morning around 11:10 on Air China to Chengdu and made it to mainland China. Talk about 2 different worlds! The brown smog left a very thick layer over the city and the traffic was the craziest we’ve ever seen! Our CCAI rep, Anita, picked us up after we came out of baggage claim and directed us to the van where the other family in our group, Jon, Amy, Jill & Kai were waiting. We took a very harrowing ride through the city to our hotel, the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Anita will be staying with us at the hotel as very few people speak English here – way different than Hong Kong! She gave us all of our instructions and more details to our itinerary for the next few days while we’re here in Chengdu.

Tomorrow is the day we get Jasmine. We’ll actually get to go to her orphanage and see where she’s been living. Our other family will be adopting a little boy from the same orphanage so we’ll all be going together. I have to say that as excited as I am, I’ve also been feeling overwhelmed and a little afraid. What if I don’t bond well w/Jasmine? What if she doesn’t bond w/us? What if I can’t handle 2 kids? Then what? What if I don’t love my 2nd child as much as I love my first? I continue to wrestle w/giving these worries over to God. I give them over and then take them back, give them over, take them back. I wish I could just give them over and be done with it. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s God’s job to knit my family together and He’s already done that. I just need to do my part. He hasn’t left us alone to our own devices for 1 single part of this adoption so why would He start now?

So, something that you can pray for (besides me setting my fears in God’s hands & leaving them there) is our adjustment to mainland China. It’s VERY different than Hong Kong and won’t be as easy as Hong Kong. Food-wise, it’s going to be a much bigger challenge than Hong Kong, especially for Lily, which causes us more stress. Please pray that even in these details, we’ll be able to leave them in God’s hands and trust His provision. Thank you God for prompting me to bring the snacks that I did!

Thank you all for all of your prayers and your support! We couldn’t do this without you! We’ll update you soon!

Hong Kong Disney

Hi everyone. So, as promised, I just wanted to share about our experience at Disneyland. What a blast! First, we decided to take the train as Disney is on Lantau Island and we were in the area of Kowloon. We were a little intimidated but had gathered some courage after wandering around a few places by ourselves so, armed w/our trusty map, we set off to find the station. We actually did amazingly well, considering it was our first time wandering around a foreign country w/o assistance! We eventually figured out the maps to Disney and finally purchased our tickets and set off on our adventure. Disneyland itself really turned out to be a magical experience for us. We continued to be objects of focus, primarily because of Lily. We had been told ahead of time how the Chinese are fascinated w/blond haired little girls and that definitely turned out to be true. Everywhere we went, people were interacting w/her, sometimes touching her hair or asking to take pictures w/her or asking for hugs. Disney was no exception! She made all kinds of friends while we were waiting in line to get in. We decided to purchase a stroller (mostly for our overly heavy & uncomfortable backpack & coats which we didn’t end up needing) and while we were doing that we were approached by 1 of the park employees who asked if we would be the Grand Marshalls of the Disney Parade that afternoon at 3:30. We thought they were putting us in a drawing w/a number of families so we agreed, thinking what an honor it was to be nominated. (Ha!)

At any rate, we set off on our adventure checking out all of Adventure land and then to lunch & then Fantasyland. We stood in line to take pictures w/2 of the princesses and had another one of those celebrity moments w/Lily. When it was her turn to take pictures w/the princesses, people came out of nowhere and were lined in a semi-circle around her like paparazzi, cameras in hand, shooting pictures of the little blond American girl. It was really hysterical to watch! She just charmed the socks off of everyone she met.

Ironically, one of the last rides we decided to check out before we went back to see if we had won the Grand Marshall drawing, was “It’s a Small World.” While we were in line, we met a guy named Jeff from Orlando on the same ride. We got to chatting and come to find out that he and his wife had adopted 2 little girls from China! What are the odds?! He’s currently working in Germany was out here on business. We had a great time sharing w/each other about our adoptions, our girls, etc. After saying goodbye & joking about it being a small world, we just shook our heads and thought, once again how we LOVE how God is in the tiniest of details!

But, the best was yet to come. When we got back to City Hall, we found out that there was no drawing! They had chosen our family (let’s be honest – they chose Lily) to be the Grand Marshalls of the Disney Parade! What a trip! They had us relax in a little room while they got things ready. They had embroidered Mickey Mouse hats w/each of our names and gave us padded hands to wave in the parade. We even got an official certificate! They walked us through the streets to the Grand Marshall car and made an announcement about the Youngs from the United States of America. It was so surreal! The whole time, Lily was waving like she had been born to do it.

We left after the parade finished, too wiped out to do anything more but go back to the hotel, eat dinner and go to bed!

We're Baaaackkkk!

Hi Everyone. We made it home safely tonight - a bit worn out, but grateful that our girls survived the trip. Donna will be updating the blog more this week. Apparently, in mainland China, blogging and Facebook are not allowed, so Donna kept a journal of updates that she'll post, along with new pictures. Thank you all for your prayers and support. We never could have done this on our own. Praise God for His faithfulness. We'll be in touch soon.