So, It’s 4:30am

OK, it’s 4:30am. Guess who is up? It’s not Gracie; she is sound asleep. Ang and I are wide awake.

Yesterday at 4:30pm, we went to a conference room at the hotel. I think we were the last family there. It was very busy in the room. We walked in and there were families everywhere, along with our guides and the officials from the two orphanages where the children came from. Anita saw us, De asked for our passports, and before we knew it Gracie got handed to Angela. It was so busy in the room that I had a hard time getting to her. We spent about 15 minutes down there, and then headed back up to the room.

The Chinese are very serious when it comes to clothing children for cold weather. It was bout 32F and rainly yesterday. Gracie’s outer layer was a Western style hooded snowsuit. Under that she had on a Chinese style winter suit. Under that she had on a pair of pink thermal split-pants. Under that she had on pajamas. She also had on socks and some fur lines shoes, and a pink barrette in her hair.

We have what appears to be her ID card from the orphanage. It is a laminated pink card with her picture on it, and it is attached to a lanyard. I am going to ask Anita what it says layer today. We also have a disposable camera and a small photo album from Gracie’s time at the orphanage.

Ang here:

We had two meetings today. The first was at 3p. We needed to bring the new $100 bills to De (our guide) for the orphanage donation. We were supposed to bring gifts for the orphanage and government officials, but our luggage hadn’t made it up to the room. We dropped off the cash and we were told to be on the 5th floor at 4.30pm to be matched with Gracie. We walked in at 4.30p sharp. It was a madhouse. We were the last ones in, babies were crying, flashes were going off from the photos and there was one baby being held by a Chinese woman. (I’m crying before we get onto the elevator down to conference room 5…) Anyway, we walked in and they wanted to know our number (number 3), then they just handed me Bo Hao. The child was bundled to the hilt, wearing a boy’s snow suit and a pink taffeta butterfly clip holding up a pebbles-style shock of black hair! All of a sudden, our guide, De is taking our photo, and Matt was across an ocean of families, babies, and caregivers. I asked our translator Anita if I could speak to the nanny, since we had a list of about 5 questions, just about food, sleep habits, favorite toy, etc… They kept telling me later. We were told to go and check our babies. We headed upstairs with our little stranger, who didn’t shed a tear when we were handed her. Many of the babies were having fits. She just smiled. I took off the snow suit jacket downstairs in the conference room, the poor little thing was all sweaty.

When we got upstairs, we started to take off the layers. She was fine as we removed the kimono wrap around style jacket under her snow jacket. Think dark blue, thermal dickie style jacket, with strings attached and wrapped and tied around back. Under that was a thermal shirt, which I decided to leave on for the time being. We started on the south end, first removing the blue snow pants, then the red sweatpants (split pants) then the blue long underwear split pants, then we were down to the very worn pajama pants and top. We removed them and wrapped her in a blanket and changed her diaper. Her skin was very dry and she had some fairly severe diaper rash, so we’ve done what we can do to make her as comfortable as she can be for tonight. Of course, I left the hair done! We wiped her down with a warm wash cloth, changed the diaper and got her into a very soft onsie and fleece pj set, and some socks.

She was still crying, so we decided that maybe she was hungry. That doesn’t start to explain it. First we started on fruit puffs, since I nearly burned my thumb off making the formula with the hot water that was in the thermos in the room. Then, while waiting for the formula to cool, we had 4oz of apple juice cut with 40z of water, then we moved on to 4oz of prunes, then the formula was still too hot, so I made her some oatmeal, and mixed in the last of the prunes. She ate about half of that. The bottle finally cooled, so I figured, why not? She drank the whole 8oz, at one point, pulling the bottle from my grasp, holding it straight up with one hand, and hitting the bottom of it with the other.

I burped her and cleaned her up. Matt had to run out to the store to get some more diapers and some bottled water. When he came back, I ran downstairs with my translation of “we’re vegetarians, please don’t feed us pork…” and had room service order us some noodles and veggies- which we’re pretty sure were in chicken broth. When I came up, Matt and Gracie Bo Hao (we’re trying to get her used to her American name) were becoming fast friends.

The food arrived, and we tried to put her down. She didn’t like the pack and play. We did receive a sheet that said she slept from 8p to 7a, so we decided to lay her down at 8, just to see. Anyway, we finally had to lay her between us until she fell asleep (matt along with her). After about a half hour, I moved her to the crib, and she’s been there sleeping ever since.

Later today, we’ll try a bath and venture out of the hotel. We have some additional paperwork to do, then we’ll eat from the table. The list we recieved (all families got the same one) they like to eat: formula, congee (an overly cooked rice porridge, which becomes like one soft rice ball), noodle, vegetable, fish, fruit, biscuit and egg.

Her favoritre food is formula, egg, biscuit, fruit and congee .

It’s been quite a day, and the adventure is only beginning. I’m going to see if I can catch an hour or two of sleep before our latest addition decides to get us going full speed.

More to come.

So, We Are Parents

She starts cry whenever we stop holding her. Will post more later…

So, We Are In Nanchang

Must be quick. We are in Nanchang. It is 2:55pm, and we have to run to a meeting. We get Gracie at 4:30pm!

We’re back. The trip to Nanchang was pretty uneventful. The flight was short, and we got through immigration and baggage claim quickly. After that we met De and Anita (his translator). The bus ride to the hotel was about 45 minutes, and De gave us a quick briefing on the day’s events. We are through the first part right now, and the babies are coming to the hotel and we will meet them at 4:30pm.

The JiangXi Hotel and Nanchang is very nice. De set all of the families up, and there was a crib in the room already, and a stroller was here, too. He also gave us a package of formula. The luggage just arrived. Yeah!

So, We Are In Hong Kong

Angela and I got in to Hong Kong last night. The internet wasn’t free in the hotel (and it was expensive), so we waited to post this when we had free access in the airport. We are pretty exhausted, or we would head back down…

The flight took nearly 16 hours. The plane had a monitor that showed our progress, and we pretty much took a route over the North Pole. No, we didn’t see Santa’s workshop (it was night). We also didn’t get to see the Northern Lights.

The plane was pretty full, but it wasn’t terrible. We got some sleep, and read or watched the TV the rest of the time. We ordered vegetarian meals, and they weren’t bad. They were made by a Indian food company in Berwyn. We’re going to order some of the frozen ones for home.

Immigration was pretty quick in Hong Kong, and our luggage was already there when we got to baggage claim. Outside baggage claim we met our Hong Kong guide, Ben, who handles all of the travel arrangements.

He also told us that we are getting Gracie this afternoon. Yes, this is a full day ahead of our schedule. We should get to Nanchang by 2:00pm or so. We don’t know the logistics yet, but sometime after we get to Nanchang we will be getting Gracie!

Right now we are sitting in a coffee shop in the airport. We fell asleep pretty quickly last night, but we were up at 5:00am. I guess that isn’t that bad. Angela is filling out her International Adoption Travel Journal. She is starting to tear up as she fills out the entries.

We were told that you can buy prepaid SIM cards for cell phones in the airport. When we finish our coffee we are going to wander around to see if this is true.

Angela here… this morning has been really emotional for me. The whole process of our adoption has been so much waiting, prepping paperwork, getting new $100 dollar bills and packing, packing, packing. This morning I realized that we will soon be holding our precious daughter in our arms. After waiting so long, the tears have just been swelling out as I write in Gracie’s travel journal. I am so excited to meet our beautiful baby. I shed tears thinking that she’s had to wait so long for us in an orphanage. I am terrified that we’ll do something wrong (but then again, show me a kid that doesn’t need to go to therapy at some point…) It has just become so apparent to me this morning that although the wait has been long and somewhat painful, the time we will have with this very special child is short. We need to be the best parents that we can be. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers today.

When things calm down later today, we’ll post again and get some pictures posted. We are having a little trouble with this, so keep clicking until you see the full scale image. This is our last post sans kiddo!

So, We Are In Newark

Angela and I decided to drive up last night to Newark (well, we took a shuttle service) and stayed at the Airport Marriott. This is one of the smartest things we have done so far. We woke up and didn’t have to rush around and worry about the traffic between Philadelphia and Newark. It turns out that there was a bad accident on the turnpike this morning…

It’s nearly noon and a few families are here. The Pittsburgh families arrived earlier, and one of the New York families just got here.

Let me interject here that I am not used to typing on a laptop, so I am making lots of typos. Forgive any mistakes…

At this point, we are just waiting and talking. It’s a little foggy, but the plane is already at the gate, so we don’t have to worry about that.

Will continue later..

It’s later. Everyone is here, and we should be boarding the plane in about twenty minutes. Angela is trying out a new career as a camera op and is filming everyone right now. She is playing documentarian.

I am starting to get pretty punchy right now. I’m not tired so I think it is excitement. It is a little hard to explain, but it is finally starting to seem real right now.

I am resetting my watch and the time on the computer for Hong Kong. The next time I write, we will be there!