Jing-zilla takes the Consulate

Hi everyone! Sorry it’s been a couple of days but things have finally wound down and we are so ready to get home! Wednesday (our time) we went to the Guangzhou Zoo for ½ day and had a great time. The zoo is so beautiful with tons of Banyan and Hong Kong orchid trees and many others. I can tell that Guangzhou must live up to it’s moniker, “city of flowers” in the spring and summer as it’s gorgeous in winter. We were reminded a little bit of the San Diego zoo because of all of the gorgeous scenery that surrounds all of the walkways in the zoo. We had a blast seeing all of the animals and it was a refreshing change of scenery for the morning.

Wednesday afternoon was our appointment with the Consulate so we went on a bus with about 34 other families staying at the White Swan. It ended up being a rough afternoon as Jing Jing had not napped enough. She ended up pitching the fit of the century (REALLY) while we were waiting with all of the other families in the waiting area. That was a fun time. NOT! At any rate, daddy took over and gave mommy a break and she calmed down quickly after that. (Yeah, mommy’s pride took a severe beating.) Later (much later) we were able to joke a little bit about Jing-zilla (no disrespect intended) emerging and taking the consulate. It’s funny the things you laugh about when you’re beat up and tired! Sometimes humor is the only thing left.

Thursday morning, after our bed tried, unsuccessfully, to kill us again, we decided to spend some quality time outside as it was a rare gorgeous day out. (Normally winter time is rainy season so we’ve seen a lot of rain.) Jim & Lily did a local park while I stayed w/ Jing Jing to make sure she got a nap in. After we decided to check out the swimming pool which is outdoors to see if we could do a little swimming while it was hot and nice out. Apparently, there’s no heater so the water was a chilly 69 degrees! We actually went in anyway and tried to convince ourselves it was hot. Ridiculous but we had fun!

Later that day we took Jing Jing to the clinic for the third time because we could still hear garbage rattling around in her chest and wanted to make sure we stayed on top of it. Thankfully this time they gave her a nebulizer treatment which helped clear up things dramatically. Yea God! The other “yea God” was we emailed our pediatrician w/some questions relating to her treatment and they got back to us immediately with some answers, so we’re very thankful. We’d appreciate your prayers for both girls as we get ready to head back to the States, that the flight would go smoothly for them and us and that we’d figure out the right mixture of sleep so that we can all get a jumpstart back on to our time zone.

Today and tomorrow will be uneventful days for us as almost everyone has left and most of the shops will be closed for Chinese New Year. We’ve done over half of our packing today and expect to finish the rest tomorrow, as we’ll be leaving early Sunday morning to get to the airport. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to walk as this bed is seriously debilitating us both. ;-) We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to update our blog and facebook page once we get to Hong Kong and may try to upload some pics and journal entries then. Otherwise, we’ll be updating you all when we get to San Francisco on Sunday. Thanks in advance, for prayers for safe travels.
Thanks so much for all of your prayers. Despite some really rough moments, we’ve had good ones too and believe that God has had His Hand on us this whole time. We feel so incredibly blessed and thankful that He loves us so much! Truly, what an amazing God we have! We can’t wait to see you all soon!

Guangzhou & the Pearl Market

Hi everyone! I wanted to write a little bit about Guangzhou. We have to say that it actually might turn out to be our favorite amongst all 3 cities that we’ve been in. We’ve arrived during their winter, which is their rainy season. Most of the days have been warm but so far it’s rained every single day we’ve been here except for the morning of our clinic visit. While the traffic is still pretty thick around town, the drivers don’t try to kill each other the way they did in Chengdu. The Hotel that we’re staying at, the White Swan Hotel, is located on Shamian Island, which is right next to the Pearl River, which is the 3rd largest river in China. My favorite part about this area is the HUGE Banyan trees that line the streets near our hotel. Most of these trees are older than 100 years old and form huge canopies over the sidewalks and streets. Guangzhou will be hosting the 2010 Asian games in November so they’ve been doing a massive facelift to spruce up this already gorgeous city. Most of the buildings near our hotel have scaffolding surrounding them as they complete the renovations. Our guide, Jason, told us that they’ve already been working on the renovations for a few months already and will be continuing those for another 3-6 months, all paid for by the government.

Yesterday, we had the privilege of going to the pearl market and I have to say it wasn’t quite what I expected. I was thinking it would be this huge outdoor marketplace with all sorts of vendors and booths but that was not the case. We arrived to this huge mall (at least 7 stories tall) and it was filled from top to bottom w/jewelry wholesalers of every possible kind. Many stores had already closed up shop for Chinese New Year but many were still open. Our guide, Jason, took us to a specific vendor, otherwise we would have been overwhelmed by the choices. We did get each of our girls a small pearl pendant to give to them either as a graduation gift or a wedding gift, but we could have bought full on pearl necklaces, bracelets and earrings of a variety of qualities of pearls and them designed however we wanted.

Today was mostly a free day. Our guide, Jason, presented our paperwork to the US consulate so we had to stay in our rooms for about ½ hour in case the Consulate had any questions about our paperwork. Thankfully, everything went smoothly! Yea God! So tomorrow morning, we’ll go visit the Chengdu Zoo and in the afternoon, we’ll go to the Consulate to take our oath. Once again, thanks to Jason & our agency, all of the hard work is done for us so we’re basically finished with all of our paperwork. On Thursday, he’ll pick up Jasmine’s visa and we’re all done until we leave!

We can’t believe we only have about 5 more days here! Yea God! As amazing as it’s been, we’re really ready to come home and get into a regular routine. Things have definitely gotten better so thanks so much for all of your prayers and encouragement! I know I say that a lot but I REALLY mean it! We still have a ways to go towards attachment but bonding has begun and the foundation is laid. We’re trusting God to knit our hearts together as He did with Lily.

Jing Jing’s cold seems to be getting better. It did get into her chest a little bit but it appears that all of the meds the docs gave us seem to be working. We took her back to the clinic today to check her progress and we’re given a few more days worth of meds to hopefully knock everything out. We ask for your prayers for complete healing for her so that our return flights home won’t be completely miserable.

Lily’s also doing much better. Those 2 days where she seemed to be really grieving the loss of her birth mom, have eased up a bit and now we’ve added Daisy to our prayers at night. Once again, we’re trusting God to heal her precious heart and give us wisdom to know how to deal with things and hopefully handle them in a way that will promote that healing and trust in God. She’s still dealing w/jealousy off and on but that’s also normal. Again, that routine at home will be really helpful in getting us all into a groove again.

As for Jim & I, we’re really hanging in there thanks to your prayers and God’s grace! This has been extremely stressful, emotional, exhausting and amazing and God’s really given us the strength to pull together and get through this as a team. We are so incredibly thankful! We would ask your prayers as this has brought up more feelings of grief from our former church situation, that God would continue to heal our hearts and help us forgive and let go and let God be our defender and protector. It’s funny how sometimes these happy times can be so bittersweet. You appreciate what you have now because of what you went through and yet with the new, you grieve what was lost. Over the last year, we’ve experienced a new house, new neighborhood, new church, new friends & new family member and yet it’s been a year of loss as well. But in and through it all, God has shown Himself to be ALL that we need! Praise God for His incredible faithfulness and love! “Who am I that you are mindful of me?”

Well, needless to say, we can’t wait to see you all soon! We found out that our flight into Hong Kong was cancelled so they’ve put us on an earlier flight, which means we’ll have a 10 hour+ lay-over in Hong Kong, before we leave for home. We’d really appreciate your prayers over our flights and both girls doing well on both flights as well as prayer for something that we could do besides sit around the airport for 10+ hours. We could take a train back to Disneyland as it’s a very short trip from the airport but aren’t sure if we can get tickets or not. Please pray that we wouldn’t have any other cancellations and are able to work out those details. Well, talk to you all soon and thanks again for the incredible difference you’ve made in our lives! ☺

We’re in Guangzhou!

Hi everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve emailed. We got into Guangzhou late on Friday night our time and it’s been a little busy ever since. We’re staying at the White Swan Hotel, which is where most of the adoptive parents stay when they come through here and it’s absolutely gorgeous! They have a huge koi pond and waterfall on the inside of the hotel and it sits right on the Pearl River so it’s absolutely beautiful. Much nicer than the other hotels we’ve stayed in.

So on Saturday, we all met up in the Swan Room (as the other family in our group is staying in a different hotel), which is the cutest little play room right in the hotel for all of the families to bring their children. We had to do some Visa paperwork, which took all of ½ hour thanks to our awesome CCAI guide, Jason! I have to say that this is really where you want to have a rockin’ agency – in country! SERIOUSLY! In Chengdu, 1 lady who was traveling alone got held up because she didn’t have a certain piece of paperwork that her agency didn’t tell her about and we breezed right through every part. Jason made the Visa paperwork easy and then walked us through getting Jasmines’ Visa paperwork and her doctors’ visit.
So the visit to the doctor was an interesting experience! Jasmine has to have a physical for her Visa/immigration paperwork. There were about 50+ other families there who were also adopting and so it was total chaos in the clinic! Once again, I was so thankful for CCAI because Jason walked us through each station and we were able to breeze right in and out of that clinic no problem. Because he had done whatever paperwork , we were able to jump ahead of those 50 other families who didn’t have that paperwork completed when we arrived! So, a word to the wise – if you’re planning on adopting internationally, find out about their in-country process. Do they have reps in-country that actually live in-country who can walk you through things? How happy are the families who adopted? If the in-country experience wasn’t good – run!

So, once we finished with the clinic, we were off for the rest of the day. Lily and I tried to go swimming while Jasmine was sleeping but realized that the pool wasn’t heated so it was a cold 50 degrees or so. Oh well! On Day 3 in Guangzhou, which was yesterday, Jason arranged a cultural tour for us. First, we went to a Buddhist monastery, which was about 800 years old. Apparently, everyone heads to the temple to pray or do whatever to make penance for the past year and start fresh for the next year. So, needless to say, the monastery was very crowded w/all sorts of people making their offerings to Buddha and praying to him. I originally thought it would be interesting to go and when we were told that the priests would give the babies a blessing if we liked, thought that would be a nice cultural experience. I have to say that we both wanted to weep over these precious people who were bowing down and worshipping this metal idol. When we got to where the priests were doing the blessing, we decided to refrain, as they were blessing the families w/water that was offered to the idol, not to mention the families were asked to take off their shoes and bow before the idol. I had to walk out, feeling grief over watching people worship this fake god and not the 1 true God. They didn’t know what they were doing was wrong but I could almost feel God’s grief over people He loves, worshiping other gods.

The rest of the tour, other than being in the pouring rain, was less eventful. We got to go to a museum to view a variety of Chinese art, which was really spectacular. The Chinese artists really put other artists to shame with their amazing detail in the their carvings or paintings. It’s really incredible.. After that we went to a store that sells a variety of porcelain, paintings, embroidery, jade and other items – all handmade. Then yesterday afternoon, while the girls were sleeping w/daddy, I hooked w/the girls from our other family group to do a little shopping and haggling! I did pretty well, once I got the hang of things, and would love to go shopping again just so I can try out my newly acquired haggling skills. ☺

Today, we’re going to a pearl market where they have a variety of types, sizes and colors of pearls at a wholesale price. I don’t think we’ll really buy much even though we were told to expect prices 1/6 of what we would pay in the US. It’ll be fun to go, and see what it’s like.

So that’s been our itinerary over these last few days. Physically and emotionally, it’s been much more difficult. We’ve been tired from having Jasmine not sleep well and sore from carrying her in the mai tai and sore from the traveling and rock hard beds. Jasmine’s cold has been getting worse so we finally had to take her to a clinic on the 3rd floor of our hotel (yup, they have a clinic too!). They prescribed a few different medicines for her that seem to be helping so we’ll see if that’ll do the trick. On top of that, Lily’s been having a rough time. Seeing Jasmine adopted and that process has really brought a lot of feelings and questions to the surface about her birth mom, Daisy. She’s been expressing grief over missing her birth mom and being worried about her and wishing that she was with her so that things could feel “normal.” I so understand that desire for “normal”. For the longest time after my miscarriage, the desire to not have that hole in my heart and to have back “normal” was my deepest desire. I eventually learned, over time, how to live with the hole and to accept a new “normal” in my life but that was a huge struggle for me. It’s breaking my heart to see my daughter struggle with that and yet I know that it’s important for healing, for her to go through this process. My dad, who is a social worker, has assured me that this is a good thing that she’s going through this now rather than stuffing it and acting out later so that’s helped us to feel a little bit better. Ultimately, my precious daughter’s healing is in God’s hands and I need to trust Him to heal her as He’s healed me.

So, this has been quite the couple of days and yet, we’ve felt God’s presence throughout all of it and are so thankful for Him, the one TRUE, LIVING GOD! Thank GOD that He is a living God! I can’t imagine how desolate and hopeless life would be if I worshipped a God that was made by man and wasn’t even alive!

Well, Jasmine has started to stir so I’d better get going so I can finally update you all. Thank you again for all of your prayers! You are all making such a difference and I can’t thank you enough for being warriors on our behalf! ☺ I can’t wait until we can see you all again and introduce you to Jing Jing!

Shopping in Chengdu

Hi everyone! I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your prayers and encouragement this morning after I emailed our little prayer request to you! Jing Jing’s teething and had gotten up w/a slight fever and was pretty fussy. After I emailed, she fell asleep in the Mai Tai w/Jim and slept for 2 hours! Poor little sweetie! Our guide, Anita, had told us that typically days 3 & 4 tend to be more rough because the babies begin to realize that they’re not on vacation and start to recognize that things are changing and different. We’ve noticed that first thing in the morning and bedtime are the rough times for Jing Jing so thank you for your prayers over those times for all of us! Tomorrow we’ll be flying to Guangzhou and leave around 5:45pm. It’s a 2 hour flight which means we’ll be getting in right when the girls will both be tired so we’d appreciate your prayers over that as well.
Today was our shopping day in Chengdu so, while Jim stayed w/Jing Jing in the room, Lily & I went w/our group to Jinli Street to shop for cultural souvenirs. We were able to find a few treasures that were all hand-made and specific to this city and province to have for Jasmine as she gets older. It was so much fun to walk down this street which felt like an alley from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” The street was festively decorated for Chinese New Year with both sides lined with a canopy of red lanterns and all of the quaint shops tucked into little nooks and crannies. I wish you could have been there! There’s so much character and energy to this city that I have to say that, despite my initial intimidation, I’ve really grown to love it here. I will truly miss Chengdu after we leave. The people have been so warm and welcoming towards us that I’ll always treasure having come here. Of course, it helped to have a little blond haired celebrity in our midst! ;-) Lily continued to charm and once again we were mobbed several times with people wanting to take pictures with her and give her hugs. Reality back at home for her is going to suck! ☺ After coming back to the hotel and getting all of our Adoption documents from Anita, we all decided to go to the local bookstore to pick up a couple of baby books in Chinese & English for our kiddos. It was one of the biggest bookstores I’ve ever seen – at least 3 stories tall and filled to the brim w/every kind of topic known to man. We were able to buy a couple of baby books w/English and Chinese as well as a couple of puzzles w/both Chinese and English. They’ll all be great little treasures to have from our trip to Chengdu.

On a quick side note, we did hear back from the grant agency who turned us down last time and they have turned us down again. We have 1 more that we haven’t heard from yet but are continuing to trust God in all things. He will not let us down and we praise and thank Him for that!

We’re now settling down in our room to have dinner and get the girls off to bed so I’ll say goodnight for now. I’ll try and email tomorrow, otherwise I’ll for sure email the day after tomorrow. We love you all and seriously thank God for you! You have all been so amazing and we LOVE that we get to share this journey with you! Praise God for His incredible faithfulness and grace! He has been so good to us and we are continually grateful for Him! God is so good!

Giant Pandas!

Hi everyone! So today is Wednesday (or Tuesday for all of you back in the States) and today we went to the Panda Reserve in Chengdu! We were able to sleep in a little longer which was nice. We were wiped out! Most mornings we’re up by 5 or 5:30am but today we slept in until about 6:30. I think both girls would have slept longer if I hadn’t woken them up. At any rate, today was a tougher day with Jasmine. She was pretty fussy this morning which could be because she was tired, it was rainy or she was grieving or a combo of all 3. A lot of people don’t realize it, but babies do grieve. People assume that when you adopt an infant, everything’s ok, the baby doesn’t know or remember anything but that’s not true. They may not have a clear memory like an adult can remember details but they remember being abandoned. They remember being alone and not having anyone answer their cries. They miss their birth mom and their nannies and they grieve. I have to say that one of the toughest things about being an adoptive parent is figuring out when your child is crying over brushing her teeth because she's tired or if she’s crying because some fear of being abandoned again has been triggered and came up. We have a new “normal” that we’re constantly trying to figure out which makes parenting an extra challenge. But I also have to say that those same challenges turn into incredible rewards when we’re able to figure out a tiny piece of what our child is grieving and help them get it out so they can heal.

So, despite the rough morning, we all had a fantastic time at the Panda Reserve. It was gorgeous, our walk way lined with a canopy of green bamboo trees. A light misty rain was falling and it was cool but not so cool that we were cold. We were able to see not only the giant pandas, but also red pandas! We paid a little extra so that Lily & Jim were able to sit and hold and pet one while I took pictures. If Jasmine hadn’t been sleeping….oh well! ☺ Lily was in hog heaven! You know how she loves animals! We took a ton of pictures!

The afternoon, we gave Jasmine her first bath! Well, first bath with us anyway! We held off until today because apparently bath time at the orphanage was a little traumatic. It was more like an assembly line and the kiddos didn’t get a chance to play so most didn’t always have fond bath time memories. We obviously didn’t want to add one more thing for her to be traumatized over so held off until today. She did really well and really enjoyed playing a bit so it turned out to be a good idea. ☺ The rest of the afternoon, we hung out and eventually got out of the room and did a little more shopping before we came back to the room to eat dinner and get the girls to bed. Bedtime was definitely much more traumatic tonight. I don’t know if she’s just really missing her nannies or what but please pray for her and for us that we’d have wisdom to know how to best handle the situations as they come up.
Well, I’m pooped so I’m off to get this emailed off to you all. Thanks again for all of your prayers and we’ll be talking to you soon! Tomorrow (Thurs. for us) we’ll be doing some shopping for cultural souvenirs and then Friday afternoon (I think) we’ll be flying to Guangzhou for the last leg of our trip! We can’t wait to get back to see you all. Talk to you soon! ☺

Adoption day is complete!

Hi everyone. We finalized our adoption today and I learned what a squatty potty is. First, the good news….Jing Jing is ours forever! We went to the registration & notary offices today and finalized our adoption! It took a few hours between both offices to finish up the paper work but Yea God, it’s done. It’s hard to believe but it’s so incredibly amazing. God is so good.

The rest of the day we tried to take it easy. We did venture out for a little walk through some of the streets and shops. Jim has been trying to drag me out of the hotel for the last couple of days but I’ve been so intimidated by the traffic, I’ve not ventured out too often. Ridiculous I know, but between the culture shock (mainland China is VERY different than Hong Kong), lack of any English signage or language and the crazy traffic (and I am NOT KIDDING), I’ve been a big chicken. But we did venture out for about an hour or so, walking through all of these outdoor shops, now getting noticed for having a Chinese baby with us as well as little blond Lily. We really have found the Chinese people both in Hong Kong and here in Chengdu to be extremely warm and friendly. I have to say that the city itself has really grown on me. Hong Kong had a lot of gorgeous mountain scenery as well as beautiful skyline. Chengdu is beautiful in an entirely different way. There aren’t as many high rises as in Hong Kong but the buildings have a different kind of beauty that’s hard to describe. It’s common to walk along and see bike after bike after bike lined up along the sidewalk for blocks and blocks. There are as many pedestrians as cars and it’s been fascinating to watch them all navigate the craziness. There are shops of every kind stuck into every nook and cranny and on every street corner there’s some kind of salesman or shop owner beckoning you to come shop their wares. It’s a fascinating city and I’m enjoying getting over my fears and exploring a tiny bit before we fly out to Guangzhou.

Things with Jing Jing are going well. We had a good day all day. She started to crawl today which she wasn’t doing yesterday so it’s amazing to see her start to thrive a little more. She’s been making great eye contact with us and smiling and laughing a little more also. Our bedtime was a little rough, in part because we had a group dinner to celebrate our adoptions. That kept both of the girls up a little later than would be their regular bedtimes so they were both wiped out by the time we got back to the hotel. But all in all, I feel like we’ve had a better chance to bond with her today and slowly we’re getting a feel for what she likes and doesn’t like. It’s definitely trial and error at this point but it’s going better than I would have imagined. Thank you all for your prayers for us on this – we can tell you’ve been praying for this transition for our family!

So, before I sign off, I have to share about the squatty potties. I had heard some rumors about the potty situation here (hey, I’m a mom of 2 young kids, what can I say? Potty is a big part of our vocabulary!), but I had prayed those rumors weren’t true. The rumors are true. ;-) So, while we were at the registry office, Lily announced that she had to go potty. I didn’t think anything of it but went to take her along w/the other little girl in our group. I had Jasmine in the Mei Tai and walked Lily into this little bathroom and looked down….flush with the floor was a little hole. Ummmm, so if you’re a guy, this is no problem but if you’re a girl, well, you get the picture. So, if you can imagine me trying to hang onto Jasmine so she doesn’t slide out of the Mei Tai head first into the hole, while trying to lower Lily w/o her touching the disgusting floor……yep, that was my squatty potty experience! Needless to say, I waited until we got back to the hotel! ☺

So, on that note, I’ll finish this update and again thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. We’re experiencing God’s provision and miracles every single day and are so incredibly thankful that He loves us and how He’s in the tiniest of details. We’re so thankful for our 2 precious girls and how each day we’re bonding a little bit more as a family. And, we’re so thankful for you all. ☺