Disclaimer and hopefully last post from Fuzhou

I just wanted to post a quick disclaimer after yesterday's post! I might have painted the Chinese people around here in a bad light and I didn't want to do that! There have been so many sweet, kind and helpful people such as ... Penny, our guide who has been so kind and invaluable... The girl at the Chinese restaurant who brought us silverware after we sat there looking at our food for a while and then resorted to using one chop stick and the porcelain soup spoon... The man at the hotel desk who ordered our pizza for us... The boy working behind the counter at KFC who helped us order our meal there (KFC has some work to do on the food though - not too impressed there!)... So many people who have genuinely smiled at us as we've passed by... The list really could go on and on - and we need to remember that as it's always easier to have the more negative experiences stick out! This week has been a very unique experience in many ways (outside of the obvious - coming across the world to bring our daughter home!). We have never been such the minority. Evidently this isn't a very touristy province, so we could literally count the number of people we have seen who aren't Asian on our hands. So not only do we really stick out, we also don't speak the language, so it makes communication very difficult! It has been good in so many ways - really even if Mya was the only good thing, it would be worth it anyway, but the fact that it doesn't feel like home at all makes us all the more homesick! We are aching to see our three boys at home. Please hug them for us whenever you get a chance!!

Just one more day in Fuzhou and we'll be on our way to Guangzhou and a step closer to coming home! We're supposed to get Mya's passport around 3:00 tomorrow and have a flight booked to guangzhou at 7:00 tomorrow night. We've had an awesome experience here in Fuzhou, a place we'll never forget. Penny took us to a Buddhist temple today, which while we're obviously not into the religion, it was pretty spectacular. While the weather has been nice here, it is so stinking humid (Shannon wanted me to point that out so you knew why her hair was so bad). Today was a perfect 55 degrees with very little humidity so we've been outside all day. For this post, I wanted to show some pictures of some of the things we've seen here in Fuzhou (in addition to some cute pictures of Mya of course). I also need to mention that it's such a pain to get pictures for our camera to my iPad that I'm not doing it today. I tried to upload a video as well, but it wouldn't work. As a result, all of these pictures are from my iPhone, which aren't nearly as good:

1. View of our hotel from across the lake.
2. The Starbucks on that famous street I mentioned in the last post.
3. The place in the hotel where we eat breakfast every morning.
4. Shan and Mya holding hands on part of the path around the lake.
5. Buddhist temple grounds.
6. Shan and Mya in front of the tallest pagoda in the fujian province.
7. Mya at the park. She was squatting down to imitate me as I tried to get down to her level to take the picture.
8. Shan and Mya just being cute!
9. Shannon on part of the boardwalk (this was pre-Mya...not quite the same smile as post-Mya!)
10. Shan and Mya at the entrance to the bridge to the island in the lake.

That's all for now. Please pray that there are no issues with Mya's passport so we can be on our way to Guangzhou tomorrow! Thanks!!

Fuzhou

As crazy as it seems, I feel like our days are so filled that I hardly have time to post anything. First of all, let me update you on Mya. Words that come to mind to describe what we know of her so far: sweet, playful, smiley, strong-willed, independent, hungry (all the time), cuddly, laugher, cute, funny, impatient, and smart. She has figured out how to control us in less than 4 days since we met her on Sunday. Shannon and I feel so bad that we are letting her do so many things that we wouldn't let our boys do at this age, but we are in a place where people constantly stare at us even when our Chinese baby isn't screaming at the top of her lungs, so you can imagine the looks when she is! Whenever we take her out in public, we joke that she can sense that we are on edge and she knows exactly what to do and when to do it in order to get exactly what she wants...usually something sweet to eat. She has mastered digging into her backpack to find the one thing that we were holding onto as the "ace-in-the-hole" that will save us when she's on the brink of a melt down. All of that said, she is definitely already attaching to us and we are falling deeper in love with her every day!

Even though we can't speak a word of mandarin and she can't speak a word of English, we seem to understand each other pretty well...it really is amazing. She loves to be in our hotel room, which has become her playroom, bounce house and wrestling ring all in one. The one thing she doesn't like to do in our room is sleep. Getting her to fall asleep is definitely the hardest part so far. She'll cry for over a half an hour as we hold her, pat her on the back, rub her belly to try to console her, but she just yells as if saying, "I can easily outlast you". In fact, she has outlasted us every time we've tried to get her to take a nap, which is why you'll see pictures of her sleeping in the sling and in the stroller we rented from the hotel. She is sleeping in her crib at night, which is huge given that she cried just watching the guy bring the crib into our room in the middle of the day. All-in-all, things are going way better than we expected, especially given our first 30 minutes with her. We don't have any doubt that's a result of all of our friends and family back home that are praying for us....so thank you!

I'm sure most of you have already scrolled down to the bottom to just look at the pictures by this point (I'm not judging, I would do the exact same thing). For those that are still reading, below is a recap of what we've been up to:

Monday: we went to the provincial adoption office to file the official adoption papers. Our guide, Penny, took us there with another family from the US that is also staying at our hotel. From there, we went to the notary's office to make the adoption official. Mya was not a big fan of either of these stops, and again, could easily see how on edge we were with all of these officials around. Needless to say, we were relieved to make it back to the hotel! But this was important because it made our adoption official in China and they were then able to apply for Mya's passport. We have to wait for that to come through which is why we have to stay in Fuzhou until the end of the week. Once we get her passport, which will be Friday, we will fly to Guangzhou. As a side note, I can't tell you how thankful I am that we have a driver for the whole trip. I am an aggressive driver, but I would look like a 16-year old girl taking her driving exam compared to the people over here... I would never try to drive here!

Tuesday: Penny took us, the other US family and a family from Italy that was trying to adopt but ran into problems (very sad story for a later time) to Panda world. They are very proud of their pandas here. The pandas were cool, but the actual exhibit left a little to be desired. Either way, it got us out of the hotel room for a bit. From there, we went to an old-style Chinese house, which was pretty cool, in the middle of the city, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings. We also went to a tea-tasting there, which isn't really my thing, but was a very impressive presentation.

As I'm typing this, Papa Johns was just delivered to our hotel room and I'm drinking a $2 Heineken from my hotel fridge....as close to home as we can get! Kevin Pong, if you read this, you need to get Marco's over here - it would be a hit!

Wednesday (today): we went to a famous old shopping street. It is pedestrian-only street full of cool little gift shops, jewelry shops, clothing stores, and restaurants (including one of the coolest Starbucks I've ever seen). Shannon loaded up on stuff for Mya. Watching Mya and Shannon hold hands while they walk has been one of my favorite things to do here. She is definitely loving her "Mama" and all of the attention she gets from her.

One of the best things about our hotel is this huge lake with a boardwalk that goes all the way around it right out our front door. It is also connected to this great park that has some beautiful scenery, tons of open space and even a bunch of rides like you'd see at a fair or catholic festival. All of our activities have been done by noon so we've spent every afternoon walking around the lake or in the park (thankfully, the weather has been awesome -70 degrees and dry for the most part). Mya even rode her first rides this afternoon. I'm thinking she might be disappointed when we get home with everything this place has to offer!

We are definitely missing home, especially the boys! Skype and face time have been awesome, but it's just not the same. Thanks for your continued prayers!

That's way too much writing, so here are some pictures from the last couple of days...I had to add the one of her crying to give the whole picture of Mya. This is what she does when she doesn't get her way. She closes her eyes and cries so that even though we're trying to give her the thing she's crying about, she won't open her eyes to take it. It really is funny....at least when we're not in public! You'll also notice one of our tricks to try to get her in her crib...

Pictures

I'm too tired to say a whole lot. Jet lag, lack of sleep last night thanks to Mya taking up 90% of our bed, and the emotional drain of this process have all taken their toll. I'm sure most of you would rather see pictures than hear what's going on anyway! Here is a progression of pictures with the first couple from when we first met her, the next few back in our room yesterday afternoon, the next few from last night and the rest from this afternoon. You can tell that she is getting more and more comfortable, but there are still times when she cries for no apparent reason so we know she's still confused and likely scared. That said, she does a lot of smiling, laughing, playing, and trying to communicate. As I type this, Mya is laying on Shannon sound asleep....something I was never allowed to do with the boys because we didn't want to spoil them....

Finally!!

We finally have her! Words can't express how happy we are that Mya is finally part of our lives. While it's only been about five hours, we can both say that the wait was well worth it!! I have to admit that the first 30 minutes were very stressful, but she seems as happy as can be now. I don't expect it to be this easy every day, but right now, all is good.

We were waiting in a conference room with two other adoptive families and a few other official adoption people. Mya's orphanage director and assistant director brought Mya in first. Let's just say she wasn't all that excited about being handed over to two Americans! I think our experience may have been a little traumatic for the other two families as Mya cried for the first 30 minutes while we held and tried to comfort her. You can see by this picture that she's made a pretty quick transition:

Again, we want to thank you all for your prayers, as she seems to be coping very well with this crazy change. That said, we would definitely appreciate continued prayer as we try to not only bond with her, but figure out how to take care of her in a way that keeps her happy and comfortable. We're also praying that she's a good sleeper given that we're all together in a small studio hotel room for the rest of the week.....

Big Day

Finally, we get to meet Mya today! Someone from the orphanage is bringing her here to the hotel and we get to meet her at 3:30 this afternoon (that's 3:30 am back home). We're very excited and anxious at the same time. So, we'll get to be with her from this afternoon for the rest of our trip! We're praying that she won't be too scared, and that she'll feel loved right away. We're just asking God to comfort her over these next couple of days as she gets used to us. It's a little scary to us and we know what's going on, I can only imagine what's going through her mind!

Shannon and I have had a great time, mostly walking around and checking out the city. What we've seen so far has been very pretty. Penny took us up to a national forest in one of the mountains up above the city yesterday afternoon, which was very cool. We had our first celebrity sighting as well - it was me. Some kids asked me for a picture with one of them...pretty funny! I also had a little girl (probably Mya,s age) stop in her tracks, cover her wide open mouth with her hand, gasp as if she'd seen a ghost and point up at me as she clung to her mom.....we're hoping for a different response from Mya, but at least we're prepared a little better now.

We know we have so much more excitement in store for us over the next few days here in Fuzhou with Mya. Please pray for a smooth transition today and we'll post some pictures later today. Thank you all for your prayers so far as the travel here was very smooth and Shannon and I have had a great time in the day and a half that we've been here! Here are a couple pictures from our hotel window....

Almost There!

We've finished the hard part of the journey to China and have made it to shanghai! I have no idea how we're going to manage that flight with a 21 month old that can't communicate with us - that was brutal!! Just 3 more hours in the airport here, a 1.5 hour flight to Fuzhou, and hopefully we're in our hotel room by 1:00 am here for some much needed sleep. Although, Shannon looks like she's found a spot to sleep just fine here at the airport:

Time to Fly!

It's 11:00 on Wednesday night as I write this, which means we'll be on our way to China in less than 12 hours!  Here's the plan:

Depart Dayton at 10:20 AM; Arrive in Detroit at 11:30 AM
Depart Detroit at 1:15 PM; Arrive in Shanghai at 4:00 PM on Friday (local time). That'll be 4 AM here.
Depart Shanghai at 10:00 PM; Arrive in Fuzhou in the Fujian Province at 11:30 PM.

So after 25 hours of travel time, we'll meet our guide (Penny, who will be with us the entire time we're in Fuzhou) at the airport on Friday night who will take us to our hotel.  Will spend Friday night through Thursday here.  Fuzhou is the Provincial City (capital) of the Fujian Province so this is where we will take care of the official local adoption paper work.  Mya's orphanage is actually in Xiamen, another large coastal city in the Fujian Province about 2.5 hours south of Fuzhou.  At this point, we're not sure if we'll get to visit her orphanage or not.

I'm guessing most of you have never heard of Fuzhou (funny thing is, we hadn't either until after we had booked our flights to Xiamen only to get a call from our travel coordinator asking how/when we plan to get from Xiamen to Fuzhou....oops!).  Anyway, we got through that and I've since discovered that Fuzhou has over 7 million people!  That would make it the fourth largest MSA in America....just smaller than Chicago and a bit larger than Dallas.  Crazy!  Below is a map and a picture of the skyline:

Now that you know as much as I do about Chinese geography, back to the adoption.  Here is the rest of our schedule while in China:

Saturday (3/16) - Rest and relax. Get ready for the big day tomorrow.

Sunday (3/17) - "Gotcha Day". This is the day we've been anticipating. Sunday morning (Saturday night back here), we get to meet Mya for the first time! We'll definitely have pictures to share of this.

Monday (3/18) - we believe this is when all of the provincial adoption paperwork is completed.

Tuesday-Wednesday - we just get to spend time with Mya, getting to know her and do fun things with her...with the help of Penny.

Thursday (3/22) - we fly to Guangzhou, which is about nine hours south of Fuzhou by land. This is where we'll stay in the same hotel with a number of other families that have just met the children they are adopting just a few days ago while we all await our individual consulate appointments. 

Here is a map of Guangzhou and a picture of the skyline there:

Friday-Wednesday - It sounds like we will have a lot of time in Guangzhou to relax, sightsee, and most importantly, bond with Mya.  We're really looking forward to this time, but at the same time, we'll definitely be missing everyone back home a lot by now.  We've been practicing Skype with the boys so they know how to answer it when we call....we'll see how that goes!

Thursday (3/28) - this is the date of our consulate appointment.  We just found out that we don't even attend this appointment, but it's handled by our agency.

Friday (3/29) - this is the day that Mya officially becomes a Wik as we go before the consulate, take an offical oath and receive Mya's visa so we can travel back home!

Saturday (3/30) - we fly from Guangzhou at 11:00 AM to Beijing, back through Detroit and finally make it home by 9:30 PM on Saturday night.  It's a 23 hour flight, but we gain 12 hours on the way back....at least that's what the clocks will say, but I'm sure our minds and bodies will not agree!

Obviously, we are eager with anticipation as we have a lot to look forward to!  That said, we would absolutely covet your prayers over the next day and a half, that our travel would go smoothly and we would make it to Fuzhou Friday night with no problems....and all of our luggage!  Thanks for being a good enough friend to care enough to read all of this, and we'll send an update when we get to China.....