Sick Day

We had intended on venturing out today, and were dressed and ready to go after breakfast, but Hope was falling asleep after being up for only a couple of hours, if that, and we noticed that she was very warm.  So we gave her some Motrin and decided to spend the day inside the hotel room.  Not very exciting for either of us, but good for bonding, I think.  After an early nap Hope was feeling a little better, and Jen got her laughing harder than we've seen before.  Hope would throw something on the ground, and Jen would go "Boom!".  For whatever reason, Hope found this hilarious, and I caught some of it on video.

For lunch, I headed out to the McDonald's across the street.  The menu board is numbered, so it's easy to order.  I just hold up the appropriate number of fingers, and they get the point.  I referred to my handy Chinese Survival Guide for the word for french fries, which isn't numbered, and for ice cream, after which I then pointed to a picture of a McFlurry.

I should mention that not only is Wuchang hot, but it's also hot inside most of the businesses here, and McDonald's is no exception.  Some businesses will have portable a/c units, and the more modern buildings have central air, but some feel like they have nothing.  Even our hotel is hot inside, and it hits you as soon as you step out of your room into the hallway.  They must be used to it here, though.  I was the only one in line at McDonald's sweating, or so it appeared.

There's a tunnel that runs under the street, allowing you to cross without worrying about dodging traffic.  There are a variety of "vendors" that line the tunnel, usually with their goods spread out over a blanket or something similar.  Several were selling knives, and what appeared to be handguns, although I don't know if they were real (they looked real, though).  There was also a beggar, and a man playing a Chinese musical instrument, quite beautifully, actually.  On my way back across, I gave them both 1 yuan.

So after lunch we sat in the hotel room, played, and napped for most of the day.  We did go to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner, and took a very short walk outside after that, but that was about it.  Hope appears to be a lot more comfortable with us, and the belly laughs were a joy to see, but we still know that we have a long way to go.

Tomorrow our guide will take us to the Yellow Crane Tower, a very old and famous landmark here in the area.  Hopefully, Hope will be feeling a little bit better.  Then we spend our last night here, before heading to Guangzhou the following day.  Until tomorrow...

Dressed and ready to go out, but she wanted to sleep

Feeling a little better

Enjoying Chicken McNuggets with Mommy

Civil Affairs Office Day

Well, today I think we experienced discrimination.  First time for me, that's for sure, but more on that later.

This morning we returned to the Civil Affairs Office to pay the orphanage donation and other fees, and basically reaffirm with a red fingerprint that we still wanted to adopt Hope.  They also took a red footprint from Hope, while she was asleep in Jen's arms.

Hope's nannies were there again today, and our guide said that they thought Jen and I were both very pretty, and wanted to take lots of pictures of us, which they did.  You can tell that these women really care for Hope, and it's evident from looking at the pictures in the photo album that they gave to us yesterday that they took wonderful care of her during her time in the orphanage.  One of the nannies gave us another gift before we left - a photo copy of the newspaper article announcing Hope's finding, complete with her picture.  It's another precious gift that we will share with Hope later on, along with the photo album.

Things were pretty good today.  Hope cried some when she woke up, but overall seemed very happy for most of the day.  She had some good moments with Jen - She fell asleep in Jen's arms  at the Civil Affairs Office, Jen carried her around on part of our walk, and they had some laughs more than once playing peek-a-boo.  She will still cry when I disappear from sight in the hotel room, but seems to be OK outside of it when I walk away, so maybe we're making some progress.

Now back to the discrimination "event".  After a long afternoon nap (this kid can sleep!), we headed out for a walk, and a bite to eat.  We decided on Pizza Hut.  We had a great experience there the first time, but this time we had Hope with us.  They seated us right away, no problem, gave us menus, but no one waited on us. We sat there for about a 1/2 hour, they took dishes from tables next to us, and the wait staff stood just 10 feet away when they weren't busy, glanced over at us occasionally and whispered to each other, but never took a drink order, nothing.  I can't imagine that it was anything else than the fact that we were a non-Asian couple, with an Asian baby.  At one point while we were waiting, a woman came around the corner and gave Jennifer an obvious, dirty look.  Pretty upsetting stuff.  So finally, we just gathered our stuff and walked out.  No sense arguing with anyone over it.  But it makes us want to hole ourselves up in our hotel room until we have to leave Wuchang.  I know that our next stop, Guangzhou, will be better.  All adopting families go through there, so we will not be the novelty that we are here.

Tomorrow is a free day.   I almost hope that it rains so that we're forced to stay inside., but the plan is to venture out again, and visit a local park, and a Buddhist temple.  Until tomorrow...

Article announcing Hope's finding

The photo album gift from the nannies

The nannies are on the ends

In the play room at the Civil affairs Office

This is a happy face

Momma and Hope

Forever Family Day

What a day!  Today we met Hope at the Civil Affairs office at 3:00 PM.  We arrived first, filled out some paperwork, and set up the camcorder.  Hope arrived maybe 15 minutes after we did, accompanied by two of the nannies who took care of her at the orphanage.  We assumed that it was her coming through the door, but she had even less hair than her photos (our guide later explained that it's a tradition to shave a babies head on the sixth day after every six months).  Hope started crying soon after arriving.  She had just been driven six hours from her foster families home, and had been up for nine hours straight at that point.  Here she was in a new place, with several strangers, dead tired, and probably aware that something was up.  The nannies eventually handed her over to Jen, and poor Hope just cried and cried.  A toy was handed to her, but to no avail.  So I brought out the universal bonding food, Cheerios (well, Honeynut Cheerios).  Hope stopped crying, and at one point, actually tried to feed one to me.  It was soon my turn to hold her, and Hope fell asleep in my arms, and stayed asleep until we arrived back at the hotel.

Before we left, the nannies presented us with a wonderful gift.  It was a photo album with many pictures of Hope, from the day that she was found, to pictures of her in the orphanage, to pictures with her foster family.  This is something that we can share with her when she's older.  Not every adopting family gets something like this, so we will cherish it.

After returning to the hotel, Jen and Hope stayed behind, as I ventured off to the grocery store for some additional necessities, and McDonald's.  I returned about 45 minutes later.  Poor Hope apparently cried for a half hour straight prior to my returning.  I picked her up, and she stopped crying.  The nannies told us that Hope was very attached to her foster father, and he to her, and this may be why, at least at this point, she is preferring me.  This hurts Jen, as you can imagine, but Hope eventually warmed up, and Jen got her smiles.  Yes, smiles!  We were so worried prior to meeting her about what the experience would be like, how she would react...Would she be a crying, inconsolable mess?  The worst case scenarios rolled around in my head leading up to the meeting, and now, we were getting smiles.  It's a good start.

Jen had tried to feed her baby food while I was gone, but Hope wasn't having it.  She did like the formula that we had brought from home, quickly downing it.  She also liked the french fries that I brought back.  She ate a little bit of the double cheeseburger, and had a  few bites of my Chicken McNuggets.  Not the healthiest of meals, but it seemed to satisfy her.

We played on the floor with the stacking blocks that we had purchased the previous day.  She really seemed to enjoy taking them apart, banging them together, etc.  We also showed her a video of our dogs that I had taken and uploaded to the laptop.  She gave a few grunts of what I hope was approval...She did not have pets in her foster home.  After an hour or so of play, we dressed her in her pajamas, plopped her in her crib, and watched as she very quickly fell asleep.

Hope appears to be in good health.  Oh, and she's walking!  We also heard her say a few words, but aside from what we think was ba ba (daddy), we didn't understand.  She makes some grunting sounds, especially when she sees something that she wants.  She also imitated some of the things that we were doing, so hopefully, she'll pick up our language quickly, as well.

This has been a very trying day,  fiilled with emotions going from one extreme to the next.  We made it through, though, as we knew we would.  We'll see what tomorrow holds, but for now, time for some sleep for all of us.

Sign at the Civil Affairs office

Hope with one of her nannies, getting ready to meet Ma Ma

So scared and sad.  Heart breaking.

About to hold Hope for the first time

Daddy's turn

She was soon fast asleep

Playing with my stacking cups

Interested in a McNugget

Shopping Day

Today our guide Wei met us at 9 AM in the hotel lobby, and took us out shopping for a few necessities for Hope.  A few blocks down the street and around the corner is a very large department store, and grocery.  We hit the grocery store first.  We bought some Chinese diapers, which we discovered later may be a little big for Hope, in fact, they may just fit me (Just kidding, but they are a little bigger than we expected.  We're going to try them, though).  We also bought some wipes, snack items for Hope, a couple of jars of the baby food that we are used to, and a couple of boxes of the type that Hope is used to, which is a powdered baby food that you add water to.  We bought "ice cream" flavored Oreos, which are just a little bit off, but not too bad.

I wanted to explore the store a little bit more, but was sensitive not to take up too much of our guide's time.  I did, however, wander over to the seafood area....Big tanks filled with all assortments of fish.  One tank had turtles (not intended to be pets), and another had some sort of eels.  Yummy.

We then headed to the department store...Very modern, at least 7 floors (that's as far as we got).  It had all the designer names.  Things were actually more expensive, at least as far as clothing was concerned, than here in the U.S.  A pair of Levi's was about 75 US dollars.  Toys, though, were less expensive, and we picked up a few for Hope.  A Sea Horse plush thingy that lights up and plays music, some stacking cups, a little toy car thing with bells in the wheels, and toy cell phone.  You pay for things a little differently here.  You tell the sales clerk what you want to purchase, they give you a ticket.  When you're done shopping, you take your hand full of tickets to a counter and pay.  You then go back to each department, show the clerk your receipt, and they give you the item(s).

We saw a couple of kids in split pants.  If you don't know what these are, Google them.  I wanted to take a photo, but couldn't take one on the sly, so I didn't get one.  It's definitely a little strange to see, as is the rack of split pant outfits that we saw in the children's section.  No adult sizes, though, which is a good thing.

Back at the hotel, our guide gave us a run down of how much money we needed to exchange for the orphanage donation, and other fees.  It's not a small chunk of change, and hence was the reason that each of us wore money belts on the trip over (also to keep the money crisp and new looking - they are very particular about their American dollars here).  Our guide said farewell, we gathered the cash together, and nervously walked to the bank a couple of blocks down the street.  I said something like "exchange money" to the girl that greeted us, and fortunately, she seemed to understand, and we were escorted upstairs.  The exchange took about an hour.  Now, a stack of U.S. dollars translates into an even bigger stack of Chinese Yuan, so we loaded up the back pack with our stack, and again, nervously, retraced our route back to the hotel.  Whew, what a process.

We rested then rested a little bit, and headed back out to pick up a passport photo that I had taken earlier.  We then found the local Pizza Hut, and decided to eat there.  It seemed to be a popular spot for the younger crowd, and we didn't get as many stares.  There was a lot more on the menu than just pizza, with plenty of pictures for us to point to, so we'll probably revisit.  On the wall, in English, in big letters it read "Let's share and have".  Not sure what they were actually trying to say there, but we ordered a Cheese Lovers pizza.  There was barely any sauce, but I washed it down with my Ice Milk (sort of like a watered down milkshake), and it was fine.  We both realized after a few sips of our respective beverages that they contained ice.  Foreigners are cautioned against drinking anything with ice, because the water can have unpleasant side effects on our sensitive tummies.  We'll see how we fare tomorrow, I guess.

Tomorrow is the big day.  At 3:00 PM, we will we meet Hope.  4 1/2 years in the making.  Not sure how to put it all into words.  Both of us are very nervous, but very excited at the same time.  I hope that we sleep tonight, but I doubt that we will get much, which has been the trend lately.  Anyway, stay tuned.  Tomorrow I'll be posting pictures of Hope!

Chinese flag at half mast.  It's a national day of mourning due to a mudslide that occurred about a week ago.

Statue near the entrance of the department store

Getting ready to have my passport photo taken.  That's my stand-in on the box.

Shopping with our guide Wei

Eels for sale

Woman selling lotus seeds 

We are in Wuchang

We made it to Wuchang.  I had previously referred to this city as Wuhan, but Wuhan is actually made up of 3 citites, Wuchang being one.  The flight on China Southern from Hong Kong was uncomfortable, the food suspect, but the flight was fairly short: about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Our guide Wei met us after we picked up our bags.  She lives in Wuchang, and seems very nice.  She will be with us for the next 6 days or so.  We hopped in the van for the 1 1/2 hour drive from the Wuhan airport to Wuchang.

The drive took us through very heavily trafficked areas.  A lot of cars, and pedestrians.  Wuhan is home to 8 million people.  Cars dart in and out of their lanes, and from side streets, and pedestrians cross in front of vehicles regularly.  The areas we passed through were a mixture of semi-modern buildings, run down buildings, buildings and housing either demolished or in the process of being demolished, and new construction.  There was not another Westerner in site.  When we finally arrived at the Best Western Wuhan, our guide checked us in and escorted us to our room, then bid us adieu until tomorrow morning at 9 am.

So we were on our own, and in need of a bite to eat.  We were a little intimidated: unlike Hong Kong, where everyone spoke English (or so it seemed), no one seems to speak it here.  We chose one of the hotel restaurants.  Fortunately, the menu had pictures, but there was very little that appealed to either of us.  Strange sea creatures, chicken feet, black chicken (literally, a black, featherless chicken, head and all, in a soup bowl), etc.  I ordered scallops and shrimp, which were edible.  Jen ordered a pork spare rib, which she actually liked, but also ordered beef brisket in chili sauce.  It was the hottest thing I've ever tasted, and she ate only a few bites, just to be polite.  She ordered a Coke, but got Coke Light with Lemon.  Not too bad, though.

After dinner, we decided to venture out.  We were hesistant at first.  Our fear stemmed from the fact that a) we didn't speak the language, and no one spoke ours, and b) we stood out like sore thumbs.  We finally decided to overcome our fear, however, and walked a few blocks from the hotel.  To our pleasant surprise, we really didn't see anything that I would consider to be "strange" - just people going about there daily business - and the experience was actually quite nice.  At the end of our stroll, we crossed under the street via a pedestrian tunnel, which led straight to the Wuchang McDonald's!  Jen pointed to "Ice Cream" in our Chinese phrase book, and the girl behind the counter brought out a picture with a sundae on it.  Perfect!  They only had pineapple and strawberry topping, and so we went with just the plain 'ol vanilla ice cream.  It was delicious!

Tomorrow is a free day.  Our guide is going to take us shopping in the area.  Should be interesting.  Hopefully we'll get some sleep tonight: neither of us has had much lately.  Talk to you soon!

Our plane at the Hong Kong airport

Sign at the airport with our flight into Wuhan, CZ3076

Sign outside of the Wuhan airport

Typical street scene

The old, and the new behind it

More rubble

Busy traffic

View from our hotel room

Welcome to Hong Kong!

We made it to Hong Kong!  It was very difficult leaving Bella this morning.  Neither Jen nor myself slept very well the previous morning.  But we made it out of the house, and all the way to Hong Kong.

At the airport in Orlando

The first leg to Detroit was uneventful.  Nothing much to speak of there.  We were a little worried about the next leg, however: the trip to Hong Kong.  15 hours in the air.  Thank goodness, though, for the business class upgrade, courtesy of Delta Skymiles.  The seats were actually "pods", that fully recline into a bed.  Very cool.

Jen and I were kind of at an angle to each other, which was a little strange.  We had a look around our "pods".  There's a little gift bag with some socks, chap stick, and a few other goodies.  Ah, yes, and slippers.  Now that's traveling!

I felt like a little kid.  There's a TV screen that swivels out.  Jen played video games.  I kicked back and watched almost 3 full movies.  There's a full service menu, complete with hot fudge sundaes, just like the Seinfeld episode, and Jen and I both had a couple of much needed drinks.

The plane took us north from Detroit, passing over Canada, and whatever cold place is above that, then down through Russia, and then China.  We both finally did fall asleep on the plane, and felt somewhat refreshed when we landed in Hong Kong.

The airport in Hong Kong wasn't too difficult to navigate, and we made our way through customs, and eventually to the shuttle to our hotel.  We talked with a young Chinese man who was headed to the U.S. tomorrow to go to college.  He gave us his email address when we arrived at the hotel, and said that he would answer any questions about China that we might have.  Very nice.  The hotel itself is very nice.  Here's a pic of our room.  we couldn't figure out to turn on the lights.  We finally figured out that you have to stick your key in a slot in the wall, and leave it there.

      

We grabbed a little bite in the hotel bar, and now it's off to bed.  On to Wuhan in the morning.  We'll post again tomorrow.  Good night from Hong Kong.

For when we return...

One part of our adoption journey, the long wait to meet Hope, is almost over, but the more challenging part of the journey will then begin, which is helping Hope to feel like a part of our family. One advantage of the long wait is that I have had plenty of time to learn about attachment issues.  I've talked with Jen, who has spoken with many adopted families about this issue, and I've read many articles about attachment issues in adoption.  I’ve learned that it can take adopted toddlers (or adopted children of any age) a long time to trust that their parents will take care of their needs and be there for them.  We’ll have plenty of on the job training very soon.

Although Hope is a year old, in many ways we will be treating her like an infant in order to help create a bond.  Her needs will be responded to immediately, so that she will know that we will always be there to take care of her, and that we will always keep her safe.  It's recommended that the parents be the only ones to meet the needs of the newly adopted child. With this in mind, Jen and I (with some help from Bella) will be the only ones to hold, feed, change, and comfort her for at least the first month that we are together. I know that this will be hard for some family and friends to understand, especially if she seems to be adjusting well and appears eager to go to others, but often the child has learned to try and please everyone, because he or she never knew who would be taking care of them next. In some cases that I've read, the child went more willingly to relative strangers than to their own parents, most likely because they were protecting themselves just in case their parents left their lives as so many others had done.

With this in mind, we will be laying low for a while once we return home to give us time to come together as a family, and to allow Hope time to start to adjust to the changes in her life. I can’t imagine what it will be like for her to have her world turned upside down, yet again.

We appreciate the support we have received from everyone in our lives and know that you will be very eager to meet Hope. Please be assured that we will be eager to introduce her to you when the time is right. 

Here are a few links to articles that I would recommend everyone read:

http://www.deborahhage.com/articles/guest_authors/hholman1.html

http://www.a4everfamily.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92&Itemid=90

http://www.a4everfamily.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=93&Itemid=90