1 month since Gotcha Day!

Baby Girl has now been home for 2 weeks but honestly acts like she has been here forever!  We keep watching for signs of her grieving, and there may be some subtle signs, but her transition has been so much better than we ever thought possible! Though we know that hard days are likely to come, we are enjoying these so called "easy" days that the Lord has blessed us with thus far!

In 4 short weeks (only 3 weeks home), Baby Girl:

• Has learned some sign language (Thank You, All-Done, More, Bye-Bye)
• Has learned to blow kisses
• LOVES getting kisses and leans in for one when you ask her for a kiss!
• Responds to her name
• can sit unassisted
• gives Hi-Fives to her siblings
• can army crawl like a mad woman!
• can put herself in a sitting position from laying down
• can pull herself up to a standing position from the floor
• can say "Ma-Ma"
• Babbles much more
• sleeps 10-11 hours at night
• takes 2 good naps during the day
• Is so much stronger than she was
• has gained 3 pounds (no thanks to some China parasite she brought home!)
• Is a big time "Mama's Girl"!
• Loves to dance and listen to music!
• no longer cries in her car seat (that lasted about 2 days)
• Loves to play in the pool!
• Is learning to cruise around the coffee table
• Can do the splits like no other!

Gotcha Day 6-16-13

1 week home 7-3-13

1 week home!

2 weeks home!

We have a long way to go to get her caught up to "normal", but we are taking it slow and enjoying the time that she is dependent on us to care for her.  As she becomes more mobile, we know she will also become more independent - which we want, just not right now!

Her pediatrician has ordered her physical therapy and occupational therapy to help her grow stronger in her gross and fine motor skills (as of 3 weeks ago she was only able to do things physically that a 6 month old could do).  We haven't heard from them since our appointment 3 weeks ago, but want to go slow with introducing her to new people and having strangers play and touch her.  We do want her to get stronger though, so we will wait and see what they recommend for her for therapy. 

All siblings are adjusting well as well! This girl may never learn to walk with all the little people she has to carry her around!

Video of Gotcha Day!

I tried to send this video via email for upload while we were in China, but it was too large!  This is the first time the nanny placed Baby Girl in my arms!  I was super nervous about this moment (as you can tell by all the fast patting!), but it was so much better than I ever could have expected!  You can see Baby Girl crying as the nanny turns her around and then she stops right when I hold her!  Her placing her head on my shoulder was the sweetest moment, so much sweeter than I ever thought possible!  We were prepared for the crying that comes from grieving and it still hasn't come.  I know it still can, but for now, we are praising God for the quick and easy attachment we have experienced thus far! 

 

We made it home!

After 33 hours of travel, we finally made it home Thursday morning at 3:30 am! We started our journey home at 7:30 am on Wednesday morning (6:30 pm on Tuesday, TN time!) when we had to leave our hotel to catch at 10:00 flight to Beijing.  Baby girl did great on this flight with no crying as long as she was entertained!  Once in Beijing, we had to collect all of our checked baggage, take a bus to the international terminal, check in at the United desk, fight for seats all together :), go through customs again, find a bit to eat, then get ready to fly again!

Security check here was different than anywhere else.  All electronics had to come out of the bags, which basically meant emptying an entire bag! Then, they had Baby Girl taste all of her baby food!  I packed the squeezable baby foods for her on the plane.  All were new and still sealed packed in my quart size ziplock, but they made me open the food and have her taste it.  Well, once you give a baby food, you better not take it away!  I somehow managed to hide 2 baby bottles in my diaper bag that they did not find!  One, I wrapped up in her blanket and they just moved the blanket around without taking it out. The second one was zipped in a side pouch that they missed!  Thank you, Lord!  They made me dump out her water sippy cup and I think I would have cried right there had they made me dump out her bottles!  In the states, you can travel with a baby bottle, but we learned that China won't let you (unless you hide it!).

What was supposed to be a 12.5 hour flight to DC ended up being a 15 hour trip because we sat in the plan, at our original gate for 2.5 hours before we were cleared for take off.  This was agonizing realizing that we were more than likely going to miss our connecting flight home and there wasn't one thing we could do about it.  Baby Girl did really well on this flight as well!  So much better than I expected after her very first flight from Gansu.  Thanks for all of the prayers!  I did have to do a good bit of walking the aisles of the plane to try to get her to sleep, but I didn't mind as long as she wasn't crying!  She didn't sleep a whole lot.  Maybe 3 hours total, and that was 3 hours of restless sleep.  But, she was pretty happy for the most part, so it was bearable!

Once we landed in DC, Baby Girl was officially a US Citizen! This was a happy moment for sure! She is now an American!  We had to take a bus to the customs terminal, clear customs with an officer who clearly was in no hurry, claim our baggage once again, drop it off in hopes of getting it on the plane to Nashville, run to the only security check point open with only one lane open, run about 10 minutes to our gate only to find out we missed our flight by about 10 minutes. We knew it was going to be a close call, but we also knew that we didn't have enough formula or diapers to make it through till the next morning. 

The guy working the counter offered us a flight leaving in 15 minutes to Knoxville instead, so we took that flight and had my wonderful sister working on securing us a rental car to drive the extra 3 hours from Knoxville to Franklin.  Only one glitch left!  I left the baby bag at the security check point!  The officer had pulled it off the table to run it through again and I left without realizing it!  This was not an item we could just leave behind since it had her last bottle and diaper in it.  So, I had to run the 10 minutes back to the security check point and beg for my bag!  Here I am sweating and panting and the guy won't give me my bag since it was abandoned.  I'm trying my best to describe my dire need to make the flight that was leaving immediately but he insisted on getting his supervisors approval before handing it over to me.  And where was this supervisor??  In the bathroom, taking his sweet time!! AGHH!  I paced and paced.  Someone finally went to go get the obviously constipated gentleman and he gave a quick approval for me to take my belongings.  I had to run faster back to the gate and saw that everyone had loaded the plane but my family!  They were just waiting on me!  Thank you, Lord, that they held the plane and were so patient with us! 

Baby Girl was over traveling at this point and fussed on and off the whole hour to Knoxville and most of the ride to Franklin.  Who could blame her??!  I wanted to cry myself to sleep too after our long day trying to get home!  Since we were so late getting home, we waited till Thursday morning to let the boys meet their new sister! We were up at 7 am and CR and Baby W (who needs a new nickname!) were the first ones down to come see her!  She loved playing with them and they loved playing with her! Little E was next to come down and had his fun with her as well!  W is already super protective of Baby Girl!  He doesn't like to hear her cry and wants to be with her all the time.  He came and slept with us on Thursday night and rubbed on BG whenever he heard her cry! So far, he is loving her, though I can tell he needs some extra loving himself as well!

Happy Girl!

This time change stuff is pretty brutal! Baby Girl is up all night long ready to play, play, play!  I am a zombie and the girls are crashing in the middle of the day and up with me at 3 and 4 in the morning!  Today, we are trying to push ourselves to stay up, but I know that I have to be up at night as well, so its hard to tell when I should sleep.  We are home though, and its summer break!!  So, some lazy days are in order and the TV just might come on a little more than normal! 

Pictures of Orphanage and City

As we were preparing to leave Gansu, one of the guides gave us a CD with pictures of Susie Q's orphanage.  We weren't able to travel to her orphanage for several reasons, so we were so thankful for these pictures that let us see a small piece of what her world looked like inside the orphanage.

These next few are pictures from a historic site in the same area.

Last Day in China

{Love this last post -

Hambone and MV write their summary of the day}

 

Today is our last day in China . We went to the pearl market and got 4 bracelets and 4 earrings made out of pearls! We also went to a store and got gifts!  For lunch we had McDonald's and for the first time, I enjoyed it! when we got to the hotel we went swimming. I had fun!  But I still can't wait to go home!

By: Hambone

 

Girls buying pearls

 

 As we prepare to leave China and go back to the U.S, I almost wish we were not leaving this amazing yet odd country. But truthfully what I really want is to get home and have a good old- fashioned home cooked meal!  Our day has been fun but I want to finally go home.  First we went shopping and got a suitcase and some other things.  Then we went to a whole sale market and purchased pearl bracelets and earrings for CH , SF , mom ,and I. We got back to the hotel and went swimming at the hotel's pool.  We then ordered Papa John's pizza. We are now going to bed. I can't wait to get back home!!

By: MV

 

 

having Baby Girl's "chop" made at museum

{I'm interested to see what her "chop" is}



Consolate Appointment

Consulate Appointment

 

Today was a big day in China!  We had our Consulate appointment first thing this morning (8:30) to get Baby Girl's Visa sticker to travel to the US!  It was a quick appointment.  We were in an open room with 12 other families all with babies under 2 years old. We all stood together, raised our right hand, and took an oath swearing that all of our information was correct.  Then, they called us up one by one to sign papers for our visas.  That was it.  We were done in about 15 minutes!  We weren't allowed to take any cameras, phones, watches, etc to this appointment because of the security threat last month, so we don't have any pictures!

Once we finished, one of our guides took us to the international medical clinic to have baby girl checked out.  We found out that she does have 2 ear infections and confirmed that she has an umbilical hernia.  The doctor gave us drops for her ears (we wanted an oral antibiotic to make sure it was cleared up before traveling home, but he thought the drops would do the trick) and we will see our doctor when we get home to see if she needs anything done to repair her hernia.  Sometimes they repair on their own, but since she is older and it has not repaired yet, we might need surgery eventually. 

 

We also discovered that BG has some big Mongolian Spots on her lower back and bottom.  The first time I noticed them on her bottom, I thought she was just cold and had that blue skin that comes when you get cold.  Then, we were swimming in the pool this week and I thought it looked like she had bruises on her back.  Robbie thought they looked like Mongolian Spots but they were much larger than I expected.  I thought they would be small dots.  We asked some other adoptive moms in the pool and they confirmed that they looked like Mongolian Spots which made me feel much better knowing they weren't bruises!  The spots are very common in Asians and should fade away by the time she's in school.

 

 

 

Baby and Mom came back and took a long nap while Daddy took the big girls swimming! It was a another low key day, which we have come to enjoy after all of the tours we went on in Beijing and Gansu.   We had a big lunch at the hotel so tonight was a granola bar dinner night for mom and a late night run to Mickey D's for nuggets and burgers for the girls and daddy!  We have A LOT of food left over!  We gave a good bit away tonight, but we still have too much to bring back! Oops!! 

 

The Girls eating French Fries with Baby Girl!

 

Baby Girl still has not slept at night since we have been in Guangzhou so we are praying the ear drops help her feel better and rest better tonight!  We all need sleep! Its almost time for bed - just need her to wet her diaper before we put her down because she does NOT like to be wet at night!  Only one more full day in China before we start our journey home!!  We are little sad to be leaving our daughter's birth place (it was sadder leaving Gansu since that's where she was born and raised), but super excited to be headed home to start our life as a family of 8!! 

 

Sunday

Today was another low key in Guangzhou.  Baby Girl didn't sleep well again last night so we opted out of the group tour/ shopping trip.  We tried to get her a Dr. apt with an international clinic, but decided to wait till Monday when we will be going to our Consulate apt and headed in the same area as the Dr.  One of our guides offered to skip the touring and go with us to the dr., which was very sweet, but we would have had to pay at least double for the Sunday visit and we go by the clinic in the morning anyway.  For those traveling behind us, don't forget to ask your pediatrician for an antibiotic for your adopted child! 

 

Baby Girl did have a good scheduled day with eating, playing and sleeping.  After her lunch, we walked next door to an indoor market where we did our first shopping for souvenirs.  Robbie loved this part of the trip because he got to barter with the locals!  I just have to walk away when he starts so he doesn't embarrass both of us!  He got good prices though, which made me happy! While Baby Girl took her short and sweet afternoon nap, the girls and I went for a swim! Robbie and baby joined soon after and we all played in the water till dinner time! 

 

Shopping at the market next to hotel

swimming with Daddy!







 

 

Our guide had a local guy come and get anyone's laundry who needed it yesterday and we just got it back today!  We didn't have a whole lot since we hand washed in Gansu, but 5 people can still produce a lot of laundry in 3 days!  Our total was only $34 which was far better than our travel partners' $200 fee in Gansu!

 

one of two stacks of laundry washed and delivered along with the silk dress we bought for baby girl!

 

We decided to venture out for dinner and chose a Mexican place called "Tekilas".  We went with our travel partners and our old neighbors in Jackson, the Graves.  We had to take about a 10 minute taxi ride to get there in two different cabs.  The food was pretty good, but we were disappointed not to have "bottomless chips and salsa" like we are used to in the States.  Either way, it was better than another night of Chinese food! Back at the hotel, we walked next door to McDonalds to finish dinner with an ice cream cone! Did I say we like it better here?! 

 

dinner at Tekilas

 

 ice cream at Mickey D's!



 

We have an early morning Consulate appointment (8:30 am) so we have to get up early to get ready for the day and out of the hotel by 7:50.  I'm so thankful for this early appointment though!  Some of the families don't have appointments till Wednesday or Thursday, making their in-country travel time longer than ours.  We are very thankful to start heading home Wednesday!!  PTL!! 

 

Praying for Baby Girl to have a better night's rest tonight!