We have been at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou since Saturday afternoon, and, unbelievably, we will be on our way home in less than 48 hours. This leg of the journey has been so easy and relaxing compared to the earlier steps. The White Swan, also known as the "Stork" hotel, is situated on Shamian Island, which has a decidedly European feel to its architecture and is relatively small in size (you can walk around the whole island in about 20 minutes). In addition, there are many parks and plazas, not much traffic, and TONS of things for babies and foreign travelers, especially western-style food. It is a little like walking the boardwalk at Ocean City or the main drag in Gatlinburg, only in addition to all the China trinkets, you can buy all kinds of baby things as well. If you drop off your laundry at any of the dozens of local businesses, you will probably also walk out with a free stroller rental and any number of "free" gifts designed to get you to actually buy something there. We actually had fantastic Italian food the other night, which was better than most Italian restaurants I've eaten at in the U.S. People here do not look at you as strangely as they did in Hubei, and more people speak at least enough English to communicate over a sale or to order a meal. Once again, our CCAI representatives have been wonderful--they help us with everything from getting around to holding our babies when they are fussy, and of course, navigating the remainder of the paperwork and government red tape to get our babies out of China. We have done a fair amount of sightseeing here, as we have not had much to do prior to our all-important Consulate appointment (and we don't even go to that--Grace and Kathy handle the appointment for all CCAI families in their group). We had the babies' medical appointments and visa photo on Monday, but nothing else until all the families travel to the US Consulate on Thursday to take the "Oath" before returning home on Friday. We already know that the trip home is going to be miserable. First, Sophia does not relish traveling of any kind--she always gets fussy on our bus trips and cried bitterly for 20 minutes before falling asleep on the flight from Wuhan. Second, it sounds like most of the families will be traveling with us from China to Japan and many will be continuing with us to Detroit. This is not just the Hubei families, but most of the adopting families here right now--and there are dozens of us. So even if Sophie is a peach, I'm sure many of the other babies will not! I told Michael we should just prepare for the worst day of our life and we'll probably be fine.....
Anyway, we are very ready to get home and get on with our lives. It's been great to have this time to bond with Sophia with very few other responsibilities, and we have enjoyed getting to know the other families in our group, but we miss Nicholas like crazy, and just miss our regular routine. We are so grateful to our parents for making it possible for both of us to experience this incredible journey, but now we are ready for it to be over!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
August 19--Registration Appointment
Today is the day that we offically adopt our babies! Traffic was much heavier this morning and it took forever (so it seemed) to reach the office. We met in the same conference room and each family had a brief interview so that the registrar could determine that we would make good parents and that we could be entrusted with the care of a Chinese child. We had one last opportunity to meet with the orphanage director, who gave us the latest medical info. on Sophie, a copy of the abandonment notice in the local paper, and a beautiful jade pendant engraved with a boar--the animal under whose sign Sophie was born. This afternoon is the big expedition to Wal-Mart and the next two days we will be able to do some group sightseeing while we wait for the babies' documents to be finalized. Our final registration appointment is on Friday.
In our "free time" we have been watching lots of Olympic coverage. It seems like whereas the Americans like to watch swimming and gymnastics in primetime, the Chinese prefer ping pong and badminton. Who even knew these were Olympic sports? But we have been able to see the former, and a number of other events as well. Thank goodness sports are pretty self-explanatory, as all the commentary is in Chinese. The only American channels in the hotel are CNN, HBO, and Discovery network.
We have been really blessed to be able to communicate with our parents and Nicholas back home by webcam. Nicholas seems to be having a blast with his grandparents and they don't appear to be too exhuasted yet. Nicholas was really eager to see Sophie this morning and told her he would show her Papa's boat when she gets home. He also did his Knees Up Mother Brown dance for her. I am sooo missing him, but it really helps to be able to see him when we talk.
In our "free time" we have been watching lots of Olympic coverage. It seems like whereas the Americans like to watch swimming and gymnastics in primetime, the Chinese prefer ping pong and badminton. Who even knew these were Olympic sports? But we have been able to see the former, and a number of other events as well. Thank goodness sports are pretty self-explanatory, as all the commentary is in Chinese. The only American channels in the hotel are CNN, HBO, and Discovery network.
We have been really blessed to be able to communicate with our parents and Nicholas back home by webcam. Nicholas seems to be having a blast with his grandparents and they don't appear to be too exhuasted yet. Nicholas was really eager to see Sophie this morning and told her he would show her Papa's boat when she gets home. He also did his Knees Up Mother Brown dance for her. I am sooo missing him, but it really helps to be able to see him when we talk.
August 18--Gotcha Day!
This morning our group met up in the lobby at 8:30 a.m. for the ride through rush-hour traffic to the registration office where we will meet our babies. Everyone is so excited!!! After a breakfast buffet (stomach too queasy to eat much this a.m.!) we were off. At the registration office, we met in the conference room to wait for the babies. Sophia was one of the first in the room. I recognized her from her photo of course, but was also delighted that the orphanage nannies had dressed her in the outfit I had sent in her care package--a gift from Aunt Susan Milano. She went to us both right away but started to cry when she looked at our faces. Basically as long as she could just cling on to us without having to look at us, she was fine. I was able to speak with the director briefly about Sophie. She seemed genuinely interested in her welfare and concerned about whether Michael and I would care for her. She was also much younger than I had anticipated. She very thoughtfully left us with a photo album of pictures from the orphange and shots of Sophia from the time she arrived at the orphange until just last week. Anyway, after the melee of the transfer, we were excited to get back on the bus for home. We will be back tomorrow for the official adoption appointment. Once back at the hotel, we were encouraged to spend the day/evening in our room getting to know our babies. Sophie was glad to get a bottle and down for a nap and, after waking, she seemed more curious about Michael and me, and we even got a few smiles before bedtime. The pediatrician who stopped by this afternoon told us she felt that Sophia was calcium deficient, but otherwise healthy. I'm sure we can rectify that when we get home with some Yo-baby and better formula. Michael and I were still knotted up and not feeling like eating much and were so exhausted that we pretty much went to bed just after Sophie. Of course, that meant that we were wide awake sometime in the middle of the night and starving. Tomorrow I am determined that we will find some peanut butter or something since we have yet to find something really satisfying to eat here. How could I have not thought to pack this???
August 17--Arrive in Hubei Province
Well, after all the drama of the day before, we arrived in Wuhan without incident. We have begun to meet the other families in our group (there are 12, which is a very large group), and there are two others from Tennessee--one from near Nashville and the other from Cookeville. How neat! Joanna, our CCAI rep. met us all at the airport and transported us to the Jin Jiang Hotel, which is a lovely highrise on a lake. Unfortunately, no group dinner was prepared, leaving us to fend for ourselves not knowing where anything was and with a very limited timeframe for eating as our group meeting was at 6:30. Michael and I wandered across the street to McDonalds, where most other families ended up. Unfortunately, although the signs look like the same food as at home, in reality it is very different. Hopefully we won't have to eat many meals here! Our group meeting went well. We filled out our adoption papers, and found out what would happen the rest of the week. We both took an Ambien last night to hopefully be well-rested for Gotcha day tomorrow!
August 14--Leave for China!
I can't believe this day has finally arrived. After waiting more than 4 years, we are finally off to meet our daughter and bring her home to our family. We are nervous, excited, and mainly just ready to get this over with! Michael's Dad dropped us off at the airport after Michael crunched his Dad's bumper pulling out of the garage. What an auspicious way to begin our trip...
We encountered no problems on the first leg of our trip and even arrived in Detroit about 30 minutes early. While eating lunch, I checked my messages and discovered that our updated I-171H arrived in Guangzhou overnight, another bonus. Now we will not be stuck in China without a visa for Sophia. Unfortunately, when I called CCAI to thank them for this information about 5 minutes before boarding our flight to Tokyo, Bernice informed me that they had just discovered that our connection to Guangzhou had been canceled. We and several other families (none from the Hubei group) would arrive too late in Tokyo to make another flight. Fortunately, the Detroit gate agent said that she would communicate with Northwest in Tokyo to sort things out for us. But in the course of rebooking us (only Michael and me--she was planning to reroute the other families once our flight departed because it was last call for our flight), she canceled my reservation altogether and another agent gave away my seat to a standby passenger before she could correct the problem. Believe it or not, after a moment of panic, she let us know that she had rebooked us into business class. Wow--knowing that to book this ourselves would have cost several thousand dollars extra, we were extremely grateful and lucky. Let me tell you, business class nearly made the flight enjoyable (in fact, let me just say it actually did!). We were seated in the upper deck of the 747, just where I have always wanted to sit! I was surprised at the number of American kids in business class--they seemed to be a few families whose daddies must work in Japan--they were all headed back to start school. Anyway, we felt very pampered on the 13-hour flight. And, when we landed in Tokyo, indeed the Northwest folks had taken care of everything--even booking us all into a really nice hotel by the airport, free dinner, and free breakfast, plus transfers to and from the airport. So, now we can say we have spent time in Japan, even if we never really left the city of Narita, where the airport is located. The next morning, we arrived in Guangzhou on a Japan Airlines flight, were met by CCAI staff, and transported to the White Swan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our room was very nice after reading several negative reviews on Trip Advisor. Either we were on a renovated floor or there are some very picky people writing the reviews. Tonight we will have a group dinner at a local Thai restaurant and tomorrow morning, it is back to the airport for the flight to Wuhan.
We encountered no problems on the first leg of our trip and even arrived in Detroit about 30 minutes early. While eating lunch, I checked my messages and discovered that our updated I-171H arrived in Guangzhou overnight, another bonus. Now we will not be stuck in China without a visa for Sophia. Unfortunately, when I called CCAI to thank them for this information about 5 minutes before boarding our flight to Tokyo, Bernice informed me that they had just discovered that our connection to Guangzhou had been canceled. We and several other families (none from the Hubei group) would arrive too late in Tokyo to make another flight. Fortunately, the Detroit gate agent said that she would communicate with Northwest in Tokyo to sort things out for us. But in the course of rebooking us (only Michael and me--she was planning to reroute the other families once our flight departed because it was last call for our flight), she canceled my reservation altogether and another agent gave away my seat to a standby passenger before she could correct the problem. Believe it or not, after a moment of panic, she let us know that she had rebooked us into business class. Wow--knowing that to book this ourselves would have cost several thousand dollars extra, we were extremely grateful and lucky. Let me tell you, business class nearly made the flight enjoyable (in fact, let me just say it actually did!). We were seated in the upper deck of the 747, just where I have always wanted to sit! I was surprised at the number of American kids in business class--they seemed to be a few families whose daddies must work in Japan--they were all headed back to start school. Anyway, we felt very pampered on the 13-hour flight. And, when we landed in Tokyo, indeed the Northwest folks had taken care of everything--even booking us all into a really nice hotel by the airport, free dinner, and free breakfast, plus transfers to and from the airport. So, now we can say we have spent time in Japan, even if we never really left the city of Narita, where the airport is located. The next morning, we arrived in Guangzhou on a Japan Airlines flight, were met by CCAI staff, and transported to the White Swan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our room was very nice after reading several negative reviews on Trip Advisor. Either we were on a renovated floor or there are some very picky people writing the reviews. Tonight we will have a group dinner at a local Thai restaurant and tomorrow morning, it is back to the airport for the flight to Wuhan.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Week Five--Everything Falls Into Place
Well, we are less than a week away from our big trip, and everything finally seems to be falling into place. We made the marathon back and forth trip to Nashville last Saturday for our fingerprints and discovered early last week that our fingerprints had cleared the FBI the same day. The Memphis USCIS graciously expedited the processing of our updated I-171H and forwarded that info. on to the National Visa Center for them in turn to send on to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou. According to our senator's office, that only takes a couple of days, so we will not be left stranded in China without a visa for our child to return to the US. Yay! We also participated in the final travel call with our CCAI travel group and learned that we will receive our children on Monday, August 18--Gotcha Day! We have rounded up most of the stuff we need to take with us and at this point, it looks like we will have plenty of space (what am I forgetting!!!) for what we need. Michael has finished fine-tuning the webcam with his Dad so that we can (hopefully!) communicate with everyone back home while we are in China--especially Nicholas. I am really not worried that he will miss us with all the spoiling he is sure to receive while we are gone, but WE are going to miss him like crazy! We had a busy weekend spoiling him ourselves. Nicholas and I went to Dollywood on Friday (we had a blast!) while Michael was working, and yesterday our whole family went to the zoo for another fun-filled day. Now we just need to finish everything before we depart on Thursday morning. Wish us luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)