Learning about my baby..

Today, we turned a corner.  The past few days have been great, but I could not shake the feeling like I was second best, a temporary fill in that didn't know how to do anything the same as the nannies.  Someone from my China Adoption group put it as, "In the beginning, I felt like a babysitter."  Today, we finally had a chance to lay low in the hotel and we saw a whole new Ben. 

First, I realized that when he is cranky, he tends to be tired.  I was told he took 1 one hour nap.   It looks like that will not be the case here.  The first nap of the day was at 9:30am, mid diaper change! Literally, I had his pants half on and he was conked out.  I just left them that way and put a blanket on him. 

Otherwise, he has just blossomed today.  For the first time, I swayed him to the music of his toy and he smiled and swayed with me.  He also started hitting his chest in a fun way and cracked up when we mimicked him.  On top of that, he does this hilarious thing where he balls up his fists and holds them by his stomach and grunts.  We called it his "brave" pose, because Yong means brave.  But my personal favorite, the one that finally made me feel "mom" was his snuggles.  He loves to crawl or take a few steps to me and then touch our heads together, then bury his head in my chest. Oh my love. He wants to be held whenever he is bored or tired.  He loves to play with Tom, but gets clingy for me to hold him.  We've read that its normal for kids to attach more strongly to one parent first, so we are just handling the mom clingyness for now. 

He is also such a comedian.  When he realizes he did something funny, he will keep right on coming it for more laughs:

Yes, that is the hotel room key in his mouth.  In our photos from day 1, he is on a sweet little blanket on the floor.  Today, he is everywhere!  I am almost out of boogie wipes, hand wipes, sanitizing wipes, everything!  I just cannot keep up with all our trips to government offices and rides in unfamiliar transportation.  Yesterday he came down with a little cough, as did another kid in our group.  Another one got a mild case of pinkeye.  So many new germs for the kids, and going so many places the first few days, in seemed inevitable, but I am just hoping our little cough stays little.  We trying to have him drink lots of fluids, get rest, and I spent 30 minutes playing with him in the steamy bathroom. Fingers crossed it passes soon!

Meanwhile, we had a few crabby moments.  This is when I broke down and found some Chinese cartoons to stop some tears, and yes, we are about 12 inches from the T.V.  We only watched for about 5 minutes until he was bored anyway.  We also should have brought a life time supply of puffs:

But the few crabby moments are so worth these ones:

This is a smile, its a little crooked due to his cleft scar!

Interestingly, our hotel is decorated for Christmas.  There is a tree out front, a big tree in the lobby, a large wreath on the front of the hotel with a rudolph in the middle, and in the restaurant, they also play Christmas music! It is kind of hard for me to miss all that back in the states, so the music is kind of nice to have- it's the good stuff too, Bing Crosby and all the other favorites.  It also plays by default when you turn on the TV on in your hotel room.  Today Ben had clicked it on, and when "Silent Night" came on, I just lost it.  Here was my darling boy smiling up at me, and I didn't have the words to say in thankfulness   That goodness God can read my mind and heart.  Our first mass at home with Ben will be Christmas mass, and while Jesus was the greatest gift sent by God, I cannot help but think our son is a close second. Happy Advent!

What dinner time looks like now..

In the front of the hotel room so as not to wake Ben...

WHAT A DAY!!!  I don't even know where to begin.  First, I was so, so nervous to go on a 1.5 hour train ride and then a 1 hour car ride with a 14 month old, and then make the whole trek back, but it went pretty darn good!!!

We had to leave the hotel at 6:50 a.m. It was not easy to get us all out of the hotel room and down for breakfast by then, and we were a little frazzled.  Vivian, our guide, was taking this trip with us.  We took a cab to the train station- we were taking a "bullet train"- this was why it was 1.5 hours, not the 3 hours we had been thinking, because this train is new. Vivian was not completely familiar with the station and the trains, and there was a moment we were RUNNING through the train station to meet the train, baby and bags in hand.  The train was REALLY nice and modern, reminding us more of an airplane.  We pulled every trick in the world out of our hats to occupy Ben, then we arrived in Xinyang, the largest city in Ben's hometown area.  We were here to apply for Ben's passport. We stepped off the train and I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen, when all of the sudden the orphanage director, Mr. Chen was in front of us and a women was grabbing Ben from my arms, cooing and singing to him.  Next to her was his nanny, the same woman who gave him to me on Monday.  I saw her eyes well up and mine did too, and off they walked with Ben, ohhing and ahhing.  He looked completely blase, and I knew he knew exactly who these ladies were.  I walked behind them with tears continuing to flow.  These were his people.  

We all got in an van, with Ben in the FRONT SEAT with the woman who I learned was the second in command, much to Tom's mortification. When in Rome, let your child ride on someone's lap in the front seat of a van!  

They took us to the government office where we applied for the passport- it was pretty empty and went very quickly.  The assistant director gave Ben this marshmallow candy which he SHOVED in his mouth, much to my shock, I waited patiently watching until he swallowed it all without choking. No problem! Looks like he can handle much bigger things than I have been giving him!

Then we we out front, and Mr. Chen asked that we all take a picture together:  

Nanny is next to me, then assistant director, Mr. Chen is in the back.

After Mr. Chen offered Tom a cigarette which he accepted (I was glad we had read up on current customs in China and how to be polite) we were off to the orphanage!  We stopped along the way to pick up a man from the local civil affairs office, he was going to video tape and photograph the event!

During the one hour ride, I had a chance to talk with his nanny via Vivian to translate. She said that she and I were the same age.  I realized she must have thought how different our lives were, two 31 year olds across the world from each other.  She had loved Ben for 1 year, and I would love him for the rest of his life.  I showed her photos of his play room at home and she gave me a thumbs up sign.  We talked more about Ben, and I found out she and 1 other nanny had watched him and his friend for 7 days and 7 nights following their cleft surgery.  She asked if we would e-mail pictures once home, to which we said YES, and we took the orphanage's e-mail address with us. 

When we arrived, I recognized the outside from our pictures on this blog post.   As we climbed out of the van, I immediately heard shouting above.  I looked up and saw 5 nannies in blue coats, calling down happily to their Min Yong. They were waving and smiling and shouting in Mandarin, and all at once I started to cry again.

We went upstairs and the nannies grabbed him from the other woman, and passed him around like a hot potato, all begging him to reach out his arms to them.  There were 6 smaller babies in the first room, all in cribs, and the remainder of the kids, the 5 bigger kids, were hanging out in the room either been held or in a walker,  I can't even remember how many nannies there were for all these kids-six? There was a lot of love there!  I asked if we could see where Ben slept, and they took us over to the adjoining room where there were 6 empty cribs.  The cribs looked much different than U.S. cribs.  I started to take a picture when, much to his dismay, they plunked Ben down in his old bed for the picture. We also had told everyone in advance that we knew the parents coming to adopt the only only toddler boy there.  He was presented to us almost immediately when we arrived but he was very shy and started to cry when we looked at him.  We did get some pictures and video for our friends, so that was one mission accomplished. 

 Ben's bed

We were then ushered outside and into a nearby room (all the doors of all the rooms were wide open to the outside) Here was a playroom, as well as giant framed pictures of many of the children.  This was Ben's:

 With is guy friend

 Kissing his friends goodbye.

A few minutes later, we were told it was time for lunch and were ushered out.  We were taken to a building a few minutes away and were told we would have local Chinese.  I wish I could even begin to to describe this building, but in the end, we were ushered into a room in the back with the typically round table and lazy susan.  By this time someone had finally given me Ben back, but I was so at a loss.  He was hungry, I usually feed him by ripping things up and putting them on the highchair tray, and offering him items with my fingers (yes, I know, pretty bad, but we have limited means to wash spoons which he always pulls out of our hands, so you do what you can in China).

Luckily, the assistant director again took him from me and had him the entire meal.  I was somewhat pleased to see him thrashing around when she held him and didn't fed him fast enough, or he just was bored and being a typical 1 year old, much like he has been with us. 

Now to the meal! I did not go vegetarian here out of politeness, and oh my, everything was so delicious, flavorful but not greasy, as much of the food here has been (I am pretty sure my clothes will no longer fit when we ;eave, they are already pretty tight as I have probably gained more weight in a week as I have in all of 2012- looks like I got some baby weight!)  I laughed to myself as the director continuously filled Tom's bowl full of food making him try everything. 

Then lunch was over and it was time to go to the train station.  At first everyone was in the van, then we dropped off people quickly along the way, so my planned speech of gratitude became less important.  When Mr. Chen dropped us off at the train we thanks him profusely and then we were at the train station.  It had literally been a 4 hour whirlwind of events.  We had to wait 20 minutes in the station.  While waiting, two women kept staring and smiling at us- finally they said something to Vivian and she spoke back to them.  After a bit of a conversation, she said,  "These women tell you that you have a warm heart, to adopt this child and bring him to the U.S."  I asked her to tell them that we feel so lucky to have him.  They smiled and nodded at this. Then Vivian told us that most people in China have no idea about China-U.S. adoption.  I told her everyone in the U.S. knew about China-U.S. adoption, and this shocked her.  Once on the train, I told her about domestic adoption in the U.S., where birth moms pick out the parents for their children. She was shocked.  Two countries, so many differences. 

The train ride went OK, but by the time it arrived in the station, Ben started to wail.  He was just exhausted.  We had to wait in a taxi line that was similar to a cattle heard of smoking men. Ben was not interested in being smooshed by men either, so he began to wail.  No one in line offered to move us forward.  I poked my head out of the "line" to the man getting the cabs for everyone, and he called us and our wailing boy forward for the next cab.  Finally!!  Once back, Ben was pretty cranky.  We finally laid him down at 6:30pm and he was out in a second, and just woke up at 6 a.m. today.  

Overall, the visit was more than we could have wished for.  We even have some video from visiting with the nannies. I don't even know how to end this with right words, we are just so grateful for every minute of this awesome gift God has given us. 

Day 2 of forever

Well, Ben Yong slept through the night until 5:30 a.m. this morning, and he probably would have slept a little longer if Tom and I were not whispering.  I did my best to sleep, but spent many hours just making sure he was breathing. :)

We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant- free breakfast buffet with a hotel stay seems to be very common here.  Ben Yong was a trooper, ate 2 steamed buns with meat, scrambled eggs and watermelon.  After that we had to go do more paperwork- first finalizing the adoption at the same Civil Affairs Office we met him yesterday, then to the notary office for more paperwork.  I definitely learned how Ben Yong acts when tired.  I couldn't figure out why nothing made him happy until he passed out between our exiting the bus and riding the elevator up to our room. It was exactly his nap time. He has now been sleeping for 1.5 hours, so we are good there!

Playing in the play area at the office- so dirty I was wiping everything off with kid's wipes, but it was all we could do to entertain him.

 Our unofficial picture after we had just taken the official one- already he is melting down.

Our Emperor Sleeps

We are done for the day and will just be hanging out until bed.  Tomorrow we make the long trek to Xinyang and then Luoshan County, and I admit I am dreading it, but would have never forgiven myself if we missed this opportunity to talk more with the orphanage director and the nannies about Ben Yong, and to see how he acts when we sees them- then we will know if we have seen the real Ben Yong yet!  We are bringing snacks for the kids and nannies, as we have already given gifts to the director and the nanny when we met them yesterday.  I am also bringing pieces of paper and asking the nanny and director to each write a note to Ben- based on how kind they were yesterday, I think they would like this.  We'll have the note translated and then he will always have this memory from the people who loved him- because he obviously has been loved-for the first year of his life.

I don't even know where to start.  Excuse the details as I try to remember every second!

When we arrived at the Civil Affairs Office, there were 10 other families waiting for their children in addition to our group of 4 couples.  Tom and I had been told in the ride over that Ben would probably be last, as he had a planned arrival of 11am due to the distance they were coming.  We all were milling around talking, waiting, until all at once one of our group members said. "Oh my God! There's Cam!"  Her son was there and all at once we were all video taping and picture taking for her. Her son was smiles from the second he met them, and immediately ran over to the play area to play with the couple.  Over the next hour, they trickled in, most wailing once their nannies handed them over.  Our one poor couple's son (and 2 other children from other agencies' kids) and complete meltdowns, arching their backs, screaming.  It was so hard to watch.  Suddenly it was just us waiting.  Somehow, I was so afraid I would not recognize him.  But then a soft haired little head was coming up the steps in the arms of a Chinese woman, and I knew it was him.  The nanny seemed to recognize me immediately (we had sent pictures) and handed him to me.  He was stoic.  He did not cry, he did not smile, he just kind of was.  In the next 15 minutes, we took a photo, the orphanage director came over and met us, and invited us to lunch during our visit, the nanny gave us his formula, and suddenly we were getting back on the bus.  In the interim, I had showed Ben a little barnyard flap book I had brought, and he had accepted it as best he could wrapped in a million  layers of clothing. I had also earned one smile by kissing his little shoes.  Yes, will go to any lengths!!

We got back to the hotel and I took off one layer of Ben Yong's clothing, trying not to make it too traumatic for him.  After a few minutes, he was still a little bundled, so I took one more layer off.  I got a few brief smiles but he was still a little "out of it" from being completely overwhelmed and confused. GOD BLESS TOM, he has been AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING.   He mixed a formula bottle for  Ben Yong because it was also his naptime, and Ben Yong and I llaid down with the bottle.  All of the sudden, after the bottle, he broke down into terrible, heartsick cries with big alligator tears.  It was like it all caught up with him and he just wanted to go home.  He cried for about 5 minutes (felt like eternity) then we settled in to the armchair and read books.  He was so, so tired.  After books, I started to sing to him- HOLY COW, he likes my singing!  He fell asleep in my arms for about an hour, while Tom went out to find some noodles for lunch from all of us.

After he woke up, he was happier.  We let him walk while we held his hands and he loved it.  (Smiles). When I was feeding him noodles he shook his head no at one point, and I laughed, and he cracked up, and we did a lot of head shaking.  Also while eating he pulled himself up to standing  then suddenly, took three steps alone!  I was so surprised I dropped his lunch all over the floor and we all laughed again.  After eating, I was ready to try to change him out of all of this clothes, and I learned he loved to be kissed all over, so more smiles!!

It was a tiring rest of the day including a trip to Wal Mart, but he ate, smiled more, and is sleeping now for one hour (yes, more singing from me, believe it or not!) and hopefully it will last!  My Grandma in heaven must have rallied all the angels and saints in heaven to pray for Ben Yong, because it has been an OK day for him, and a miraculous day for us! !!!

A few hours away

We are leaving in 2 short hours for the Civil Affairs Office to meet our little boy.  I cannot stop thinking about how afraid he is going to be when we take him.  He has probably never even seen a white person before. We will smell wrong, hold him wrong, feed him wrong.  We will not speak to him in a language he understands.  He will lose his friends, his nanny, his everything.

We believe and have seen from our adoptive friends that he will love us in time, maybe even in just a few days he will begin to feel very safe.  But the thought of his grief, however short or long, makes the day a joyful and painful one all at once.

Love bears all things, 
believes all things, 
hopes all things, 
endures all things.
Love never fails.
Cor 13:7-8

May our love never fail our little boy.

We have arrived in Zhengzhou, Henan Province!  As our travel group of 4 couples stepped out of the plane, we all cheered when we realized the weather outside was at least 15 degrees warmer than Beijing- at 40 degrees F, it felt like Florida!

We were met by our new guide Vivian who quickly escorted us onto our van to the hotel.  She handed out a page of new information about each of our children, and the van feel silent as we all read – we read about what brand of formula Ben (Xiao Yong) likes, what brand of rice cereal, his favorite foods (many), that he likes orange juice or hot water in his bottle as well (everyone drinks hot water here), that he has only 5 friends living with him, including only 1 other boy, who is our new friends in Atlanta’s son to be- they are leaving for China next month.

They also said about him, "His personality is simple and honest. He is an independent boy.  He smiles a lot.  He likes others playing with him.  He gives you cute smiles when you play with him.  You can hold him when he cries or gets fussy.  He likes new toys. We haven't found anything he is afraid of.  He can stand by himself now. He is learning to walk.  He can walk several steps with holding by adult.  He is very lovely.  It's very funny that when nanny pack her things up before getting off work, he will watch his nanny and show the sad expression on his face.  He will hold the nanny's hand, shaking it and saying goodbye when nanny goes out the from the door.  He likes to watch cartoon movie.  He feels very happy and jumps in his walker when he watches the the TV program he finds interesting."

I quickly told Vivian that we would very much like to visit the institute, particularly on the same day we also have to travel to the main city nearby, Xinyang, to get Ben’s passport.  She first said, “um, no, this is too far to do in one day, I am sorry.”  My expression must have been very obvious, because the next moment she said, “one minute, one minute, I will see.”  She got on her cell phone and spoke for several minutes in Mandarin to someone, then came back and said, “Ok, Luoshan County is 1 hour from Xinyang. When we go buy the train tickets today, we will get tickets for a later train so we can go.”  So WE ARE GOING!  This was so, so important to us, both to get pictures of our friend’s child for her, and to see where Ben has lived for the past 14 months,  to meet his nannies and maybe even hear more about his life.  Later Vivian told us the institute director is “very, very kind.” He personally is picking us up in Xinyang and driving us the 1 hour to Luoshan County!!

We also found out that we get Ben earlier than we expected-tomorrow morning, NOT afternoon! 

So meanwhile, we have been settling in to the hotel, unpacking all of our stuff for Ben.

They just rolled in the crib so now it feels REALLY real!!!

We are leaving today via plane for Zhengzhou, the capital of Ben's province. We'll get Ben tomorrow afternoon!  I am looking forward to getting to the hotel in Zhengzhou and unpacking all of Ben's stuff to get ready.  We found an awesome kid's toy store yesterday and bought a steering wheel car toy that speaks Mandarin (not sure what it says, probably "get the heck out of the way! and "watch out!" based on the driving here) and a wooden China map puzzle that says on the top "I love my homeland."

There is a Catholic Church a block from our hotel, but the English mass is at 4pm, long after we leave today (7:45am).  Yesterday we also went to the Great Wall, the jade factory, drove around the Olympic Stadium, and went to an acrobatics show.  Three additional families joined us, and we now have met the 3 other families who will be traveling to Zhengzhou with us today.

At the Great Wall

You see some crazy stuff in Beijing.  There were about 40 more Santas behind these guys. 

Day 1 Beijing

This morning we met 2 other adoptive families- one is with CCAI and will also be adopting their son from the Henan province.  The other was actually a WACAP family who was with our group to take advantage of our excellent guide, George. Coincidentally we are all adopting boys, all with same special need, and we all started out trying to adopt from another country before ending up in China SN program.

This morning we took a rickshaw ride to a "historical" area of Beijing.  If you know me well you can imagine I was mortified by the prospect of having another human pull the two of us around on a bike, but there was not much to say about it, I just gave him a big tip!

We went to the home of Ms. Wu, who had lived in her one room home for 40 years. She told us a bit about her life (translated through our guide George) and served us tea and snacks.

                                                     Ms. Wu's bridal trunks

We then went to the government-run silk factory.  After getting a demo, we were set free for some shopping, where we bought a traditional outfit for Ben to have and a few other gifts.

Silk cocoons

Last, we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  It is COLD in Beijing, and even though we are from Chicago, we usually don't spend 2 hours outside in the cold.  By this time, I was FREEZING.  Eventually our other group members (from Wisconsin and Denver) admitted they were frozen too.  You can only pack so much, so no one had warm boots or down coats.  Luckily, we ended right before sundown.

 Our little group in the square, across the street from the forbidden city 

 Tom with a turtle-dragon

Trying to see inside the emperor's home

Jetlag has hit me the past 2 days at 5pm Beijing time- I fall into a coma for about 2 hours but am then fine.  Tom of course, is fine! Just 3 more days until BEN!

We are in Beijing!

We arrived safe and sound in Beijing after an uneventful 14 hour flight.

Our guide met us at the airport and had a driver ready to take us to Beijing. The hotel is great and modern.  The hotel has more than enough free items in the room, including our own personal gas mask:

We are off now to a day of sightseeing (this leg of the trip is really about getting families new to China assimilated before they hand you a child). We'll post some pictures, though I know the pictures you want to see are the ones of Ben, we still have a few days to wait for those..come on Monday!!

At O'Hare Airport

"I can't believe its finally happening!!!"

We've been hearing this a lot lately.  And we agree! In January 2009, Tom and I decided that we knew 3 things: 1) We wanted to grow our family 2) There were many living children who needed families and 3) We are all brothers and sisters of each other, and we have a responsibility to care for each other.  The smallest thing we could do was be a family to one child.

We attended Adoption 101 on Valentine's Day 2009.  Then, none of our friends had kids..  We thought we would be the first! Imagine that. Then there was Poland, and meeting sweet Kacper, and losing Kacper to a loving Polish couple, and starting over again in China. And I know many people are angry about Poland, angry for our hurt and our loss. But its funny, somehow, the whole big mess was about LOVE. One woman who would break the rules to give a child she loved what she thought was the BEST family.  Another family who would defy her to get the son they dreamed of and loved. And somehow, we were stuck in the middle, just wanting to love that same boy forever. When it was all over, I guess people thought it might break us of our plan.  But I'll never forget the day Tom looked at me and said, "This whole thing just makes me want to adopt more than ever before."  We had already only glimpsed at how simple it was to fall in love with a child who was ours through Christ and the miracle of adoption, and it felt awesome.

Every so often, someone will say to us, "it's a really great thing you guys are doing, adopting." I kind of follow it with an "Um, well, we wanted to build our family, and every child deserves a family..." but really, it is very awkward to me, because no one plans to adopt for completely altruistic reasons.  I don't think anyone would go through all of this without knowing that, at the end of the day, no matter what, you would be getting back a child's love, which would trump all else.

I read this yesterday from the blog, "Tiny Green Elephants" and it just sums up so completely what we dream of in our house:

 "I know it may be scary when you first think about it [adopting], but God is serious about adoption, and he's serious about the kids he loves, and if you don't believe me, read it over and over again in his book.  "Feed my sheep," "Love the least of these,"  "Love others as yourself," is what he pretty much says is the point of it all.  Then, as it turns out, it ends up being the biggest blessing of your life, cause guess what, he really loves you too, so much, and he'll help you.  And when he says he came to bring you abundant life, he meant it, but not in the ways you might think at first.  But in rich hearts, full arms, sweet days filled with love, joy, purpose and every other thing that people seek after constantly, literally in your own little home.

Our deepest gladness.   "The place God calls us to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world's deepest hunger meet." -Frederick Beuchner

http://www.tinygreenelephants.com/

Boarding for Beijing!

Last Minute Scrambling

Yes, we are running around like mad people trying to get everything done, and are BOTH a bundle of nerves!  But it is starting to feel real.  We had our last days of work today, and when I walked out to my car yesterday, there was a car seat in the back seat!

Today my Aunt dropped by this gift for Ben from my cousin Malena- so cute:

And finally, today we received one last picture of Ben!  It looks like his head is freshly shaved, so I am glad to have an extra hat.  It is supposed to be cold in his province (though it looks mild in this picture) and it will definitely get cold in Chicago!

This is a picture we received back in the summer from an adoptive mom of the place where Ben is- the metal rails looked familiar in this new picture above:

Two more days...