We're in Guangzhou!

Today we flew from Beijing to Guangzhou (GZ), where we will finally meet Lauren. It was an emotional day right from the start. After breakfast in Beijing, we boarded the bus to the airport and said good-bye to Susan (our Beijing guide) and met Alison (our GZ guide). Alison is incredibly passionate about helping children find their forever families. She started off by reading a Bible verse about caring for orphans and as she started to read she got choked up and had to take a moment to collect herself. Right about then, there wasn't a dry eye on the bus and then as she continued to speak the tears started flowing. Right at that point, we all knew she was the exact right person to see us through this journey!

Once at the airport, we had to say good-bye to part of our travel group since some families are heading off to other provinces. They will meet up with us in GZ in about a week.

The flight to GZ was only about 3 hours (hey, after a 12 hour stint this sounds short), but it seemed much longer and it was so uncomfortable. We flew China Southern and it was warm on the plane, no air circulation and I swear the seats were at least an inch narrower than our American seats! I think I got off the plane with the impression of the video controls permanently tattooed on the side of my leg. ;)

We landed about 3:45pm and headed to the Victory Hotel on Shamian Island. The Victory is much smaller than the White Swan, but our room is perfect for a two week stay. There is a large bathroom, a sleeping area and a separate seating area. We are very close to the White Swan and plan on heading over there to check it out and take photos.

Christine, guess what's right around the corner from the Victory's front door?? Yup, Starbucks...I plan on having one tomorrow morning!

By the way, look what was waiting for us in the room...



It's rickety and old, but it's a crib none the less and when I saw it I stopped in my tracks and thought...oh my God, this really is it!

After we checked into the hotel, the group headed over with Alison to the infamous Lucy's for dinner. After dinner some of us were feeling VERY adventurous and took a taxi off the island into GZ to a store called Care Four (sp?). Joe, Karen and I shared a taxi over and had quite an adventure! This place is a Chinese grocery store on steroids. It has three floors and flat escalators for taking your carts up and down the floors. It's packed with everything imaginable and about a million people grabbing at items like it's the last shopping day on earth! I've never seen anything like it. We were the absolute only Caucasians in the building and it was quite obvious by all the staring. It was funny...I think everyone who past us by looked at us since we stuck out like a needle in a haystack. Some people would literally just stop right next to us and stare at us and then look down at our cart to what we were buying. I think we were the entertainment for the evening!

We didn't get back to the room until about 10pm and then unpacked. Poor Joe collapsed in the bed about a half hour ago. I figured I'd catch up on e-mail and get this post out and then try and get some sleep. It's midnight here now and it's only 14 hours until we leave to meet Lauren! I can't believe after all this time tomorrow is our day!!! My head is spinning with SO many questions about Lauren...I can't imagine getting any sleep, but I need to lay down and see if I pass out from pure exhaustion. I won't be any good tomorrow if I don't get at least a few hours of sleep. With that...I'll say good-night!

Not many photos today since it was basically a travel day, but you can check out our hotel room photos here.

What an amazing day!

I can't describe how surreal it was to see Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City, the Olympic Park and the Great Wall! It was an amazing day of touring today and the weather was perfect. It was cold, but not freezing cold, clear skies and almost no wind...our guide said we couldn't have planned better weather.

I'm dog tired, so I'm going to make this a quick post...

Our first stop today was Tian An Men Square & the Forbidden City. This place is enormous and right smack in the middle of the city. It seems to go on and on forever. The buildings were SO impressive and the architecture is amazing...


Then it was off to the Olympic Park and then the Great Wall. Everyone says how steep the Great Wall is, but until you see it for yourself it's hard to imagine. It's basically straight up and each step is a different size from the next. For those of us with short legs, sometimes it feels like you're crawling up instead of climbing. I was proud that I at least made it half way to the 1st guardhouse, considering how out of shape I am. I wasn't going to get here and not "climb" the wall.
We bought a lock, with a little red ribbon, and had our family name etched on it. Joe and I locked it to the long string of locks along the wall.



I am dog tired and need to get some sleep. We get up early to fly to Guangzhou tomorrow morning. Only ONE MORE DAY until we meet our little girl!!! Stephe, Karen and I keep pinching ourselves to see if this is real.

I uploaded all our pics from today to my Shutterfly site and you can see them here.

We made it!

I can't believe we are in Beijing! We got from Phx to San Francisco just in time for a potty stop and then right on to the gate where they had already started boarding. It couldn't have worked out any better. We got in a couple of hours ago and the long flight was basically uneventful, except for a few series of turbulence. Christine, you would have been climbing the walls on the plane trying to sit still for 12 hours! They have movies running the entire flight expect for when they stop to feed you. Susan, I remembered what you said about the infamous noodle bowl...not good! All the other food was good and the flight attendents were very friendly.

It's only 7pm on Friday night here, but we are dog tired since our bodies think it's 4am on Friday morning. I think we are going to get something to eat and then crash for the night.

Here's a couple pics of the room...small, but nice.



and here's a lovely self portriat after a full day of traveling...

This is it...

We're off to China in the morning...catch you all on the flip side!
Sleep...yeah, right!

A little freak out...

It's been a bit of an emotional day today. For some reason I woke up and it hit me...oh my God, we leave for China on Thursday!! I've been fairly calm up until now, which isn't normal for me since I don't like to fly, so I guess a freak out was to be expected.

I had myself all worked up with all kinds of random thoughts...

will we oversleep on Thursday morning?
will our flights get in safe?
did I forget to pack something important?
will we know what to do with Lauren?
what if she doesn't like us?
what if she cries all night and we can't calm her down?
what if she's sick and we don't know what to do?
what if one of us gets sick?
what the heck are we doing flying all the way to China to adopt a baby?

Then I took a deep breath and e-mailed one of my Yahoo Groups and several of my friends who have been to China and back talked me off the edge. They said that this is perfectly normal and they all had their freak out moments before they left. I can't tell you how much better I felt after that...thank God for them...talk about a life line!

Can you believe it's only...

Although I'm not an eloquent writer, I've been wanting to write an open letter to family and friends. The time is right, so here it goes...

Dear Family and Friends,

I would like to thank you all for your support over the past several years. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever imagine it would take this long to get our referral to Lauren. There have been so many ups and downs during this time and your support has meant everything to us.

I would like to take this chance to share a little bit of what I know about attachment and bonding in adoption and our plans for when we bring Lauren home.

To start off you need to understand that Lauren has been in an orphanage since birth and has spent her first 21 months under the care of multiple nannies. At this point, the orphanage is home, her nannies are her "parents" and the other children are her "brothers" and "sisters". She has never known anything different.

One week from today, Lauren will take a long ride with one or two of her nannies to a strange building filled with strange people and babies. The room will be very noisy with babies crying and lots of strange voices. At some point, her nanny will hand her off to Joe and me...two people she's never seen before (unless the nannies showed her the photos we sent). There will be lots of camera flashes and video taping. Then we will take a ride back to the hotel and she will be alone in a room with us...we look strange, sound strange and smell strange. At this point, her little world has been rocked in ways that would scare just about anyone.

We have no idea at this point how she will react to all this. She will be grieving for her home and everything she knows. She may shut down, she may cry inconsolably, she may be silent...whatever it is, we will handle it as best we can.

We are hoping that she will start to slowly trust us once she understands that we are there to care for her and take care of all her needs. A healthy attachment won't start to form until she learns to trust us. This is why once we are home, Joe and I need to continue to be her primary caregivers for all her basic needs. This includes feeding, diapering, bathing, holding, consoling, etc. Slowly, once an attachment starts to develop, you all will be able to help out with these things.

There are also some special things to consider since Lauren is a toddler. Typically as a child approaches the age of two, she starts to show some independence...breaking away a little bit from the parents (the terrible two's). In Lauren's case she may need to regress a little bit since we need to help her form a strong bond with us before she can move forward. It's important for her future well being that she doesn't skip the "attachment" phase before moving on to some independence. Because of this it may seem like we are spoiling her or doting over her.

With all this being said, I'm hoping that it helps you all to understand our goals and why we feel we need to do the things we'll be doing once we get home.

Busy Saturday...

It was a busy day today. First up, 9am appointment to get my hair color in shape for the trip...my grays were out of control. Then a trip to Target (hopefully my last, but I have a feeling it won't be), then off to Babies-r-Us for a couple of small items I couldn't find at Target. Then back home to work on packing again.

I finally have ALL of Lauren's stuff packed! This includes her clothes, PJ's, accessories (a girl has to have cute clippies), blankets, feeding stuff, baby care stuff, meds, Baby Hawk carrier, toys, and right down to the all important Cheerios. I probably have way too many clothes packed for her, but I don't care. I seem to have plenty of room left for our stuff still...

Both check in pages have one side empty and only weight about 23 lbs each so far...



and both rolling carry-on bags are pretty much empty still...


(notice the bag of M&M's waiting to be packed...do they have these in China?... cause I need my chocolate)

A few of you suggested I take a backpack or diaper bag as my personal item on the plane instead of a purse, so I picked this diaper bag up at Target. I think it's pretty darn cute for $25 and it has a long strap to go across the body...just my style.

I also picked up this journal at Target so I can have something to write in every night of the trip. I want to remember ALL the details of everyday. I get goosebumps thinking that by Jan 23rd this book will be filled up with all our memories!

By the way, we are in the single digits now...

Happy New Year!

2009 will be a very big year for many of us here in Blogville, as we receive referrals and start our new families. For us, this is not only the beginning of a new year but the beginning of a brand new and exciting chapter in our lives. We have been trying for parenthood for over 10 years now and our dream has finally come true! We have been blessed with a daughter who we feel is the perfect fit for us!

Today, after watching the Tournament of Roses Parade (a tradition for me) we officially started packing. Wow, talk about overwhelming!! Even with our list in hand, it is really intimidating sitting there surrounded by all the stuff that somehow has to go into our very limited luggage and make it across the world.

Since we are taking a domestic flight in China, we are each restricted to one 44lb check-in bag, one carry-on, and one personal item. Joe is taking a check-in, rolling carry-on and a backpack and I have a check-in, rolling carry-on and a purse. Another decision is what gets packed in the checked bags and what goes in the carry-ons and what's the smartest way to distribute everything. So far this is what I have in mind (any suggestions would be appreciated)...

• Joe's back-pack will hold the laptop and camera along with their accessories (batteries, memory cards, power cords, etc) and our document holder with the adoption paperwork.
• One of our rolling carry-ons is going to hold our 1st day Beijing outfits, long johns, hats, scarves, gloves...this way if our luggage is lost for a day we are at least covered for our touring day. This bag will also hold a copy of our adoption paperwork.
• Prescription meds in my purse (in their original bottles)
• Waist wallets will hold cash, passports and driver's licenses
• We are carrying on our coats, which can double as a pillow/blanket in a pinch.
• We are going to split Lauren's clothes up into two large ziplocks...one for each checked bag. I figure then if one is lost, we at least have some clothes for her. I'm thinking we should do this with our clothes too.
• All the non-prescription meds fit into a gallon sized ziplock (I took them all out of the packages and attached the instructions with a rubber band if they weren't already on the tube/bottle). This ziplock, along with some other baby care items is in a shoebox sized rubber-maid container that will be used for washing small items. I'm bringing light weight plastic tongs for fishing items out of the hot water.
• I'm questioning whether all our non-prescription stuff should be packed in the same bag...if it's lost then we have none of it. I wonder if I should split this up too.

There's just SO much to think about when you're new parents traveling around the world and taking care of a little child out of a hotel room for two weeks! I'm not freaking out, but it is a little bit scary. Please let me know if you have any tips on packing that might help.

I do have one tip regarding the non-prescription meds if you want to take them out of the boxes...many of them have the instructions on the tube/bottle, but it's in teeny-tiny writing. Our baby nail clippers have a little magnifying glass on them for baby's tiny nails. It works perfect for reading the med instructions! ;)

Updated photo...

Our agency surprised us with an updated photo and measurements this morning. What a nice way to start off the week! Look how great she looks...clean, healthy and well cared for...
Age: 21 months
Height: 32.3"
Weight: 20.9lbs
Number of Teeth: 16!

Living in the moment...

is something we haven't done much of over the past several years. Driving home from work on Christmas Eve, I got to thinking about how great next Christmas will be once we have Lauren home. Then I started thinking about all the times I've had that same thought. It seems that since we filed our adoption paperwork back on August 8, 2005, our time has been spent looking forward at what's ahead instead of living in the moment. This crazy long wait kind of robs you of the present and puts your thoughts to the future.

It dawned on me during my ride home, that starting on January 8th when we take off for our journey we will need to switch gears and learn to live in the moment again. I'm thinking that changing gears after all this time may be a little easier said than done. I'm pretty sure though, that once we meet Lauren and can hold her and love her we will be planted firmly in the moment from that point forward. This is what I am hoping for.

On another note, we have just about everything we need for our trip. Everything is in bins and bags and scatttered all over the nursery and playroom right now. We are both home on New Years day, so we are going to organize everything and start packing. My last day at work for a while is this coming Friday. I hope to have everything packed and ready to go by Monday so we can relax for a few days before we leave.

We have our itinerary...

Thursday, Jan. 8th
8:20am - Depart from Phoenix to San Francisco (2 hrs, 19 min)
11am - Depart from San Francisco to Beijing (12 hrs, 35 min)

Friday, Jan. 9th
3:35pm - Arrive in Beijing - stay at the Beijing Traders Hotel

Saturday, Jan. 10th
8am - Tian An Men Square, Forbidden City, Olympic Park and Great Wall

Sunday, Jan. 11th
8:45am - Depart from Beijing to Guangzhou (2 hrs, 50 min)
Stay at the Victory Hotel

Monday, Jan. 12th
2pm - Bus to civil affairs office to MEET LAUREN!!! Oh my God, we're parents!!! (Phoenix time: Sunday, 11pm)

Tuesday, Jan. 13th
8:30am - Bus to civil affairs office to do registration and notary

Wednesday, Jan. 14th
Apply for Lauren's passport

Thursday, Jan. 15th
9:30am - Family Chen's Temple and Yuntai Botanical Garden

Friday, Jan. 16th
9:30am - King Yue's Museum

Saturday, Jan. 17th
9:30am - Lauren's visa photo and medical checkup, complete consulate forms

Sunday, Jan. 18th
10:30am - Sunday sermon at a nearby church and visit the Guangzhou Zoo

Monday, Jan. 19th
9:30am - Shopping at pearl and jade wholesale market

Tuesday, Jan. 20th
3pm - Red couch group photo

Wednesday, Jan. 21st
9:30am - Agency guide goes to U.S. Consulate to send visa documents

Thursday, Jan. 22nd
2:45pm - Take oath at U.S. Consulate
8pm - Depart from Guangzhou to Beijing (2 hrs, 55 min)
Spend the night at the Beijin Rosedale Hotel

Friday, Jan. 23rd
1:40pm - Depart from Beijing to San Francisco (11 hrs, 24 min)
1:10pm - Depart from San Francisco to Phoenix (2 hrs)

Arrive home on Friday, Jan. 23rd at 4:11pm, United flight UA0500, Terminal 2

Bathroom done...

Just a super quick post to show some pics of the bathroom (click collage to enlarge)...



Oh, and...

Thanks, everyone, for all the great advice on our packing list! We went to Walmart this morning to pick up a few items that were suggested. We got a powder formula dispenser, plastic tongs for removing items from hot water when cleaning, travel squeeze bottle for liquid dish soap, Gerber baby prunes and apple/prune juice, and one 4 oz bottle for juice. We will also added ziplocs and a syringe for medicine dispensing to our list. Oh, and we'll only take enough diapers and a travel size wipes for the 1st day and the trip back...we'll buy diapers and wipes there.

We're going to work on decorating the bath room today. I'll post a picture later on.

Packing list...

I've been working on our packing list this evening. How in the world we're going to fit all this stuff into two 40 lb suitcases and two backpacks I have NO clue at the moment!

I would really appreciate it if those who have already traveled could take a quick look at my list and let me know if there is something missing or something on the list that we don't need. There are three pages below. This is just my first crack at it, so I know it's not finished yet.





Oh, and only...

Travel approval...

Yesterday we got our official approval from the CCAA to travel to China to adopt our daughter! My eyes filled with tears when I pulled the document out of the Fed-ex envelope, saw Lauren's picture on it and read the words: "...we agreed that the child, Nan Qi Qing be placed with you for adoption." This document has been a LONG time coming...


Be the way, there are...

All I have to say today is...

Yeah! I'll be counting down the number of nights left until we leave to get our sweet girl! There's been 1,030 nights so far since our LID, so I think I can do the last 24 standing on my head. No problem!

Playroom...

We finished Lauren's playroom and I promised some pictures. Pretty much everything but the toys are from IKEA. We went with a really bright color, because her nursery colors are so soft. I wanted her playroom to be bright and fun. I think it all ties together very well. What do you think?

Where do I start...so much going on since I posted last week. Well, we've been really busy getting ready to travel. Joe worked SO hard getting the playroom ready and we're almost there. I'll post photos as soon as we're done. We did some shopping over the weekend for the basic essentials that we didn't have yet...diapers, wipes, bottles, medications for the trip, highchair, car seat, cabinet latches, outlet covers, etc.

My sister-in-law, Stephanie, hosted a fabulous shower for me this past Sunday. The buffet table setting was so pretty with red table cloths, Chinese fans, chopsticks, and special adoption poems printed and mounted on beautiful Asian themed paper. The poems were displayed on little easels on the tables. My friend, Jennifer, made the most beautiful coasters from tiles. She hand-stamped each one with panda and bamboo images using a special stamp pad then baked them in the oven to set the ink. Everyone received one as a favor and I got a whole set! I love them. We played games, ate great food and had a really nice time.





On Tuesday we booked our flights! We are leaving on Thursday, January 8th and coming home on Friday, January 23rd. Any of our local friends are more than welcome to greet us at the airport when we come in. We will be dog tired, but SO happy to see all the familiar faces after two weeks away. Here's the info on our return flight: United Flight 500 from San Francisco to Phx arriving in Terminal 2 at 4:11pm. If there are any changes and I can still access my blog, I'll be sure to post. The entire trip is 6,550 miles...when I saw the mileage it really hit me just how far away Lauren is!

Now we are waiting for our agency to pull together our in-China flights, hotel rooms, etc. It won't be long now before we have our entire trip itinerary and we'll find out exactly when we'll meet Lauren. I'm thinking it will be the afternoon of January 11th, but I'm not sure yet.

A sweet surprise...

Thanks to our friend, Catherine, Lauren has her very own pretty little taggie blanket! It was such a nice surprise to receive another package addressed to Miss Lauren.

Catherine used the prettiest grosgrain ribbons in the softest pinks and greens. I absolutely love it and it's coming to China with us in hopes of giving Lauren some much needed comfort in those first few days with us.


Catherine, thanks again for such a sweet surprise! You have one of the biggest hearts in Blogville!

Look at her now!

We have updated photos of our daughter thanks to Ann at Red Thread China! Click on image to enlarge.


Doesn't she look like the sweetest little girl? Part of me wants to just scoop her up and bring her home to the family who is waiting so patiently for her and part of me feels so guilty for what we are about to put her through. This may sound strange for those of you still waiting for your referrals, but once you know who your daughter is and can stare endlessly at her photos you start to feel sad about turning her little life upside down. I know that she will have a much better life with a family of her own who will love her unconditionally, but right now at the age of 20 months she thinks the orphanage is home and the nannies are her caregivers. The idea of what she will have to go through those first couple of weeks with us in China grieving for her home and caregivers tears my heart out. I wish there was a way for her to transition more slowly to our family without all the heart ache.

It's amazing to see how much Lauren has changed from her first photo to the one we just got. It's wonderful to see her looking so healthy and cared for in all her photos.