Bittersweet Birthday

Today is Lily's 1st birthday, and we are so happy to have her in our lives.  We couldn't be more grateful and humbled to be allowed to be her parents.  


While our hearts sing to have such a sweet blessing, they also ache, especially on days like today, her first birthday.  We can't help but think that there is at least one person, probably more, who is hurting for their loss, magnified even more on days like today.  


Lily is too young to make birthday wishes, so I'll make some:


I wish I could thank them for making the right decision of allowing her to be in this world, and for leaving her in a safe place to be found.  


I wish I could tell them she is loved, healthy, smart, happy and just plain beautiful.  


I wish I could share all the firsts with them, all the ups, all the downs, even the boring details.  


I wish they could teach her first hand about her culture and birth family.  


I wish they could tell her their circumstances which led them to make what has to be the most difficult decision in the world.  


I wish I could tell them it's OK, the world is working this out in greater ways than they could ever imagine for their sweet daughter.


I wish they could see their daughter, hold her, kiss her chubby cheeks and just look look look into those deep brown inquisitive eyes.


I wish they could tell her "I love you".


People say she is so lucky.  They are wrong.  We are the lucky ones.


Happy 1st Birthday Little Miss Lily!  We love you so very much!

We are home!

Got home Friday evening, and we've all had a good night's sleep.  Lily seems pretty content in her new home, slept all night without a peep and is happily playing on the living room floor.  She seems to like, and is interested in, the cat and the cat seems to tolerate her.

Lily doesn't crawl or walk yet, but she can sit up on her own and roll over.  No words yet either, other than a mmmmaaaaahhhhhh when's she hungry.  She seems to love watching Rose, and I can see her learning from Rose already.

We developed the disposable camera we had sent ahead of time to the orphanage, and we got some nice photos of her foster mother.  Her foster mother is older, perhaps a grandma.  We now know where Lily gets her generous and charming smile, and that would be from her foster mother's beautiful smile.  There are also some younger boys in the photos, but we have no idea if they were with the foster mother or from the orphanage.  We cherish the photo's, as there is so little that Lily comes to us with.

Rose seems much happier to be home (despite telling us she wanted to stay and live in China).  We had some rough and sad moments while in China having to do with our family changing, but extra love and attention seems to be helping.  I slept with her in her bed last night, I think we both needed some time with each other.

Can't wait for everyone to meet Lily.  She's fighting a cold right now, so we'll have to see how she's feeling before venturing out.  Rose has a birthday party to attend this afternoon, we are hoping to be not too jet-lagged to take her to it.  I think it would be good for her to spend some time with her friends.

Rose goes back to school on Monday.  She only got to attend one day of 2nd grade before we left for China.  Here's hoping she can make the transition ok, and not feel too far behind or left out.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that when we returned home last night we had to actually turn the furnace on to take the chill off.  We left China in 90+ degrees and vert high humidity, and came home to 60 degrees and dry air.  You'd think we would have relished the cooler temp, but for some reason we all felt COLD!!

Our return home was made so special by family, friends and neighbors.  My brother and his wife picked us up from the airport and provided some baby food, fruit and milk.  They also gave us a beautiful bouquet of lilies and roses :)

There were balloons decorating our front light post, and a hand made Welcome Home poster on our front door.  Our fridge was stocked with fresh food and beverages, and our house was cleaned professionally (Thank you Vicki for the thoughtful shower gift of food and cleaning!).

The cat was well cared for, and even gained a few extra pounds, and there was a gift waiting for Lily on the counter (not from the cat...from a neighbor hee hee).

Now we are just waiting for our held mail to be delivered so we can catch up with the real world.

Home Sweet Home!

Wrapping it up

We are in the final stretch before heading home.  Today (Wednesday) we went to the US Consulate to give an oath and make it legal to recognize Lily as a US citizen when our flight lands in the USA.  I think there were 44 families there today, and everyone was happy to get to this point.  Lot's of congratulations to everyone, and to make it even more special, the Barrett family was in the same group as us to take the oath for Erin.

Thursday our agency representative will pick up Lily's visa, and we are scheduled to leave Guangzhou around 4:30 in the afternoon to head to Hong Kong.  We have rented a van with a driver, and are sharing it with another family in our group.  We will spend Thursday night at the hotel at the Hong Kong airport, and catch a noon flight out of Hong Kong on Friday.  We go to Chicago, then to Minneapolis.  Now I'm the one not feeling so good, so I'm hoping the prescription meds we brought with will do the trick.

Backtracking a bit, on Monday morning, we got off the island, and walked to a huge new pedestrian shopping street. Along the way, we passed by the traditional Chinese medicine wholesale market, where you could buy seahorses and starfish..

Dried herbs (I recognized a bunch of Ginseng, and Star Anise, but beyond that, would be hard pressed to know what all of this was).

And of course, live scorpions with some escaping!

After the medicine shop street, we went down the Pet shopping street. The Chinese are really into their pets now, and since most live in huge cities, they have to be small pets. Small dogs, cats, birds, fish are all popular. Rose loved seeing the puppies for sale! She wanted to adopt every pet she saw up and down the whole shopping street.

And turtles!

Auntie being silly behind the bird cages Rose was checking out.

And more puppies for pets that Rose gravitated to.

Keeping fish are quite popular too, here are a bunch of fish for aquariums.

This is the new pedestrian shopping area. But Nancy loves seeing these huge loads carried around on bicycles (which we don't see so much of any longer in China, regular vans and trucks made by Western countries are much more common now, all the old scary 3-wheeler falling apart vans are gone now).

And the Asian Games are coming to Guangzhou next month. Rose is posing in front of a display of the mascots for the Asian Games.

The "girls" went shopping for pearls at wholesale in this huge shopping mall, but this is a picture of them in the bead store that they went to next after the Pearl store.

Auntie M had her birthday on Monday, and the White Swan delivered this delicious cake to her room to help her celebrate. She made it a party, and called up Papa Johns for a delivery (by bicycle to the White Swan!) and had all of our travel group gather up in her room for the evening.

Molly, our guide thinks that this red couch at the White Swan is much prettier than the traditional one down by the Swan room. Here's our whole family.

And the two sisters.

Isn't Rose so pretty?

Next we did the traditional White Swan Waterfall group pictures, heres some of the girls together..

Even the White Swan has the Asian Games mascots in their lobby for the big event..

Auntie hanging out with Lily wearing her "Auntie is my BFF" shirt.

On Wednesday, we went to the US Consulate offices in Guangzhou (apparently moving yet again for more space sometime next year). Along the way, this huge Western style Apartment building captured our view..

But no pictures allowed at the US Consulate. 

I started this post yesterday (Wednesday) and am now posting it today (Thursday).  We had a nice breakfast with our travel group, and have some packing done, and are going to go as a family to the pool for one last swim.  Lily likes the pool, and of course Rosebud LOVES the pool!

Checking out at 4:00 pm today, don't know if we will be posting again before we get home.  Home sweet home!  Keep us in your prayers for a safe and uneventful flight home, especially for Rose and Lily - it's a long flight (14.5 hours from Hong Kong to Chicago) and then a 4 hour layover until our flight from Chicago to Mpls.  Thankfully we all seem to be feeling well, and are ready to come home!

Some Photos!

I'm not going to try to put these in order, it's too hard to do right now. 

In Nanchang, we visited the Tengwang Pavilion.

Also in Nanchang, there is a park nearby named Bayi Park.  Bayi literally means August 1st.  It's a date in history when power changed hands in Nanchang.  This is the memorial.  Also at this park is a great fountain show at night.  Doug, Marion and Rose went one night and got soaking wet.  We have video, but no pictures.

Little Miss Lily is so content sitting on the bed and playing and watching us.  She loves to eat baby dry cereals, but we think she loves the containers and packaging more.   She is laughing and smiling alot, and Marion and Rose are good at making her laugh hard.  She is feeling so much better now, she no longer has the previously mentioned issues thank goodness.    We can tell that she was very well loved and cared for with her foster family.  She is such a sweet girl.

One morning I went next door to Marion and Rose's room, and I could hear them scheming behind the door.  They both had hotel robes and slippers on and bowed when they opened the door to me, it was pretty cute.

The famous White Swan Barbie doll.  It's tradition for the hotel to leave a Barbie for the newly adopted child.  It's a caucasian Barbie holding an asian baby.  They left one for Rose as well, she is pretty happy to have a 2nd doll.

We got a chuckle out the baby potty chair...

Today (Sunday) in Guangzhou we were taken to the Seven Banyan Buddhist Temple.  It was pouring rain, but it was still very beautiful.  This is a photo of the priest getting ready to bless our babies.  We adults also got blessed and made wishes to the various buddha's throughout the temple.  You take incense in groups of three's, light them, stand before a buddha, make a wish, bow three times, and then place your incense in a holder in front of the buddha.

This is our entire travel group.  Everyone is doing pretty good, we are amazed the babies are so content for the most part.

We also stopped at a super market to replenish baby supplies.  The Mid Autumn Moon Festival is coming up, and moon cakes are everywhere!!  This is a GIANT mooncake.  Our hotel is even known for their mooncakes, and many people are stopping by just to buy their mooncakes.

We also went to a store that sold jade and porcelean.  I actually bought a traditional jade bangle, necklace and earrings.  Rose bought a tea set, a small folding screen and a jar with painting on the inside.  This man has been carving "chops" for 42 years.  Chops are blocks of stone (can't remember which stone) that they carve your name in.  We got one for Lily with her Chinese and American names on it.  They are used as signatures in China, seen as a red "stamp" on paperwork and artwork.  Rose got one from a shop near our hotel.

Two more photos from the Buddhist Temple.  Even though it was pouring rain, it was still so beautiful.  That's Rose in the front with the white umbrella.

We have a photo at home from when we were here in 2004 adopting Rose.  Rose and I were under this same Banyan tree.  Now we have one with me, Rose and Lily.  I really love the feel of this place, and would love to go back when the weather is better.  In 2004, it was about 100 degrees and such high humidity that we had problems with our cameras and glasses fogging up, and there was so much water in the air it was almost misty.

Tomorrow our guide is walking us to a shopping street.  I am so horrible at bargaining, I actually loathe it.  I'm so bad at it, it's actually become funny.

I am so happy to say that I have gotten to see the dear Barrett family two days in a row now here in Guangzhou.  Yesterday we ran into them at the health clinic for our medical exams.  I got to meet Erin!  She is a very polite young lady who smiles and actually recognized me today when we saw them in the lobby of our hotel.  They are staying at a different hotel but were meeting up at our hotel for a tour.  It is fun to see people you know here.  Rose got to say hello to Monika and Jenny, and she got to meet Erin.  Katie and Dave stayed back at the hotel.

We finally got our laundry done.  It's something we normally take for granted, but traveling for so long has given me an appreciation for the ability to wash our clothes whenever we want to at home.  

Thursday we rent a van and driver to take us to Hong Kong, and we spend the night in Hong Kong.  Then Friday we fly home!

In Guangzhou

The flight from Nanchang to Guangzhou couldn't have gone better for little Miss Lily.  We were worried that she would have a "poop incident" on the plane, and that would be really really bad.  Really bad.

But, amazingly, she took a bottle as we were taking off, fell asleep within 5 minutes without a peep, and woke up only as we landed.   I had Rose sitting with me (we were all split up again on the flight), and was worried about her too as she is having stomach/bowel issues.  But she fared well on the flight too, thank goodness.

We got to the hotel, and as I was letting the porter in with our luggage, Miss Lily let loose.  And I mean let loose.  Had it happened on the airplane, I'm sure they would have diverted our flight to the nearest airport...or the oxygen masks would have deployed...or the air marshall would have been alerted...or we'd be asked to leave China.

Sorry for the graphic nature of this post, but it's our reality right now.  I've got three with the trots and one with a cold.  I'm knocking on wood that I stay healthy.  Please?  Pretty please?

If anyone has suggestions on how to stop diarrhea in an 11 month old, who's only food so far has been congee, porridge and formula with rice cereal, please let me know.  Our guide gave us a chinese medicine for upset stomach which seems to have helped the vomiting, but not the diarrhea.  We also have Chinese ammoxycilin that the director from the orphanage gave us, but we stopped using it thinking it was making her vomit or have diarrhea.  A travel mate has some acidopholis that might help, anyone have experience using that?   We've got Pedialite but she isn't a fan of it.  We've been putting it in water and then feeding her with a bottle.  Any ideas what to do?

On a fun note, Lily laughed for the first time today, when I tickled her under the chin.  She's smiled a little up until now, but today is the first I've seen a true happy smile and heard a laugh. It is SO sweet!  She really is a happy baby, and I'm a lucky Momma.  She smiles when I come into the room, and when I  hold her and kiss her, she pushes her forehead into my forehead.  She's hardly been crying at all, only pretty much when she's hungry and we aren't fast enough, or she's tired or wet.  Otherwise she's happy to go wandering around in our arms or the stroller, or sitting on the bed with toys.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we have her photo taken for her visa, and then an appointment at the health clinic which is required.   I'm glad to be on Shamian Island, where things are familiar to me.  The island has changed somewhat from what little I got to see coming in.  There seem to be a few high rises visible that I hadn't remembered from before.  Lot's of bright neon lighted tour boats on the Pearl River, with flashing electronic billboards on the sides, which is kind of disappointing.  But all the lights at night on the river from our hotel room are pretty.  And once again, we get to watch the evening storms roll in, lightning show and all.  Our hotel room faces the Pearl river.

Miss Rose is anxious to go to the outdoor pool, but she will have plenty of time to do that tomorrow with Auntie Marion, providing her stomach issues settle down.  It is real tropical here year round, so there are palm trees and lot's of greenery.  They've really spruced up the city because the Asian Games are coming to Guangzhou in October I think.

Sorry for no photos again - it's just takes too long to load and post them.  I'll try to do a post tomorrow with just photos.

Lily Update

Just a quick post to say that Lily seems to be feeling much better.  She hasn't vomited in over 24 hours, is eating formula with rice cereal, as well as congee.  She perks up when we go to the restaurant for breakfast and dinner.  And she just looks better.  Everyone ooh's and aaaah's over her, even the Chinese people.  Today a Chinese grandpa who speaks english came up to us at breakfast to ask how old, how much does she weigh, her length, etc.  He has a granddaughter at home the same age.  He was surprised to hear we had only been together since Sunday, she seems so content with us.

She sleeps through the night without a peep, and she naps regularly in the afternoon.  She cries very little.

Today we went to see a beautiful pavilion along the river.  I could have spent all day there, however it is very hot (95 degrees and 85% humidity) and none of us could tolerate it very well.  Of course, our camera, and Marion's camera both had dead batteries so we got only a few pictures.  Our travel mates will be sharing their photos with us thankfully.

Rose and Marion are down at the pool again.  Thank goodness for the pool!  I'm having a hard time with Rose when she is around Lily as she wants to constantly see if she can get her to play or smile, etc.  It usually upsets Lily to have someone in her face, but now that she is feeling better, hopefully it will turn out to be a good thing.

We are getting our plane tickets today to fly to Guangzhou on Friday.  Shopping here we come!  We've been trying to hold off on shopping until Guangzhou.  It helps that our hotel here in Nanchang is in an industrial shopping area (hardware, plumbing, electrical, machine parts), no temptation to buy anything.  And the hotel prices are too high.

There are some real interesting areas that I would love to explore here, but it's just too hot to take little Lily. I wish I were brave enough to go exploring without Doug or our guide.  I don't know what the rest of the day (Wednesday) holds, or tomorrow (Thursday) either.   Will post again if anything exciting happens!

Hope everyone who has kids going back to school this week is finding it to be a smooth transition.  I hear the weather in MN is unusually dreary, wishing for sunny skies for you!
Nancy

More Photos

One view from our hotel room.  At night, many neon signs light up the night, as well as electronic billboards.

 Our first glimpse of Miss Lily.  That's her with the woman in the light colored dress.

 Rose's first time holding Lily.

 Marion's (my sister) first time holding Lily.

 The hotel has many fresh flower arrangements, and most contain - you guessed it! - Roses and Lilies.  Makes this mommy smile.

 Lily today - napping away while I update blog.  You can't see him, but Doug is napping away as well in the bed next to her.

She still has a little diarrhea, and still vomits, but is keeping more and more down each day.  We took her to the hotel clinic and they think it's a stomach issue, not a cold like I was told by the orphanage and given meds for.  We stopped giving her the meds and instead have been giving her something for an upset stomach.  Fewer is lower and less often now too.   She's been thirsty and hungry, which is good.  But every time we give her something, it usually comes back up.  This morning though we gave her porridge (not sure what it's made of) and she kept that down.  This afternoon we tried formula with rice cereal, and so far she has kept that down too.  Poor little thing, we've been having to give her liquids in such small amounts, and she could drink up an entire bottle quickly if we let her.

Just "The Girls" hanging out.

 Yesterday (Monday) we finalized the adoption at the provincial office.  Here is a photo of us with the orphanage director.  Marion kept Rose busy at the hotel since it was very hot, crowded and a long wait with nothing for her to do.  I had a chance to ask the director some questions about how long Lily was sick (since Sunday, the day we got her).  I also asked if there was a note or anything left with Lily, and there was.  She had it with her and I got to hold it.  Doug took pictures of it, but it is hard to read since it's on red paper.  Made me feel pretty sad to be touching something that most likely was written by someone in her birth family.  It just said the day she was born.  But that is an important piece of verification to have, being that she has so little to actually take with her to her new life.

 Our hotel has a glass elevator that faces out.  We like to take it up to the top floor because you can see way out over the city.  At night, you can see a big neon lighted ferris wheel way off in the distance.  It's along the main river in the city, and it used to be one of the world's largest ferris wheels.  I'd like to ride on it, but it's a major event to go out of the hotel between the heat, sick baby, whiney 7 year old, and the communication gap between us and the locals.

 The pool at our hotel.  It's nice, except for the constant spitting.  Into the pool.  You'd have thought they'd learned a few things since SARS and H1N1.  Nope.

The city is actually quite nice.  The people are friendly and VERY curious about us.  Many smiles and thumbs up (which is good).  Many people just stop and watch us.  The boys on the hotel staff out front are really cute - I might have to take a picture of them sometime, they are so helpful and curteous, very good manners.

Rose is not handling China very well at all.  We've tried to venture out with her, but she can't tolerate the heat (you'd think coming from Hunan she'd have a tolerance for it).  She is very sensitive to strong odors, and let me tell you, this city has quite the smells.  She literally gags.  I think something else is going on with Rose and not liking being outside the hotel, but I'm not sure I can put my finger on it.  We try to talk to her about it, but she says she doesn't know whats wrong.

Today I was proud of her - we went a few blocks (not an easy feat around here with the busyness, construction, cars, bikes, mopeds, etc).  I had to first tell her no pool today if she continued to complain, and then I had to bribe her with money to go another block.  Anyways, we stopped to get some soda pop at a small family owned store, and they spoke to her in Chinese and she spoke back.  The store owner was very impressed.  She gets a lot of stares when people hear her speaking English on the street and in the hotel.  She helps me out when someone speaks to me in Chinese and I don't understand.  I hope some day she realizes how valuable an asset it is to be bi-lingual.

Today (Tuesday) is a free day for the families.  Our guide took some time to translate some questions that the foster family or orphanage answered for us (we had sent the questions in the mail a couple of weeks ago, along with a disposable camera for them to take pictures of meaningful things for Lily, and some small gifts).  We haven't developed the pictures yet.  We may wait until Guangzhou to do that.

Wednesday we will do some sight seeing.  Jiangxi is known for it's porcelean, and Nanchang has some important historical events that have happened here. Thursday I believe is another free day.  And then Friday we fly to Guangzhou after Lily's passport is done and we receive it.

I'm washing clothes by hand in the hotel room because I'm out of clean ones and it would cost us over $60 US dollars to wash just some of it through the hotel.  We haven't been able to find a local laundry, which would be cheaper.   Keeps me busy and I sweat enough to lose 10 pounds a day...

All in all I'd say things are going well.  Hopefully Lily will continue to get better.  She is pretty darn cute, especially when with Doug.  She seems to really adore him, and he adores her.  He is taking such good care of her.  How lucky I am!

And,  every day I'm so very thankful that Marion is here with us to help keep Rose company in a separate room, so Doug and I can take care of Lily without too much crazyness going on around us.

Thanks for following along with us!