Day 6 in China

Hi everyone!  It's day 6 for us in China and day 3 with our beautiful, sweet son, Gabriel.  Today is our first free day with him, and boy are we glad.  Yesterday, we spent eight hours going from hot building to hot building doing paperwork on the China side of things.  By the
end of the day, we were all worn out, and Gabriel was bored to tears.  We learned our lesson.  Always bring toys, food, and water when travelling with kids--but we had no idea it was going to be a day long affair either.

Gabriel has had a much better day today.  He has had many smiles , which we love to see,  But when he gets tired, off go the smiles like a switch and on come the tears that only a nap can cure, and he is sticking to the orphanage nap schedule even when we think we have other plans, so we adjust.

We love him so much.  Here are some of the moments that we will treasure forever from our first few days with him.   Day one, we met him at the hotel.  He was in the lobby with the other little ones, and it was about nap time.  As Howie signed some papers, an orphanage worker gave me a biscuit cookie so I could hand it to Gabriel.  He ate a little bit and then offered the rest to me.  That was so sweet.  I handed it back to him, and he continud the ritual until he was done with the treat.  Then, since it was nap time, his legs turned into noodles, and he began to moan a little bit.  I tried to console him by holding him, but he just reached out for the orphanage worker who was there.  She and I then went to the little fish pond further away from everyone else in the lobby, and he stood there calmly watching the fish with us for several minutes.  While he was focused on that, the orphanage worker sneaked away and left the two of us together.  A little bit later, he became cranky again from the commotion of the day and his tiredness, and then Howie came by and took over while I went to sign the papers.  When I returned, Howie was holding our son, patting his back, and chanting a little song that he had made up for him.  He soon succeeded at getting our son to sleep.  At that point, our hotel rooms were ready for us, and Gabriel slept for about two hours before we had to get up and do the start of the official adoption work. That night, we Skyped with our families and Gabriel sat in my (Jenn's) lap and just smiled and laughed, esspecially when I tickled him.  We also went out to dinner that night and had to ask for a baby high chair and order food and ask for safe bottled water at a restaurant that was celebrating its grand opening.  We received some help from a man at the table next to us, thank goodness.  The Chinese people have been very kind to us everywhere we have gone.  After eating at the restaurant we asked the waiter to take a picture of us in front of the name of it.  He did, and then a couple of babas who were holding their young daughters in their arms came up to us, handed the waiter their phones and had him take a picture of all of us together.  LOL!!  Yesterday was kind of a wash because of all the busyness, but a lot of people came by to admire our son, and one gave his cheek an affectionate little pinch.

This morning, Gabriel woke up, and we finally saw some morning smiles out of him.  He found out how he could spritz his face with his sippy cup, and he thought that was just hilarious.   We thought it was cute and funny too.  He also played with his phone and loved hearing all the different sounds it made.  When he handed it to me, I would say , hello? And he would laugh.  Howie has had fun playing with him too, but when Gabriel wants to be consoled or held, he always wants his baba.  No one else will do.  He adores his daddy, andI love seeing the bond between them.  As of now, he seems to be bonding to both of us, which is nice.

Well, I imagine he's going to be up pretty soon, and then we'll have a small, late lunch so that we can have dinner on time and have him back to his night time sleep schedule.  Tomorrow is another busy day, but we get to visit his orphanage, which will be interesting.

I will leave you with some pictures of our sweet son.

Quick Update-Day Two in China

Hello, everyone!  We are in Beijing!  In one more day, we will get our son!!!!!!

So far, we haven't done anything that we had originally planned on doing.  Why, you might ask?  Well, the very thing that I was concerned about did happen.  Fortunately, it happened at the end of our very lonnnnnng flight, which took us to Beijing.  Our plane began to descend, but all at once, it went back up again--and my ears decided that they didn't want to go up with the plane, and they filled with fluid.  Yesterday after the plane flight, I could not hear as well, and when I talked, I heard my voice as if it were in a tunnel. But by this morning, it was much better, but since Beijijng has the best hospitals (no typical doctors' offices here), we ended up going to a large Beijing hospital to their international dept.  Before that, my parents contacted my ENT doctor in Indy to ask for her advice.  She said Prednisone would do t be trick, so our guide communicated that to the doctor after I was examined.  At first, she said that there was no such medicine there.  However, after our guide explained a little more, the doctor looked it up in a Mandarin to English dictinary, and she discovered that they DID have the drug!  Soooo.. I start that today and will actually finish my doses of it in the states, since I have to taper off of it.  Please pray that this does the trick.  Also, I wanted to mention how supportive Howie was through all of this fiasco.

We did get to do some other things  later yesterday as well. We did a little urban exploring and window shopping around our hotel.  We enjoyed a delicious meal in a fancy Chinese restaurant.  We were amused by the english translations of Chinese slogans posted in the shops.  I will post pictures of the signs we saw. If you look in one of them you will see our reflection in the funhouse mirror-like elevator doors.  Today we will visit the Forbidden City and Tian'an Men Square!

Ready... Set...

Here we are... ready to go.... Well, almost!  We still have some child locks to put on things, some last minute cleaning to do, and PACKING to do!!  And I currently need to get well.  Tomorrow I will be heading to the doctor for an antibiotic.  No matter how hard I tried to fight it and how many medicines I took, I can now officially declare that I have a sinus infection-- NOT ideal for flying, but I think with all the medicines and a bit of Afrin before take-off, I'll make it.  We'll take all the prayers we can get, though.  I've had to have ear drums lanced once after a painful flight; I don't want that to happen in China.  I just want to focus on our child!!

Here are some pictures of Gabriel's room and bathroom-- all ready for him!  You won't see a crib in here yet.  His crib will be in our bedroom until we feel like he's ready to move to his own room.  :)

Wednesday we'll be off to Beijing!!  After being there for a few days, we'll travel by bullet train to Jinan. We're really looking forward to the train ride there, and that same day, we'll get our son, Gabriel!!!  :)  In fact, we learned today that he will be brought to our hotel.  We can't wait to finally hug him, hold him, and tell him we love him.  It still seems kind of surreal at this point.  Seriously, a few days from now we'll be in China, and several days after arriving there, we'll be parents?!  Wow!!

We'll spend five days in his province with him, and then we will all fly together to Guangzhou to finalize the adoption!  Guangzhou is where we will also likely buy a traditional outfit for Gabriel to wear at his adoption registration/finalization, and we will buy some souvenirs for our family back home.  We'll spend several days in this province, as well, and will likely have some free time to visit the zoo if Gabriel feels up to it.

Once all of the paperwork is completed, we will travel by car to Hong Kong where we will spend the night and fly out the next morning.  Any and all are welcome to meet and greet us at the airport on the evening of July 9, but if you choose to do so, please let my brother, Michael, know.  He'll give you the details of where you'll need to be.  Also, we have to get a list of people coming in case Gabriel is sick or would not be up to a crowd for whatever reason.  If you can let Michael know your name and phone number, he'll give you a call with plenty of notice in case we're unable to meet you there.  His cell # is 317-938-2503.  Our family members will be there no matter what, but if Gabriel's not doing well, we'll have you over to meet him at a different time.  Hopefully, we'll be able to see everyone there!!  :)

Please pray for our health-- Howie's, Gabriel's, and mine as well as a smooth transition as Gabriel is welcomed into his family.  We are beyond excited to meet him and bring him home!!

The next blog I send will be from China when I have a chance to write!

Blessings to all of you,
Jenn and Howie