Guangzhou

Well, we made it to Guangzhou on Saturday.  We used our Marriott points to upgrade to a spacious 1 bedroom suite and it has made a huge difference, giving us all some room to spread out.  We can also eat raw vegetables in the hotel which was not recommended in Zhengzhou.  Our first meal here I ate a BIG delicious Greek salad. :)

The two hour flight was great when the boys were asleep for the first hour.  Then the food came and Evan wanted my bun, Tom's bun, and Ben's (before he made taken more than a bite of one). We had to draw the line at Ben's which resulted in a complete breakdown until the attendant had pity on us (and her own ears) and brought us out another which appeased him.  He also screamed the whole descent, but I think it was in part due to his ears, which broke my heart. He was so upset he wold not drink his bottle or suck on his sucker.  Ben did not need ear tubes, which is unusual for a child with cleft, but I think tubes are in our future here.  I hope our 15 hour flight home goes better...

Evan is coming out on his shell even more here and just loves to smile, laugh and climb! He is really such a gift to our family.  I love looking at the four us and realizing THIS is now our family. He is learning so much, so fast.  He loves brushing his teeth, putting on his own shoes, trying to feed and dress himself, work the I-phone, look at books, play with cars, etc. He also loves to hide anywhere and have us find him. He smiles and holds his arms out to me when we wakes up from sleeping. He gets concerned if one of us is missing.  It's the sweetest.

Out transition has also been smoother than I expected because Evan LOVES Tom. Often he prefers him!  To Tom, this is his life's greatest victory.  He had actually been joking before we left that he was going to make  Evan love him more than me.  (As we know, Ben has a pretty strong attachment to me).  It is so beautiful to see them together.

Yesterday morning we went to do some city touring and our family situation compared to the other families was pretty evident.  While they enjoyed leisurely shopping and sightseeing, we chased and cajoled two toddlers in the blazing heat and humidity and laughed through our exhaustion.  They both have older kids and are adopting slightly younger, calmer, less mobile little girls.

Unfortunately, despite all my Clorox wiping and hand washing and sanitizing, last night Ben and I came down with colds.  So today, Tom is taking Evan to his medical appointment at the U.S. Consulate (requirement for all adoptive kids) and I am giving Ben some extra mom time.  As hard as it was to let them go alone, I do know that I plenty of time to be with Evan for the rest of our lives, and Ben needs quiet and mom.

Here are some pictures:

Throwing money

Day 4 - The Day My Son Had a Coke, and Day 5

Su Min's current life priorities are, in this order:

1. FOOD
2. Drink
3. Baba (Daddy) or Mommy depending on his mood
4. Ben

Even though he is weighing in at a healthy 26 pounds, food is his #1 priority, likely because he never chose when it was time to eat.  For now, we let him have whatever he wants, hoping that in time he know there is always food around if he needs it. We brought a lot of healthy snacks with us, and our reserves are just about depleted. If he hears a wrapper crinkling, he is next to you asking to be picked up to see what you are doing.  If he sees anyone anywhere eating, he starts to go crazy until you find him something too.

Once he has something in hand, he loves to walk, explore, throw stuff, jump on all of us and generally be barrels on fun.  He loves to mimic both actions and words, like throwing his hands up when we say, "Where's Ben?" or hitting himself in the face to be funny. He has already learned the signs for "eat" and "more".  He is making a LOT of sounds for still having an open palate, which is exciting at this point, and yesterday was helping me blow on his hot food, which is a great first step for later speech therapy.

Anyway, yesterday the group decided they wanted to go to the aquarium.  I have pretty strong feelings about aquariums and zoos, but Tom pretty much insisted we tag along as the other alternative was sitting in the hotel room all day. On the way back from the aquarium the group wanted to stop for lunch.  Of course, 12:30pm/naptime with two toddlers, all of my internal alarms were sounding-WARNING WARNING - TODDLER MELTDOWN - but we went along with the group's request.  Luckily they found us a private room, and after the longest 15 minute wait some food came out-- and Su Min went insane.  Screaming, crying, reaching for something.  I got him fried rice, he batted it away. I offered the only other food out, noodles, he batted it away.  I offered water, by then he was arching his back, hysterical.  A mom from across the table said, "I think he wants the coke."  Well at this point, I did what you do in China- I accepted the coke from the other family.  I poured it all out in 4 little glasses until just a little was left and handed him the can.  He swatted it away still screaming and reached for the glass. I drank half and handed it to him, and he chugged the glass down.  There is no question, my son knows what Coke is and apparently loves it. Our little man is also DEFINITELY used to getting everything he wants!!

 Feeding fish from a baby bottle.

 Snoozed.

Feeding lettuce to the turtles. 

Otherwise, things are good-  Tom and another dad made the 20 minute walk to Pizza Hut last night for 10 carry out pizzas.  According to their report, they were laughed and pointed at the whole walk back. One women offered to take them on her scooter which they politely declined. We had a pizza party in the hallway then, and today went to the park this morning.  We are definitely a sight and many people took photos of us or asked to pose with us, especially all the American kiddos in our group.

 The park actually has rides inside for about $1.50 a ride- this is right before Ben changed his mind :)

 No playground, but adult exercise equipment. 

 He LOVES the stroller, wants to ride around all day.

We are struggling a little having a new brother, we wanted mom to carry 

us in the carrier instead of Evan. 

Tomorrow we leave for Guangzhou!

This may not post neatly to blogger, but I am having trouble connected to our VPN and blogger is blocked in China.  Today we went and applied for Su Min’s passport AND visited the Children’s Welfare Institute where he lived until Monday.  In the Henan province, children must go back to their home city to apply for their passports.  The other families’ children lived a shorter distance, so they had all gone the previous afternoon.   We need his passport to fly to the next city and then home.

So our family and our guide met at 7:30am to take the 30 minute cab drive and 1.5 hour bullet train ride to Xinyang City.  The orphanage officer who had brought Su Min to us was there at the train to meet us, and took us to the office to apply for the passport.  The office had recently moved, otherwise this would have been the same place we went with Ben.  I will just say that as a family of 4  We. Are. Chaos.  Discipline or whatever you would call it is a huge issue currently because 1. We are literally stared at everywhere we go, so you would rather the people already staring at you not see you giving your Chinese kid the evil eye or putting them in time out. 2.  Ben is of course struggling so we are trying to be VERY VERY patient (ASKING FOR GRACE FOR MYSELF!) and to really be there for him 3. Does anyone have kids who 

are thrilled to visit the DMV, etc etc and sit in trains, buses and cars all day?    

After the completed the application, on our request, we went to Children’s Welfare Institute.  It was, like most buildings in China it seems, a high rise with outdoor walkways on each level.  People do orphanage visits all kinds of ways, many wear their child in a carrier so that no one (i.e. nanny) can pull them from their arms.  While I had the carrier with us, I just couldn’t do it.  Su Min has been adjusting really well, and I knew there could still be an issue of him not wanting to come back with us, but from reading many, many families experiences, I knew it would be OK.

Just like with Ben, we were hardly out of the car when someone took Su Min from me and walked ahead talking to him and kissing him.  We walked upstairs with them and just like with Ben (though Ben is not from here) nannies gathered and passed him around like a hot potato, asking him to say their names and then laughing and kissing him when he replied.  A point, someone tried to hand him to me and he cried.  A wave of panic came over me, but I let it ride.  The nannies were eager for our guide to translate to us his likes and dislikes. Another nanny told me that she was the one who loaded the flash drive with pictures and had written the corresponding note (our flash drive came back to us with him on Monday). Then someone asked him who Baba was and he pointed to Tom and smiled, then they asked who Mama was and still smiling he pointed to me.  Cheers erupted from everyone and I was SO GRATEFUL for that moment.  

We asked to see his bed and they took us back into another room.  The situation there was not glamourous and might look pretty dire in pictures, but there were a lot of nannies and a LOT of love. At this point we were in a room where lunch was being prepared and it looked like the kids were fed in their cribs in an adjacent room as the food was brought around. Previously our guide and the orphanage officer had separately asked me why we were not adopting a girl, to which I had answered, “Next time.” J It is hard to request a girl hen there are so may boys waiting, At that point the officer brought out a little girl and told me they had just started preparing her file for adoption if I wanted to have her too! I laughed and said yes! If only it was that easy.

We asked about a little boy who is being adopted in a few weeks (I had met his family on Facebook) and they wanted me to know that they are good friends.  I asked if we could take a photo and told them the boys would live in the same city in the U.S. and they were so excited, telling each other and smiling and talking.

In the background there was a woman crying.  The officer explained to our guide this woman and the other nanny we had met took special care of Su Min.  I wanted more than anything to just hug her but it felt presumptuous.  I did my best to smile, ask questions, take their advice about Su Min’s preferences and to sneakily pull out snacks to bribe Su Min back with.  We were not there long at all when we had to leave to catch the train back. Su Min saw that bag in my hand so he did not cry when someone finally handed him back to me, and I received sounds of approval from the nannies.

As we walked out down the long corridor, I turned back to them and said thank you in Mandarin.  I don’t even know if I could have found the right words to say to them if I spoke more than 3 words of Mandarin, and I hoped they wouldn’t somehow be offended by my thanks.  But they just smiled at me and nodded through their tears, and I knew they knew what I was trying to say.  They were such a picture there that I never wanted to forget, nodding their heads to me, and I looked back again, and said it again, this time my eyes swimming with tears too.  Their job is not an easy one, whether children leave or stay, they must carry some heartache for every one of them, for different reasons.

So we left.  There was a 2 hour commute back to the hotel with two cranky toddlers who had no real naps. Needless to say, they and Tom were asleep by 7:45pm and that is why I am in the hotel restaurant with a drink, making sure we never forget this day and all the love our spunky firecracker received from Xinyang City CWI,  

Day 2

Today our adoption was finalized from the Chinese side of things.  As far as they are concerned, Su Min is ours.  The rest of our trip is getting his Chinese passport and his U.S. visa. Today we went back to the place where we got Su Min yesterday and completed documents, then went to the notary to finalize more papers.  It was an entire morning of walking and waiting and riding in a kind of hot coach bus, but the boys did great.

It's official!!!  I know, Ben is thrilled.

Su Min is doing amazing.  He loves to play, wander and wreak havoc.  He LOVES to eat and requests a snack in hand at all times.  We see smiles often,he already checks in to find me and requests to be picked up.  He will also happily hang out with Baba (Tom).  He is definitely talking a lot, frustrating because we have no idea what he is saying, but is great to know he is already acquiring so much language with his unrepaired cleft palate.  Several people have commented on how loved he must have been, big, chunky, smiley and walking and playing, curious and timid all at the same time. 

Ben is doing pretty darn good too.  He has already realized that little brothers can be annoying, and we are working on overtime to shower both boys with a lot of attention.  This morning he was NOT thrilled that Su Min was still here, but at the same time, Su Min will disappear into the bathroom with Tom for a minute and Ben is asking where he is. 

While our hotel is great and we are getting by, we are already looking forward to our flight to Guangzhou on Saturday when we move to a one bedroom suite in a Marriott with lots of accommodations compared to what  we have- a regular hotel room with limited dining options.  Ben appears to be on a bit of a hunger strike, Su Min is a bottomless pit, and Tom and I alternate between loving the Chinese food and feeling kind of sick from the change in our diets. 

Tomorrow we will take the 2 hour bullet train ride to Xinyang City, apply for Su Min's passport and visit the orphanage and hopefully the spot he was found as well.  Then we have two days of free time while we wait for passports before flying to Guangzhou, where the U.S. Consulate is.  

Interesting side note, while there were 2,000 China-U.S. adoptions in 2013, the average Chinese person is not aware these adoptions exist.  In a country of 1.3 billion (1 our of every 5 people on this planet is Chinese) 2,000 is pretty small. Last year there were about 100,000 domestic adoptions in China, so again, we a big number in some ways but small in the life of everyday China.  At the notary office today, a man followed me, taking a video of me on his I-phone while I walked with the boys. Back when we got Ben, I blogged about the women who stopped our guide in Xinyang to ask her why we had Ben with us. 

For now, both boys are napping and in a few hours we are going to take a walk over the park.  Just a normal day 2 as a family of 4!

The Day We Became 4.

At 9:30 a.m., we joined up in the lobby with the three other families from our agency.  One family lives in China and has been fostering their son, so they were only along to do the paperwork.  The other two families would be getting their kids that day with us.  Two of the families have older kids (4 kids and 3 kids) so Ben was and continues to be just ecstatic to play with them and over the moon when they shower attention on him. Our guide Rita met us and we went by coach bus to the Civil Affairs Office of Zhengzhou, capital of the Henan province. This was the same exact trip we made with Ben, to the same place, so it all felt familiar and completely different all at once.  It was on the way over that Tom realized I never put them memory card in the nice camera (perfect) and my phone was at 15% power (even better).  Failure as Su Min's parents already! Luckily Tom's camera was fulled charged (of course).

For some reason, I expected Su Min to be there already.   He was not, but another family's little girl was and everyone was in a flurry to take pictures and video of them.  In the next 30 minutes the other family's little girl came with her foster mother.  That was VERY hard to watch as the little girl literally screamed and tried to leap out of her new mom's arms to get back to the foster mom.  The new mom came prepared with a bottle of formula and within 10 minutes her new daughter was quiet in her arms with the bottle.

 So then it was just us waiting, just like with Ben last time.  We waited, and waited, and waited. I wondered if they missed the train, if he was ill and could not travel, if for some reason we could not adopt him.  Then finally a van pulled up. Tom looked out the door and clapped his hands and smiled at me to say, "it's him!" Ben and I stood in the center of the room holding hands, everyone quiet around us, and in he came in the arms of the director.  She brought him to me and I was not sure if I should immediately take him or not. I did and  he almost immediately started to cry.  I tried handing him a toy car but no luck, so I held and rocked him for a minute as he cried.  Then  I reached into my pocket, pulled out a sucker and showed it to him- he let me touch it to his lips and then opened his mouth and he was quiet, head on my shoulder.  I just held and swayed him, trying to not make any sudden moves, and I could hear Tom talking to Ben- despite all our planning, Ben was upset.  After about 10 minutes, Ben started to bawl.  I sat down on the floor with both my boys, and then Su Min started to bawl because Ben was crying.  So there I was, on the floor of the Civil Affairs Office with two bawling boys, and I thought briefly, "what the heck have I done?"  After a minute, I reminded Ben that he had brought puffs for Su Min, and where were they? My sweet boy perked up, wiped his tears and ran to get the puffs.  He brought them back and immediately, eyes still red, tried to give his brother puffs.  My Ben.  Then he ran to our bag and got the truck for Evan and dumped it in his lap and got out his own truck and began to play.  And that was that!

While I was with the boys, Tom was completing paperwork and giving our gifts and donations to the director.  She mentioned to him that Su Min gets motion sickness.  He forgot to tell me until poor Su Min was sick all over me and him on the ride back to the hotel.  Poor kiddo.  We mopped ourselves up as best we could, then when we got into the room he was totally fine with letting me wipe down and change him.  I then brought him over to the toys and he immediately began to explore.  He threw a block, I said , Whoa! and we got our first smile and laugh!  I somewhat regretted it later and he began to chuck die cast cars everywhere and laugh, but it was amazing all the same to see those smiles.


It is 5:37 a.m. here now, so everyone managed to sleep through the night.  We will see what the next day brings. At this moment, I am feeling very grateful.

Pictures from our morning:

 This was a play area inside the mall we walked to- this was a second floor outdoor area- Ben played in this "sandbox"- I think it was buckwheat? and jumped in the bounce house. It was about $1.50 to play in each.

 

Across the way was a baby massage shop which I could not get a picture of- this was something I had never seen before but it was literally babies and toddlers getting all manner of massages- pretty interesting. Below are some latest fashions- note the quilted overalls and the split pants.

Below is the "sidewalk" that is actually like a road just for scooters, and anyone like us who needs to risk their life to walk somewhere. 

When we came back to our room we saw cribs waiting outside the rooms of the other families arriving today...

Ben's special gift I had been saving to give him today was the Mack Truck from Disney Cars- I gave it to him this morning and laughed he was so happy- in fact, 10 minutes into playing with it he said, "Mommy, I'm so happy!"  When we were at the mall, we came across some not quite authentic mack trucks with Sally and Bernolli inside.  As I was already having images of the boys fighting over Ben's new truck, Ben (and Evan) also scored two additional mack trucks.  This is all the packaging it came in.

We are here!  It was a LONG journey - 15 hour flight with a 1:15 am take off, 7 hour layover, 2 hour flight, then 1 hour taxi ride - but we made it.  There was nothing more assuring than seeing the agency's guide waving our agency's flag as we got to baggage claim. We have a different guide this time but she is just as wonderful as our first.

Our timing worked out pretty well with the flights and jet lag- we were are able to sleep through the night (until 5:00 am anyway) China Time so hopefully we will be in sync by the time we meet our little boy tomorrow.

We received 2 pages of info about Su Min- he seems a bit more reserved than we first thought.  We also found out the name of his "best friend" and it is none other than the little boy of someone who we met via Facebook, also from Illinois, who is coming to adopt him in the next few months.

Today we will be checking out the giant two story mall in the morning and meeting the three other adoptive families in the afternoon.  One is traveling with 5 kids and another with 3 kids, so we will definitely be a sight when we are all together.

One day to go!

Is Ben coming?

This is definitely the first question everyone asks.  And the answer is, "Yes!"  First, I could not imagine him being away from me for 2 weeks.  I honestly think it would impact our relationship for a very long time and he would lose some trust in me not easily gained back. He is too young to understand "two days" let alone "two weeks." Second, we are counting on him to show Evan he can trust us to care for him.  We have heard that bringing other children tends to make the newest child attach more quickly.  Ben is So excited for his brother. He sets a place at the table for him, wants to buy "one for Evan" no matter what we are buying, and lights up whenever he sees his photo.  I have no doubt our transition is going to be a rocky one, but we are hoping we have set a good stage for Ben as to what is about to happen.

So yes, he is with us, and he did really, really well on the 15 hour flight.  Now we are in the middle of a 7 hour layover, and in about 3 hours we will be on our way to Zhengzhou. We just caved and bought a small $6 lego set for Ben.  We are hoping he does not completely lose it when we get on another plane shortly.

Ten things we know about Evan Su Min (Zai Zai)

1. He was very, very likely born on September 3, 2012. He was a healthy 7 pound boy. He was turning over at 3 months old and sitting at 6 months old.

2. He lives in the Henan Province.

3. He has his cleft lip repaired in Beijing when he was 7 months old. He has an unrepaired cleft palate.

4. At one year old, he loved to climb and would climb everywhere to get a toy he wanted. If music was on, he liked to sway along. He was imitating words, mama and baba. He was eating noodles, steamed eggs, fresh fruit and rice porridge.

5.  By 16 months, he was able to walk slowly (to get toys he wanted). :) If there was a nanny sitting down, he would make his way over to sit in her lap, and push others away if they wanted to sit.  He liked to walk around holding his nanny's hand.

6.  At 20 months he was reported to be very good at sharing his toys and comforting crying children. HE would happily touch his head when praised, and could say several words such as mom, aunt, etc.

7. At 22 months, we found out he goes home in the evenings with a foster family.  We heard this, "when his foster mom is looking for something, Su Min will find the item for his foster mom, when eating, Su Min will stuff food in his foster mother’s mouth, asking his foster mom to eat with him. When his foster mom takes him outdoors, Su Min will walk by himself in the front, looking back at his foster mom once in a while with a
smile that seems to say I am walking faster than you." He is speaking in 2 word phrases.

8. They call him Zai Zai.

9. Someone who met him last week called him a bright, smart, sunny boy.

10. We cannot wait to be his family.

Part II - Evan

Hello again!  We decided to pick up on our first blog since we are on our way back to China.

We decided to begin the adoption process again in July 2013.  Our dossier was logged in to China just following the Chinese New Year and 3 weeks later we received a phone call with our little boy's file and immediately said YES!

Su Min, July 2014

It was a long and painful paperwork wait on the front end, but thankfully things sped up near the end and now we are almost there!!

One of my dear Polish adoptive families just announced that today is the year anniversary of the day their adoption was finalized in Poland.  It hit me like a truck because this family and we hoped that we would be in Poland for our second trips together.  Then it seemed like we may travel first, then November came and our life felt apart.

When I think of the early months of 2012 the only thing I feel is darkness. Emptiness. Silence.  While the world rushed passed us, we just mourned our lost Polish adoption, all while hanging on to a thread of hope that K. may be our son after all, and at the same time wishing he would not be removed from another placement, for his sake.  There were so many thoughts, so much grief, so much waiting and so few answers.   I was so numb.  The baby items in our home haunted us.

Would I have ever thought that in a short year I would be SO FULL of joy, that our life would be so full of promise and thanksgiving? It must be the way a woman feels after childbirth, somehow, all the pain, all the months of months of waiting for one thing or another were gone the moment we had Ben in our arms.  It was like nothing at all. No big deal. I would do it all over again in a second, all the loss, the deep, profound loss of K. to another family, the days when I thought I could not make it through without knowing if K. would be ours or not, the brutal waiting, I would do it all again knowing it has lead us here.