Getting closer

I haven't had a chance to upload pics from the orphanage. Here are some from our visit...

Joshua was not feeling well when we arrived. He was a little car sick. They were having a birthday celebration! His good friend was just adopted this past Monday!

His was the bottom bunk

squatty potty in his bathroom

His preschool room

His teacher

Fred, after picking up the kids onto his shoulders, multiple times:)

We are in the home stretch now! This morning we had our consulate appointment, which is the whole reason adoptive families have to come to Guangzhou. Everything went smoothly and we are just waiting to get his passport back with that precious visa stamped in there! We leave Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon by train for Hong Kong, where we will fly out on Friday morning. We will be back in Atlanta around 3:30 Friday afternoon!!! Can't wait to see my boys!

Not only are we getting closer coming home, but we are growing closer each day to this amazing boy. As one of the moms in our group said, "It seems like he's been with you forever."  It's starting to feel like that. He's very comfortable with us and has been in good spirits the whole trip. We've dragged him around through busy train stations, metro stations, busy streets. He's left his province to come to a much different area of China than he has ever seen, met many new people who ask him how he's doing, does like his mama and baba?, etc. 
He's also been hanging out at the executive lounge at the Marriott and has been on a nighttime river cruise and to a safari park (which is similar to the Animal Kingdom, without the rides.)

The day before, we went on a city tour. Here are some pictures from the oldest Buddhist temple in Guangzhou.

This trip is much less stressful simply because we've done it all before and know what to expect. Fred and I are much more at ease this trip, more laid back. We've felt comfortable going off on our own more, venturing out from the flock.  We took a river cruise on our own for half the price that we paid last time with our group (and it didn't include gross food that we didn't want to eat anyway.) We also we went shopping with a lady here that takes you to the places to get great deals on jade and other traditional Chinese gifts. 

 Yesterday we took the subway from our hotel to the safari park, which is a big, glorified zoo with many animals. It's very cool and reminded us of the Animal Kingdom, except no rides. (Although they DID have the drive through safari, which included everything from lions and tigers to wolves and brown bears. 

We had lots of fun despite the heat and humidity (that's what really gets ya.) And the day would have been less tiring had we not tried to exit the park at a different end than we entered. We figured it didn't matter because we had decided to take a taxi back. Once we got out of the park, we saw all the taxis lined up, but then a guy came up to us trying to find out where we were going... red flag... taxi drivers should never come up to you. The guy started saying something about "no meter" and we figured we'd be ripped off, so we decided to keep walking and try to find a legitimate taxi or just go to the subway. Well, that would have been a good plan if we had walked in the right direction and/or if there had been a subway station near the other exit, neither of those things happened. So after walking a ways, then turning around and walking some MORE (on a never-ending sidewalk along the outside of the park) we got back to our original entrance :::sigh:::  Then we had to walk even MORE to get to the subway station. For the record, once we got back to our original entrance we asked a taxi driver to take us to our hotel, but he either didn't know where it was or it was out of his range (Guangzhou is a HUGE city, 2nd largest in China). So drenching in sweat we decided to trudge on to the subway station (thank goodness we had our stroller for Joshua.) The girls were tired, but they were real troopers and we told them to keep focused on the cold Pepsi they would get at the Marriott lounge once we got back to the hotel. (That worked for Shannon... Ella, not so much, but she kept up with us.)

Looking back, I'm thinking it wouldn't have been such a bad idea to have worked out a price with one of those guys, but we really had no idea how much a taxi ride should have cost because we didn't know how far we were from our hotel.
Needless to say we made it back to our hotel, safe and sound... albeit sticky and tired. The subway is very easy to use here and they have 8 different lines that get you around the city. It's very modern and very busy!


Safari Park...

This is what I wanted to be doing

Some new things about Joshua:

He no longer puts on his shoes to go to the bathroom

He eats everything with a fork or chopsticks, even donuts and sandwiches... he must think we have terrible manners

He still sits down on the potty to pee because he's used to a squatty potty (google it). I thought since he used one of these, he would of course stand to pee, but Fred saw how he used one at the train station restroom, and it's a different technique than I thought (TMI ?)

He has taken on the roll of "little brother" like a natural and loves to tease his sisters by rapidly ringing the doorbell on their room about 17 times to get them to come

He loves his mama (and the feeling is mutual)

He calls us mama (or "ma") and baba and calls the girls as well but "Ella" is easier for him to say (It was so cute to hear him calling, "Ella!!" across the pool

He is pretty good about keeping himself busy by playing with his toys or coloring

He's figured out the iPad games with no problem

He says little phrases in Mandarin and they sound so cute (but I have no clue what he's saying)

He has a very sweet demeanor and is also bouncy and playful

He's ours and we're his.

We really are so blessed.

Our week in Changsha

Let's see how typing out a blog post on the iPad goes (Ella is watching netflix on Fred's computer)... Which brings up my first point... A big shout out to my amazing husband for setting us up with modern conveniences, like the internet and Netflix, as well as nice hotel rooms and seats on the flight... These small luxuries really make the trip as comfortable and smooth as possible and are more appreciated than you would think!

But much more important than these things, I'm thankful for his big heart. I know he thought I was a bit out of my mind when I told him about this boy that I saw in a video and felt a connection to... We had just returned home with Sam. And admittedly, it seemed kinda crazy to me too! But I'm so grateful that we took this leap and are where we are today... In this hotel room in Changsha, China with our new son taking a nap. When God is speaking to your heart, I encourage you to listen and trust. God's plan is amazing... Don't trust me, but trust Him!

So Monday was "gotcha day" and then Tuesday we went back to the same place and signed the papers to make it official. It was also Shannon's bday! 

Out to bday dinner... Everything in Hunan is spicey! We've sweated a lot on this trip!

Eating cold pizza and watching sports... So American already

Wednesday was a free day and we had decided to go to the park, but it was raining .... But we had to get out of the hotel, so we grabbed some umbrellas and walked in the drizzling rain. The park was very nice, but the rain picked up a bit and we didn't really feel like exploring it too long. So we got some mcflurries at the mcdonalds stand and then headed back to the hotel. Not too much to do here... Going to try the park again tomorrow before we leave for Guangzhou.  

Today, this morning, we went to visit the orphanage. It was about 20 minutes from our hotel. On the was there Joshua was playing on Ella's iPad and got a little car sick. He didn't throw up but he got pretty green around the gills... He wasn't feeling well when we got there. But he told the orphanage official he wanted to go up and see his friends We went in and the bottom floors of the building is a hospital. We passed several people who knew him.. I think he was pretty popular (understandable:))

The building was rather warm and the elevators were very slow. We were sweating a little bit by the time we go to the floor. We were told the orphanage has 500 kids under its care, but on his floor there were about 20 something. There are some kids in foster care and the younger one were in the building next door.  It was someone's birthday and they were all about to have cake and fruit and then noodles. It was a very nice spread! We could tell right away that he had been well taken care of. All of the nannies and the teacher (who spoke some English!) and the supervisor seem to really care for the kids. 

Joshua was still not feeling too well, but was perking up and decided he wanted some noodles:) They also put some warm water with herbs in his water bottle to help his tummy.... Whatever it was it worked and he started feeling better. We saw his room and his preschool room and the girls got to help pass out the fruit to the kids and help put what looked like mayonnaise (apparently was yogurt) and ketchup (yep) on the fresh fruit. They also passed out some bracelets they and their friends made. 

I have some pictures on camera that I'll have to upload later. Here are some...

Passing out some treats

Preschool area

We saw his friend who is getting adopted on Monday and told him his family was on an airplane at that moment flying to china! He was excited to hear that:)

I told the supervisor (she really seemed like the one in charge of all the kids and nannies) about how I saw him in a video last year. She remembered them doing that video. I asked her if I could take a video of any other kids and she said yes:) I posted their videos to an advocacy group on Facebook and I hope they are able to be adopted! 

While I was talking with our guide and the director, Fred and the kids had made their way down the hall to an open play area. By the time I got down there, Fred was drenched with sweat because he had been lifting all the kids onto his shoulders... Several times;). Ella has some video on her iPod I need to upload:)

We then went to the building next door to see where Joshua had been in preschool in the Half the Sky program. (See pics above)

We had a nice visit and we are so thankful he was in a good orphanage... But that is a relative term. As good a job as they do, you can't replace family, which is what every single one of those kids deserves. Many of the older ones will never have that. 

After the orphanage, we had our guide take us to his finding spot (where he was reportedly found at approximately 10 mos old.). It was in a residential area, in building near the stairs. Most likely his parents didn't live there, but left him somewhere he would be found. I suspect they learned of his medical need and didn't have the means to care for him financially. 

(Not really appropriate to smile for a pic like this... Habit) even felt weird taking a picture, but I figured we'd want one in the future. 

We will take the train to Guangzhou tomorrow (Friday) around 6pm.  Joshua has a required medical appointment Saturday morning and then we have our consulate appointment Tuesday. We leave there Wednesday after we get his visa to enter the U.S. 

So ready to be home!! Miss my boys... One more week, just keep swimming 

Our beautiful boy

I hope many of you have been able to see our updates on Facebook. For those that haven’t, sorry I’m just now getting to this blog (and I’m glad Fred brought his laptop since punching out a blog post on an iPad is time consuming.)

So Sunday we arrived in Changsha, Hunan by train. Our hotel is the Sheraton and we are pleased with the rooms (they don’t smell like smoke!! Yay!)  The girls are doing great on the trip and are getting along and sticking together and not complaining. We are so glad they were able to come with us on this journey.

View from our room

I didn’t sleep much at all Sunday night… we were all up very early. Butterflies filled my stomach as the hour grew near. It still felt kinda surreal. Not the same as with Sam’s adoption and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because we had more updates with Sam and knew more about him, maybe it’s because this process flew by so quickly that I didn’t go through the same longing since we never really had to wait for anything this time, maybe it was because he was older and I was anxious about that… I don’t know. But I kept praying and trusting that God would give me peace, and He did. I was excited but not nervous (okay, a little nervous) as we left the hotel to go to the Civil Affairs building. It was about 15 minutes away. We arrived early, took the elevator to the 7^th floor and there was another little boy there with his nannies. He was from another city and was being adopted by a Dutch family.

We waited in the sparse, humid room that had several windows open letting the construction noise in from across the parking lot. (There is ALWAYS construction going on in China.)  The girls kept look out for Joshua’s arrival below. It seemed like 45 minutes went by, but I think it was about half that time.

Suddenly Ella excitedly announced that she saw him get out of a car below! He had on his Superman shirt that we had sent him!

This was it. Almost a year had past since I saw that video of him when I had felt an instant connection to this boy, but I could not have dreamed that on this day I would be in here with my faithful and loving husband and daughters minutes away from meeting our new son and brother… this 5 year old little boy who had spent his life in this large orphanage, waiting... for us.  I could not have dreamed that I would be so blessed to get to be his mom, to love him and help to teach him what “family” means and what unconditional love feels like and how cherished he is.

He came off the elevator with a nanny supervisor and young lady. When I made eye contact with him, he got a nervous expression on his face. He knew what was going on. He was a brave boy, he came to us and gave us some high fives. They encouraged him to give us hugs and he did. He came with a brand new backpack filled with all kinds of new toys and learning tools. He had his photo album we had sent and he was holding two of the Matchbox cars we had sent him. After a few minutes of sitting with us, Fred got him laughing by playing with a stuffed animal. And that was it. He’s been happy since. No kidding. This boy is amazing and God is so good.

Making it official 

A little bit about Joshua, or YaQiu (pronounced Ya Choe)…

He has the BIGGEST smile ever!

He has a great laugh

He is very smart and loves to color and use stickers (appropriately)

He is an expert bubble-blower

He is very good at building Legos and has great fine motor skills

He takes a nap every day after lunch

He eats whatever you give him

He’s small for his age and the 4T shorts are big on him and the 2T bathing suit fit, but he’s not too skinny… just little

He puts on his shoes to go to the bathroom (must have been what they had to do at the orphanage)

He LOVES to play with balloons

He LOVES to play with his sisters

He is a very happy boy

Fred and I looked at each other yesterday and both agree this couldn’t be going any smoother. (I know… don’t jinx it, Alison !) But really, he is a precious, delightful, sweet boy. He gets along just as well with Shannon as with Ella. He doesn’t prefer Fred over me or vice versa. He hasn’t tested us too much at all with his behavior. Yesterday we wanted to walk down to the market, and we wanted him to ride in the umbrella stroller we brought because we wanted to be able to walk quickly and it was several blocks away. He didn’t want to get in the stroller. He just smiled and shook his head… with a big smile. We let him walk down through the lobby and out of the parking lot, but once we got on the sidewalk, Fred told him again to get in the stroller… he smiled and shook head…. Fred put him in…. tried to get out, Fred told him to sit and off we went, and he sat in it the whole time, not a complaint. 

He definitely prefers this mode of transport over the stroller:) 

As good as he is and as well as this is going, I know that we still have a long journey ahead of us. He is happy with us, but he really doesn’t know what a family is. We are all nice people and he’s having fun and he feels safe with us, but it will take time for him to really and truly bond with us because he’s probably never bonded like that with someone before. He doesn’t even know what it feels like. For those of us lucky enough to be born into our own families, we never knew anything else. You can't explain "family." You can't put it into words. But I know that God is all over this and in time he will know, he will understand. I'm beyond thankful that I get to witness that...but not just to witness it, to be an integral part of it... to be his mom, to love him.

AND today was Shannon's 11th birthday! This is one she won't forget:) The girls have been so great to have on this trip. They love to play with him and the feeling is mutual!

The hotel sent up this amazing cake!

Here is a link to the video I made about our journey. http://vimeo.com/99622161

It's always an adventure...

It's 4:45am on Sunday in here in Hong Kong. Our room on the 34th floor overlooking downtown Hong Kong is dark and the girls are still in their bed, but not really asleep. Fred is already up and went to the business center to print something out. I guess when you go to bed at 7:30pm, you feel pretty rested by 4:30am... plus it's really Saturday afternoon according to my internal clock, sigh. Since the breakfast buffet doesn't open for a couple of hours (thank goodness there's a coffee maker in our room), I figured now is the perfect time to update this blog.

So the trip started off smoothly on Thursday. My parents rode with us down to the airport along with Daniel and Sam. I got one last picture of the four of them and as I took it, it hit me this was the last time we'd have four kids and not five. 

Last family of 6 picture 

Last picture of the four of them

I had been talking to Sam about what was going to happen and how we were going on an airplane far away to bring home Joshua (always said with a smiling face, happy voice) so that he could play with him and be his brother. Of course most of this went over his head, but he DID get the part about the airplane. Daniel had mixed emotions and I knew he would miss us, but he was also happy to spend sometime with his grandparents and other family members who wanted to do special things with him. 
It was bittersweet saying goodbye to them at the airport. Sam got upset because he wanted to get out of the car too, but we were in the drop-off zone. I figured we needed to make it short and sweet, like ripping off a band-aid, that was the best way. It was also time for his nap and he was tired. I calmed him down by telling him that Mimi would get him a cookie after lunch. Yep, that did it. "Cookie"... that's all I had to say.  It's so hard to leave them for so long, but I know this trip would be overwhelming for Sam and Daniel's personality is not best suited for long plane rides, plus I knew they'd need each other. 

We were on our way to Hong Kong and had a stop in Tokyo to switch planes. A little over two hours into the flight, the captain announced that we'd be turning back and landing in Minneapolis because of a medical emergency on the plane.  Of course we prayed that the woman would be alright but were also concerned about the delay. Turns out the lady walked off the plane with the medics. Not sure what was wrong, but I guess a 10.5 hour plane ride to Japan wasn't in her best interest. So we sat on the ground, on the plane, for well over an hour. After refueling and having to juggle the flight attendant "legal" scheduling issues, we took off and were on our way to Tokyo... 3 hours after we were scheduled to get there. We kept waiting for word on whether or not they would hold the plane to Hong Kong. Never got any information,but as we got closer we realized we weren't making that flight. Fred, being the awesome travel manager that he is, called and got our room cancelled for the night in Hong Kong and got the Marriott points put back into his account. 

The girls were real troopers through the whole thing... they didn't know any better:) They had their candy stash that Ella had purchased with her money before we left and they had their own T.V. screen right in front of their face... life was good. I tried to get a picture of them with "annoyed faces", but they couldn't keep a straight face.

Their giddiness and bright eyes, faded as the hours went by. Ella was the only one of us who got somewhat decent sleep. Poor Shannon, looked miserable as she tried in vain to catch some shut eye. Fred and I didn't fair much better. What is about getting old that your knees hurt while your just sitting? Ugh, getting old stinks.

So by the time we arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport, secretly we were all kinda glad we weren't getting on another plane. And shout out to the Delta crew at Narita There were MANY people on the flight that missed connections, but they had it handling with new boarding passes ready to hand out and different tables set up for different locations, and water bottles to had out, etc. We walked through customs and the hotel reps were right there to assist, and we were on the bus to the Raddison within minutes. It was a well-oiled machine... and we GREATLY appreciated it. 

The next morning we were provided breakfast and bused back to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong. Delta purchased our tickets on Cathy Pacific since they didn't have flight leaving that morning. Somehow Fred was able to call Delta at the gate and get our seats changed to the bulkhead rows with no one in the middle seats, as Ella said, "This is like first-class, Daddy!"  He's THE MAN;)

Hong Kong is so cool, like a James Bond movie. Tropical island and bustling modern city and international shipping port all wrapped up in one.  We are staying at a very nice Marriott and has an executive lounge with an amazing view of Victoria Harbour.

The hotel gave the girls some teddy bears:)

view of Victoria Harbour from exec lounge

We keep telling the girls, this isn't China. It's gonna be MUCH different in Changsha. I think we've been warning them too much... but they are mature girls and have really been taking everything in stride. (Except that I think I may have freaked Shannon out too much about not drinking the tap water, because she was nervous to even swim underwater at the pool!)

  I keep having to remind myself and them what we are here for and while the plane flights and hotel rooms and buffets are fun, we are on a mission. We're busting Joshua out of his orphanage tomorrow and he's our son, our brother, forever. This trip is about to get real... and I CAN'T WAIT!  It's surreal to me that we will see him tomorrow morning!  The butterflies have been fluttering around in my tummy for the past 12 hours... we are so close now.  In a few hours we will be going to the train station to get on a bullet train to Changsha, Hunan.

I wonder what Joshua is feeling, what he's thinking? I wonder if he's nervous or excited? Afraid? Happy?  We shall see tomorrow... 

'Twas the night before China...

And all through the house, not a creature was sleeping (except the dog... okay, and the toddler.)  I think we're all a little excited around here. The bags are packed, the copies are made, the plans and preparations are as good as they're going to get, we are ready to go get our boy! 

Yep, the bags are packed up in the room with our sleeping two-year old whom we brought home exactly 8 months ago tomorrow (I guess Sam and Joshua are our "Irish Twins" as far as their adoptions go;)) Thank goodness it feels like Sam has been with us forever, it makes it a little more bearable to leave him and Daniel to travel across the world. I'm gonna miss those boys, but I think the two weeks will fly by and I know they are in good hands. It still seems surreal that we will get Joshua in about 4 days. Monday morning is "gotcha day" or "forever family day." He will be with us from then on, ours forever... and we are his. 

The girls are very excited about the trip, although they pretty much have no idea what they're getting into! I pray that everyone stays healthy and I believe this will be an amazing and life-changing experience for them. They will see things they have never seen before, and may never see again. They may experience emotions they have never had before and they may feel outside of their comfort-zone, but I think that's a good thing. I hope they leave China realizing that the world is much more than Cumming, Ga and we all live on this glorious planet together and we should do whatever we can to love each other, always. 

Last week we had a wonderful beach vacation in Ormond Beach, FL with my side of the family. It was great fun for the kids to play with their cousins and it was also nostalgic for me. Luckily, we got to visit the "jungle park." I grew up going to Ormond each summer and have MANY wonderful memories from there. One of my favorite places as a child (besides the beach) was this small local park we fondly referred to as the "jungle park." It's actually an acre or so of natural plants, bamboo trees, lily ponds and palms located at the corner of a busy street near the intercostal waterway. I think there is some art museum or something there, but we never went there. When we were young my grandma and mom would take my brother and I and my cousins there to let us run around. We loved it and determined it was THE BEST place in the world to play hide-n-go-seek. There were many wandering and meandering trails throughout this little park. Each trail would have multiple outshoots you could take and you could always wind up in a different spot than you had the last time you took that trail. As I was walking through the park last week, it occurred to me that one of the reasons we loved this park so much was that we had freedom... we were set loose and when we were running around on those trails, we could chose whatever path we wanted and no one could see us or tell us which way to go. Our goal was to not be found and take the path, not of least resistance, but the one where no one else had gone. It was exhilarating to be able to choose, and although sometimes we chose the wrong path and got caught, we still never regretted playing the game.

There are many people in this world that don't have the luxury of choice. They can't work hard and improve their status in society. They don't get to dream of what they want to be. They can't chose who they are going to spend the rest of their lives with or how many children they are going to have. When I step outside my bubble, it makes me truly appreciate my freedom, my ability to chose what I'm going to do with my life. I want to raise my kids so that they know that these are precious rights we have in this country and to never take them for granted... and to not hoard the benefits of these freedoms, but to make the world a better place because they can. 

There are many trails in our lives, many different paths we can take. Sometimes we start down one path that seems like the one we want to be on, but then it becomes clear that it's not taking us in the direction we want to go. When I get get turned around and don't know which way to go, I look to my compass. 

 I'm so thankful to be on this path... He led me to Sam and to Joshua. I'm sure it will not be an easy path, but it is a path rich in love and leading to peace. 

I know God has his arms wrapped around Joshua now as he prepares for us to come. Monday will be here before we know it and our life and his life will collide in a government office in Hunan, China. I pray that God allows him to feel safe and loved as he learns what "family" means. I pray that he is feeling well throughout our trip. His orphanage should be taking him for a blood transfusion sometime close to gotcha day. 

For those of you who don't know, Joshua was born with a genetic blood disorder called Beta Thalassemia Major. His hemoglobin level drops too low and he must get blood transfusions to raise the level to a healthy range. He doesn't get transfusions as often as he should in China because it is expensive and there is a blood shortage. We are blessed to live in the Atlanta area because there is an amazing doctor at Children's who specializes in Thalassemia and Joshua will be receiving top-notch care. He will also need to start taking iron chelation medication to help rid his body of excess iron from the transfusions. 

I guess it sounds kinda scary... and it is a serious condition that requires specialized care, but I believe his birth parents made an unspeakable sacrifice so that he could live, so just because it sounds scary, that's nothing compared to what they must have felt that day. It is my honor to be his mom, and when your child has a life-threatening disease, you do whatever it takes to make them better. Yes, we will spend a lot of time at CHOA... yes, we will have to stay on top of his health more so than our other kids... yes, we will have to make sure he takes his medicine everyday at the right time... yes, it's a lot of work parenting 5 kids, but I have no regrets. Things don't happen by accident in this life and I will keep trying to follow the path God has in store. It's more than I can even imagine:) 

Next post from China!! We fly out tomorrow afternoon and land in Hong Kong Friday night. Zai jian!