The other night we were watching the season finale of Glee. One of the main characters on show (Rachel) is adopted, and meets her biological mother (Shelby) late in the season. Another of the main characters (Quinn) is pregnant, and decides to give the baby up for adoption. In the finale Quinn has the baby, Shelby decides to take a new direction in life and ends up adopting Quinn’s baby.

According to the show, all you need to do to adopt a newborn is go to a hospital, fill out a few forms, and you can walk out with one of the extra babies.

Wow, if we had known that, our seven year process to bring a baby into our lives would have been a lot shorter. We live in a major metropolitan area, and there are lots of hospitals around. Even if one of them was out of babies, we could have just gone to another one.

When I posted about this episode on Facebook, a friend mentioned something similar from King Of Queens. In short, the couple adopts a three month old baby from China, and the process only takes a few weeks.

Why did our Chinese adoption take about two and half years?

Now, if you haven’t figured out I am a pretty sarcastic person. I don’t expect TV to reflect reality. Labor in a TV hospital takes about five minutes, babies come out perfectly clean, and mothers are ready to head up the PTA continue their work as a superhero the next day.

The problem is that the general public knows that the TV depiction of childbirth is distorted. The vast majority don’t know anything about adoption. Many people actually do think the process is simple. They don’t know about home studies, paper chases, criminal background checks, having to be fingerprinted, and waiting.

While I don’t expect TV to be totally accurate, and I understand how stretching reality adds to the entertainment value, it would be nice if adoption wasn’t used as a novelty.

Seriously, what is with people?

We have been pretty fortunate with the inappropriate questions about Gracie, but we do get them. “Does she speak English?” is our favorite, but here are a few other good ones:

Does she know who you are?

Why didn’t you adopt a baby from the US?

Does she eat with chopsticks?

Do you have her real mom’s information?

Is she yours?

Why am I talking about this? Mainly, in many of these cases, the questions are coming from loved ones or from people who have a genuine interest. I think that most people don’t realize questions like this can be intrusive, or even offensive.

I will share that the “chopstick” question came from a family member when Gracie was 12mo. We took it in stride, and said she was still learning. When they came back for a visit a few weeks later, we decided to play a joke on them and made up a mini-set of training chopsticks and put them on the tray of the highchair.

Kidding aside, anyone waiting on an adoption needs to be prepared to field these, especially the “bad” ones. Prospective adoptive parents generally have a rehearsed set of answers for the common ones. Whenever we get asked where Gracie is from, we very nonchalantly answer with the town we currently live in. The more offensive questions get straight-up answer with the “death-stare.”

We are trying to adjust Gracie’s schedule an hour a day to get her onto local time. We got her on a schedule pretty quickly while we were in China in the hopes that she would adapt better here. So far it is working. We are tracking meals, naps, and sleep so we know where are starting point is the next day. Gracie went to bed at 11:00am this morning, and she should wake up for good around 8:30pm.

The downside of this is that our schedules are pretty messed up. Angela is trying to follow Gracie’s schedule, and I am doing the opposite. It is working for the most part, and we have some overlap. Angela is doing Gracie’s “morning” routine, and I am handling the “nighttime” activities.

It is cold in Philadelphia, but we have taken Gracie our for a few walks. I took her out the other day at 4:30am to try to get her to sleep. I was expecting to get stopped by the police (they patrol a lot around here) and questioned why I was out walking a Chinese baby in the pre-dawn morning.

Gracie is doing well. She is eating like a champ. Kristen organized meals for us from some of our friends and the mommies group at the church. The first meal was spaghetti and veggie balls. Gracies feeds herself and loves them, especially the veggie balls (if you ware wondering, no we don’t plan on raising Gracie as a vegetarian). She also likes all of the Gerber food that we have gotten her. We pretty much have her off of the Chinese formula and switched to Enfamil. I am not sure if Gracie noticed the difference. Not having to boil water to make a bottle, and having a high-chair for all meals is so nice.

We think Gracie may skip crawling and start walking by the weekend. She car pull herself up with a little help and is starting to get her sea-legs.

We are still pretty tired. I don’t trust myself driving yet (I was seeing things the other day). Laura took me to Ikea and Target yesterday to pick up a few things. I may venture out later to drop off the disposable camera for development.

Angela and Gracie are sound asleep, and I think the cats are, too.  I now have to start my chore and not wake everyone.

The flight didn’t go as badly as you would have thought despite taking so long. We bought a seat for Gracie on the way home, so we had a group of three seats to ourselves. Gracie was pretty fidgety, but she tool three naps for a total of seven hours or so. She is just taller that the width of an airline seat, and won’t sleep in our arms. This meant that Angela and I were somewhat cramped when she was sleeping. The lights in the cabin were out, and we couldn’t use the overhead light, so we pretty much sat there in the dark when she was sleeping.

Despite this I managed to get some reading done and finished the book I brought with me. I saved over three months worth of crossword puzzles from the paper, but didn’t do a single one the entire trip.

The rest of the kids did well, too. We were spread our over the plane, but we got up a lot to walk around, fill bottles, chat, etc.

The veggie meals on the way back weren’t as good, but they weren’t bad. When we confirmed our travel reservations, we ordered baby meals for Gracie. Three times on the flight she got two bottles of baby food and a bottle of juice. This worked out well for us.

We caught a serious tailwind on the way back and arrived an hour earlier than scheduled. Unlike the last time, the flight took us up the coast of Japan and Russia, across Alaska, and then down Canada into New York.

We were seated in the back of the plane, and this meant that we were one of the last groups off of the plane. The walk to customs took a few minutes, and there was a decent sized line by the time we got there. Newark doesn’t differentiate between US and foreign visitors at immigration, so there was one big line. Besides, we would have to go through the foreign visitor line since Gracie was still a Chinese citizen at this point.

The actual amount of time at the immigration window was pretty quick. We got to the window, and handed the officer the brown envelope with our passports. There was no problem with our passports. The officer scanned Gracie’s passport and broke the seal on the envelope. He flipped through the packet to double check that things were in order (and since it was sealed, it was), stamped the visa, and Gracie officially became a US citizen.

After than we went down to baggage claim, and all of our bags were already on the carousel. Customs was quick, too, and we made our way to the exit. I think immigration, baggage claim, and customs took about 45 minutes total.

Freddie and Joyce (Angela’s brother and his wife) signed up the the travel alerts from the airline, and realized that the flight was an hour early. They were waiting for us at the exit along with the families of the other local people.

We arrived home around 4:00pm. My mom was there, along with Kristen, Laura, and Joey. Gracie was a little scared by all of the people, but she did well as long as one of us was in eyesight. We talked for a while, and then ate dinner. Gracie did meet Sparkles, but was scared by her.

I didn’t sleep on the plane, and Angela only managed to catch 2 or 3 hours. I went to lie down at 6:30pm, and Angela and Gracie came up a little later.

Gracie woke up around 11:30pm, took a bottle, and is now wide awake. Angela and I are She is now in her second set of pajamas, and are getting ready to watch a Baby Einstein video.

Now that we are home, we won’t be blogging as much, but we will update everyone on how Gracie acclimates to her new home.  The next few days will be tough on us with the jetlag on top of an exhausting trip.  It is going to take Gracie about two weeks for her body to adjust to a 13 hour time difference.

We are very excited for everyone to meet Gracie, but we have a rough two weeks ahead of us.  If you want to visit, please check in first.  We will be keeping some very off ours until Gracie is fully acclimated.

At 2:40pm, we started out to the US Consulate. They recently moved (they were around the corner on Shamian island), so we had about a 30 minute bus ride.

We went in the consulate sans stroller, waited in line, and then sat for a while. Around 3:45 or so, they swore us in and we got our “brown envelope” and Gracie’s travel visa. The brown envelope is a sealed packet containing original copies of the adoption paperwork and is required for immigration. Losing this would be a major catastrophe.

Around 4:00pm we boarded the bus, and headed off for Hong Kong.

The bus was packed, and we say with Gracie on our lap and the diaper backpack on the other lap. Oh yeah, we have to do some paperwork on the bus for departure from China and entry into Hong Kong. It wasn’t much, but was a pain to do in the crowded condition.

I think we arrived at the border around 6:15 or so. We had to get off the bus and go through immigration in China. Went to the bathroom, too. I won’t describe the facilities. They had to totally empty the bus, and we had to wait in line to get our passports processed. They also took all of the the luggage (two buses worth), x-rayed it, and then reloaded it.

We then got back on the bus, drove across the river for Hong Kong immigration. We had a quick interview on the bus, then got off to have our passport checked again. On the way out, they checked all of the baby’s temperatures with an infrared sensor; Hong Kong won’t let any visitors into the city with a fever.

Back on the bus, and on to the hotel.

We arrived a the hotel around 8:15. Our baggage was already there, and just had to make sure that our pieces had a tag on it with the right room number. Angela headed right up to the room, and I took care of the baggage.

I think Gracie crashed right away, and was so tired she slept in the clothes she had on. We ordered room service, and the luggage showed up a little later.

What a day. It was very busy and tiring.

Tomorrow is a big day (duh). Our luggage needs to be ready by 7:30am, and we need to check out by 8:30am. I think out flight is around 11:20am.

Gracie was up a good portion of the night, and was up for good at about 4:00am.  This also meant that Angela and I up at 4:00am.  Ug.  We also managed to lose the third (and last) pacifier yesterday.  We couldn’t find one in a store and we didn’t think to ask another family until this morning.

Angela and I are pretty tired at this point, and not sleeping isn’t helping matters.  I got lost in the buffet this morning on the way back to  table.

Minor sidetrack.  Baby food.  We used up most of the baby food we brought with us.  Thankfully, Gracie eats a lot of table food in addition to formula, and we just use the baby food in the room.  We have seen a fair number of “unusual” blend of baby food.  We haven’t seen any Gerber food here; Heinz seems to have the corner on the market.  Fish blends are pretty popular.  One of the families tried it and said that the babies love it, but that the smell (both going in and coming out) were pretty bad.  I managed to find some carrots and chicken with mushrooms for the flight home.

It’s all worth it though.  Angela and I can’t imagine life without Gracie right now.

After that we explored the island a little more and got a few more things for Gracie.

At 2:00pm, we had a short meeting in De’s room.  The first thing he told us is that all of our paperwork is OK, so we are done.  Tomorrow afternoon we check out of the hotel, and head over to the US consulate for a quick group interview.  When we are done that we get Gracie’s travel visa, and we head to Hong Kong by bus.  The trip to Hong Kong will take about four hours or so.

When we were done with the meeting, we did some group pictures. We did a picture with all of the families together, and then we did some photos of the girls on one of the red couches. We have sixteen kids in our travel group, and all of them didn’t quite fit on the couch.  Getting that many kids to sit still for a few minutes wasn’t easy, but we have some nice shots.

Given the timing of everything, I am not sure if we will be able to blog tomorrow in real-time.  If I can’t, I will back-date a post when I am at the Hong Kong Airport.

Gracie fell asleep on the way back to the hotel, and slept until about 6:00p.  Then we had the decision to wake her up to let her sleep.  We woke her up in the hopes that by doing so, she would sleep tonight.

Angela played with Gracie while I made my first trip to Lucy’s for take-out:  chicken congee.  Angela fed Gracie, and I made my second trip to Lucy’s for adult food about 30 minutes later.

Feeding and bathing went fine for not having a dinner table or a high chair or other food options or any bath toys or more that one room.  We played with Gracie for a little bit, and then tried to give her a pre-bedtime bottle.  This is where the fun began.

Gracie just wanted to play.  She knows her English name now, and we think she understands who “mama” and “dada” are, and she was just too interested in us and everything else going on in the room.  We are also hampered by not having a good place to feed her.  We have a few chairs in the room, but no couch or comfy chair.  Finally, we turned off most of the lights in the room and let her play on the floor by herself.

After about 15 minutes of this, I started to give her a bottle again.  The only way to keep her still was to sit cross legged on the floor, and put Gracie in the hole between my legs while Angela hid in the bathroom.  After a while, I finally got Gracie to fall asleep. I psssted to Angela and she picked up Gracie and put her in the crib.

When I stood up, I realized that both of my feet were numb.  Upon the return of bloodflow, the pain started.  Fun.  Angela ran off to a massage (her present to herself, mine was the tea) and I read in bed while Gracie slept.

Right now, she is sound asleep in a contorted position and her nose is whistling (loudly).