Chongqing to Guangzhou

Hello all. As you know we are tucked safe away in Guangzhou (GZ). We had a pretty uneventful Friday before we arrived at the airport. Hope was a little clingy, Noah was restless and I was out of sorts stressed about how to pack our bags again. I did get to take Noah swimming for about 45 minutes and that helped him tremendously. He has been such a trooper but today was especially boring and he was really ignored. Anyway, we got everything packed up and were off to the airport. Our guide informed us our flight was delayed about 2 hours, but he was going to try to get us on an earlier flight that would be only a one hour wait. We arrived at the airport at 3:15 pm. At 3:20 Michael informed us we’d gotten on a 4:10 flight. He was getting the ladies at the desk to hurriedly get us documents so we could get issued tickets at the baggage counter. We raced way down the hall to where we would drop off the baggage and were met with the unexpected turn of events where Hope and my flight numbers were wrong on the papers and the man made Michael run back down to the ladies and get it fixed and run back. We finally got boarding passes and it is like 3:50 pm. We race through security where Eric gets thoroughly frisked and then we race to our gate. Except we have to take a bus to get to our gate. The bus thankfully had not left yet. We pushed our way on, well Hope helped with that, people tend to give us some space when they see us coming. We got on and literally they shut the doors behind us. We drove to the plane and had to climb up the outside stair things with 3 carry ons, a backpack, shoulder bag, 21 lb baby and Noah. We settle in and I’m in my own row with two empty seats. Eric and Noah are a row back across the aisle. A flight attendant reached across to me and Hope to try to buckle her in a lap buckle that attaches to mine and some how Hope thought the woman was going to take her I think and Hope went NUCLEAR! Thrashing, arching…well you know the drill by now. The “kind” gentleman behind me actually asked the flight attendant if he could move. Nice. After about 10 to 15 minutes of this she calmed down. I now call this her Vietnam flashback mode. We took off about 15 minutes later and she did beautifully. Her and played and talked and giggled. Her only other freak out was when I asked for hot water for a bottle and they brought it to me in a dixie cup. I asked for more and he refused to go get it and insisted I give him the bottle to go fill. I told him she would scream but he didn’t know English. So she screamed till he got back and then all was right with the world. The flight was 1 hour 40 min. and she was super. We touched down, met our guide and got on a van for a 37 minute ride to the luxurious hotel. (I’ll post pictures later of the Hotel, waterfalls and our room). We checked in, and they kept decline both our credit cards because they were debit cards. We had to hand them $300.00 in cash to secure the room. Whatever. Later Eric checked our bank account and saw that each of the 5 times they ran the card it cleared, then they credited it back. Whatever. We checked in our rooms and then Eric and Noah went for McDonalds…of course. When we arrived in our room and the crib was already set up with a special basket of things for Hope. Apparently the hotel does enough adoption business that they give these baskets out to adoptive families.

When the boys got back from the late night McDonald’s run Eric informed me they ran out of anything beef. Okay…weird. So we ate cold chicken. Hope went down with a bit of a fuss but for only about 15 minutes. We all were in bed by 10 pm. The next day would be the medical exam that I was dreading. Why…well as you know Hope doesn’t like anyone but us touching her…so a full blown medical exam should put her into orbit. But that is my next post…Blessings dear ones.

Made it to Guangzhou!

Okay, so I’m exhausted but glad to be here. Hope did great on the plane, but I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Our hotel is actually a palace…my word I’ve never stayed anywhere this nice!!!! Already ran into one of our adoptive mom friends in the lobby; more are on their way or already here. God is faithful and we are blessed. More tomorrow…yawn…

Touring Chongqing

Okay so I am still a ffew days behind, but here is Thursday in Chongqing. We decided to do some sightseeing and go to the river. And by river I mean Chongqing hosts the 3rd largest river in the world only to be topped by the Nile and the Amazon. There are two rivers that merge here in Chongqing and we got to go to where that happens. There is the Jialing River and the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River is the 3rd largest river in the world. It is the more yellow/brown river you see.

My darlings checking out the rivers.

She is so curious. She loves to be out but only wants Mama or Dada…good news!!!

Noah is the coolest kid on the planet. No really he is amazing.

Got joy? Oh yes, we do.

After looking at the rivers we went to an art museum of local artists and saw some beautiful things. We of course bought some art that was specific to the Chongqing region…allegedly. It is beautiful though. Noah was fawned over by a young woman who could not get enough of Noah. She kept saying, “I love your eyes, they are so big and beautiful.” She was really sweet. She even wanted to hold and play with Hope, which is saying a lot since most people shy away from her. It was a good outing.

We left here and went back to the hotel so Hope could nap and Noah could swim. At 4:30 we met Michael again to receive some paperwork and retrieve our laundry. We are so thankful to Michael and his laundry contact. It was some of the best money we spent and it was very reasonable. We actually had to give her another small load since Hope wet through EVERYTHING the night before. Then Michael took us some place that made me so excited…

Oh yeah baby!!! I’m so redneck I shop Walmart in China!!! Woot! Woot! The entire building you see there is the Walmart, it takes up several city blocks and it all looks like an old Chinese town on the outside. It is huge on the inside and has several floors. They have people mover conveyor belts to move you and your buggy from floor to floor. We went for baby supplies: bottles, nipples, formula, rice cereal etc. It was an adventure. As we approached the meat section I told Noah to look right to look away and he did, then I realize we were about to be surrounded in random animal part and I was like, “Hey Noah, just look at the floor.” And he did. It was funny.

Only I would blog about Walmart on my daughter’s adoption blog. After this trip we all ate random food in the room. Then Eric introduced Hope to a sink full of water. He held her on his knee and she patted the water tentatively at first and then it was game on! She and Eric and the entire bathroom was soaked. I was able to wring a wash cloth over her head without her caring so I went ahead and washed her hair and then wiped down most of her body…we are calling it her first bath. She smells a heck of a lot better anyway. Then we put her to bed…she was really angry about bedtime but she only cried and screamed for about 5-10 minutes while I sat on the floor softly talking and singing to her. She calmed down and the laid awake for about another 10 minutes and then drifted off. So she was down at about 8:30 pm. It is currently 9:06 am! This girl has been in need of some sleep. She is also fighting some sort of crud. She started a horrible hacking phlegmy cough the day we got her and it proceeded to worsen and sound rattley in her chest. We went called Dr. Chambers at the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham to see if we should start the anti-biotic. Then we accidentally turned the ringer off on our phone..nice. Poor Dr. Chambers kept trying to call us and finally texted us to let us know she couldn’t get us. By this time we had already decided to give her the antibiotic and we were on Day 2 of the dose. She sounded much better even after day one. Even Michael remarked she sounded better. We had need of Dr. Chambers for one more thing and we did get to talk with her yesterday, love this woman. So all is well medically we believe with our little one currently.

We feel that she is attaching as well as she can under these circumstances but attachment is a process and a journey so we know there will be setbacks. She is so adventurous and curious, she wants to be out walking all the time. We have been guarded with our excursions because we don’t want her to be over stimulated. But she seems to love being out in the middle of it all. However, she only wants to be touched or held by Eric or myself, and that is a GOOD thing. She has stranger danger. She likes people from a distance. So maybe when we get home we won’t have to be as secluded as we originally thought. But a change in scenery can enough to bring on a meltdown so we are trying NOT to envision what life will be like in the future and just take one day at a time.

The last thing I will leave you with is my parental warning systems that screams…this can’t be right! It is in relation to her bottles and the size of the nipple holes. This first picture is a normal medium flow nipple.

Here is what it look like after I have prepared it for Hope to use like the one we got from the orphanage…

Can you see why all my parenting bells and whistles are going off?! It literally just pours out, but it is how she best drinks. She guzzles it down and will bite the nipple with the side of her mouth to stop the flow or she will stick her tongue in it. She is very effective and doesn’t spill a drop out of her mouth until she is done and just playing around with the bottle in her mouth. It’s wild to see how well she has adapted. Love this sweet girl!

The Orphanage Visit

I’m not sure which day was worse…Gotcha Day or the Orphanage visit. Likely Gotcha Day but this was a close second. But like unlike Gotcha day this was a good thing for Hope’s little psyche. I told a friend in an email yesterday after the fact, “Yeah so the visit was pretty much my nightmare. But God is faithful and I kept thinking of the devotional you sent me, God went in before us and came in behind us, He was there and he was doing his will for Hope's life, and it was my honor to suffer for the kingdom and my little girl. But is sucked!” I don’t know how to phrase it any better than that. She woke up somewhat cranky and out of sorts this day. We were able to take her down to breakfast with us and the boys got through their meal before she decided she was done. So they all went to walk around the hotel, walking as you know is her favorite thing, while I finished eating. We headed upstairs to pack for the trip and she was doing fairly well. We got in the van and headed out and she was a little squirmy. She wanted down, then as we got to the mountainous regions of Chongqing she wanted to look out my window then Eric’s and back and forth, we know now she was realizing her scenery. About 20 minutes from the orphanage at the base of mountain she started panting loudly like a dog. That is her I’m panicking, on the edge, sound. Eric held her to his chest and talked softly to her the entire time. She laid her head on his shoulder but held one of her arms back from him; it’s her, “I don’t really like you…but don’t leave me,” mode.

We did a serpentine approach up this huge mountain. The orphanage is in what is called the Chongqing Forrest. It is a huge beautifully landscaped mountain side. It is incredible. I would have enjoyed looking around if my heart weren’t in my throat on my daughters behalf. We arrived at the location and first went through a gate and what looked like a small apartment complex. We were told this was where the kids in the foster care program lived. Then we wound around to the actual orphanage. Below is Hope’s building she lived in.

It really was beautiful as far as orphanages go. The grounds were nicely landscaped and the buildings new and inside from what I can remember was clean, bright and somewhat cheery. They had colorful mats in the activity rooms and some climbing wedges and such, but our guide was correct…no toys. So they were extremely grateful for the toys we brought. Back to our story though. We stopped at one of the buildings that had an activity room and Eric gave me Hope and we put her in the Hip Hammock. She started to cry the closer I got to the building and when I stepped inside she went ballistic…arching, rolling, screaming at the top of her lungs, thrashing around, to the point that she almost came out of the carrier and I could barely contain her. We walked quickly out then around to her building where she stayed mostly and into her room with her bed. Still thrashing around the entire time. Eric was shooting video that I’m sure I will later get some good shots for her but I can’t bare to look at it now and I want to save it for her to privately have and not post on the blog.

When she saw her her crib, she was almost impossible to contain. So I moved quickly to another room. It was a room with bright floor mats and a ball pit in the middle a little boy was lying on his back by himself in the room and smiled big when he saw Noah. We later found out he had CP and we were actually in the “special needs ward”. These kids get to do activities but aren’t allowed to go to the preschool classes…who can I slap for that? Anyway, I have no idea what was being said, everyone was smiling and wanted us to stand and around and talk and ask questions. Feeling much like a caged animal looking for an exit I finally tersely  said, “I need to get her out of here now!” So our guide rushed us outside. God love Eric as he stayed and videoed for Hope for her future, it was killing him not to come to us and comfort us. When we got outside again she calmed a little. One of her nanny’s found us and Hope reached for her a little and the nanny made a move to come get her. I turned away rudely and walked to Noah. Eric finally emerged with the lead nanny in tow. She came up to me and put her hands out to Hope, who reached for her, the nanny tried to close in on us to take Hope out of the carrier. I simply looked at our guide Michael and cocked my head with a steely gaze I’m sure, and he quickly said something to the nanny and she sharply pulled back her arms and made an apology like gesture. Michael is the bomb. I went to go get in the van. When I got in the seat, Hope went crazy again. God love her heart, she didn’t want to stay but this place was all she knew and I’m pretty positive she knew what was happening. She was so conflicted. But this was the very point of our coming here. This was “the” cementing moment for her that is sooooo good for her. Another word for it would be “closure.” This was the moment she knew she wasn’t going back and was going to be with us now. It was so hard to watch and experience, and we could do nothing to comfort her.  I had to hand her to Eric because I was exhausted from trying to contain her. We got back the care package items I sent but I can tell they were never given to her. The book we sent for them to answer questions had some answers but nothing we didn’t already know. The gave back only one of the two cameras and said they had taken photo’s of her but then I saw a conversation where it appeared the nanny was saying she thought the camera is broken. So I expect nothing to be on the film.

We left with a thrashing sobbing Hope and went down the mountain a little ways to a scenic beautiful waterfall area. Eric was like, “Open the door we are going for a walk!” He bolted out of the van with Hope and Noah in tow. I sat trembling, not from anxiety, but from muscle fatigue and tried to make her a bottle. We brought the freakishly hot water but some how I forgot to pack the cooler water to make the bottle not an inferno. So I sat and mixed and blew on the bottle for awhile then decided to see how Hope was faring. And this is where you see the greatness of the man I married. He is so calming for her. He is brilliant with her and only he could have soothed away her heartache…it just take’s a Daddy’s love. How true is that on so many levels? Praise you Father in Heaven.

Thank you Lord for this Oasis to help Hope’s little soul.

I have no idea how we got a family picture here, it was Michael’s idea.

Eric said Hope loved the sound of the waterfall, it’s what helped soothe her.

Safe in Daddy’s arms.

The BEST son on the face of the earth.

We stayed here for about, well I don’t really know…45 minutes? Time was pretty irrelevant at this point. Then we got back in the van and gave her a bottle immediately. There was no more panting on the way back down. As the scenery fell away so did Hope’s anxiety…and Mama’s too.

 

She took a good nap and woke up in pretty good spirits, but we were ready for anything. We went to the pool so Noah and I could swim, Eric and Hope…walked around. Big shock there. She boldly walked to the edge of the pool several times to get her feet wet and was very proud of herself. She seemed to be doing well so we decided to see if we could take her to dinner. We went to Pizza Hut…it is incredible here, I know I’ve mentioned it but wow! She did brilliant! We did however, experience our first real series of gawkers regarding Hope. We expect people to be taken aback especially if you have never seen a child with cleft lip before. But he brash outright gawking and craning around and finger pointing stares were a bit much.  We expected it, yes, and we understand why, really we do, we are not that naïve to think all people will think she is beautiful, but it still made us want to punch people in the throat. I mean in the South, we are taught to try to recover your facial expressions, engage your filter in your brain so you don’t say something ridiculous, and be as gentile as much as possible. You don’t “stare” and cause offense. So I think Eric and I are that much more sensitive because of our Southern culture, we just want to scream, “Didn’t yo’ Mamma never teach you any manners people?!!”

But back to our sweet Hope. They brought her out a set of children’s dishes: plate, cup and spoon. They were bright orange and green. We pulled out her favorite bracelet and she played for like 40 minutes before she got restless and wanted to walk the floor. She lasted a lot longer than Eden typically does! We went back to the hotel and Eric and Hope played and played. Mommy could barely lift her arms, which is why I didn’t blog last night, it hurts too much to type. Hope loves what we now call the, “toilet drum”. The toilet with the seat cover down is the perfect height for her to stand unassisted and if you bang on it, it makes a cool sound. So she stays in the bathroom a bit. We also got to witness her taking her first few steps unassisted to Eric!!! It was so amazing! I wish I had it on film. Eric was sitting down and he put her at arms length and then slowly let go and told her to come to him and she did! About 3-4 steps! Such a big day! She didn’t want to go to bed, this girl loves being where the action is. She loves being out and about, she likes other people around but only wants us to touch or hold her. She simply doesn’t want to miss anything by sleeping. She is much like, “a captive being set free.” Anyone want to chime in on how much scripture is related to that…this is certainly a worldly and a spiritual journey our sweet Hope is on. I was able for the first time to run my fingers through her hair and rub her head, she wouldn’t let me do this before. It calmed her down in the crib and then I sang her to sleep. Just like I do with my other sweet girl, Eden. Who I miss terribly! So that was our big day. We weren’t going to do anything today (Thursday) because we thought the orphanage trip would be too much but since she recovered so well we called Michael to see if we could go to the river and that is another blog post. Blessings. Our God is so amazing, he makes all things new.

Introducing the latest innovation in children’s toys…the toilet drum. Are we from the South or what? Can you say Red Neck Chinese Girl? Gotta love it!

Tuesday, May 15, Civil Affairs Office…Again

Okay so I’m a day behind and there is so much to catch up on. I haven’t even put down Gotcha Day stuff…perhaps I’m blocking. Sorta want to do that with today as well…but I digress. Tuesday, yesterday, we had to go back to the Civil Affairs office. I was pretty much dreading going back to the place we just got her from where she clearly was miserable. That morning she woke up quietly in her bed. When we went to pick her up she cried a bit, so we finally got her diaper changed and then we fed her a bottle. She was very tentative the first half of the morning. She liked us to amuse her but not to really touch her. She laid down on her back most of the time. She wouldn’t sit up or crawl anywhere. But I’ve said most of this already in a previous post. However, just as we were about to leave for the civil affairs office Noah was able to get her to stand up and take some steps with assistance. The nanny’s reported her beginning to walk if you hold her hands. So we did this for about 5 minutes and that made us slightly late to meet Michael, but it was okay. She seemed to perk up a bit. We put her in the “Hip Hammock” for the first time and she didn’t cry or resist.

We headed to the Civil Affairs office and she seemed on edge as we walked in the main room. When they took us to get our family photo and I sat down, she went crazy. So I stood up and she quieted down. They made me take her out of the Hip Hammock and tried to have us sit down again…she went crazy again (arching, screaming, pushing away). They said, “Oh we will try again later.” I said, “No we won’t. This won’t get any better the more we wait, it is the sitting down, can you shoot it with us standing up?” They of course could and did, to my relief. We then proceeded to wait for about 45 minutes for a police officer to show up to look at Hope’s passport photo they had taken at some previous time, and then to look at Hope in the flesh to make sure they were one and the same. Then we were informed of a new rule that started this week in China where they take up to two weeks to produce a passport…hmmmm….not gonna be in this city, or country for that matter, for two more weeks. Michael assures me (somewhat) that they will have it for us this Friday even though the new law is in effect. All families adopting this week are under this same problem. If we don’t get it by Friday we can still travel to Guangzhou with other documents we were given. They would overnight the passport to us in GZ…so we won’t be detained on our departure from China. Or so the story goes. God is sovereign so I’m not really that concerned but it is interesting.

She actually did fairly well the entire time we were at the office, except when she had to fingerprint her document…can you say nuclear and she is so freakin’ strong. We had to wrestle her down twice to get any good prints. Eric and I had to fingerprint over our signatures on their documents you will see us doing that below. After promising not to abuse or abandon or in anyway hurt Hope, we were granted full custody of Hope and she is officially a Williamson! Yay!

This last shot is us leaving the Civil Affairs office with the newest Williamson! What followed that afternoon was nothing sort of God’s divine hand opening up to pour out a miracle. Noah and I were in the room with Hope while Eric ran to the grocery store. I had been reading a cloth book to Hope where things move on the page. I was moving a bug…uuuuuuppp and dooooowwwnnn. Imagine that in a singsong fashion. She loved that page. If I turned from that page too long she would mimic my voice saying uuuuuppppp. Meaning go back to the bug page. It was amazing! Then I picked her up and let her down saying the same things. She loved it! She turned to Noah and held out her arms for him to take her. So I gave her to Noah and said Buh-buh. Then she promptly held her arms out to me and I said Mama. She was beside herself. Huge mouth open, laughing out loud. It was so cool! Later when she warmed up to Eric he lifted her up and down and she loved it! Hence the video I posted. She also continued the mimicking…Itsy Bitsy Spider video. She is also very much about her big brother.

The face of joy!!

I really like my buh-buh!

Another face of total joy!

That afternoon my goal was to get her out of her orphanage shirt. I was able to do so and when I did she was just in a diaper. She stretched out her hands and sort of twisted around and smiled huge, she would not let me put a new shirt back on! She loved being what we call in our family…”half nakie”. She was just roaming the hotel room in a diaper and she was elated. She laughed and smiled constantly. We spent the rest of the evening walking with her back and forth in the hotel room. I mean we did it for like over an hour. She can now walk holding only one hand (and she thinks she is big stuff). She was so engaging and interactive. She was having so much fun in fact she did not want to go to bed. She cried a bit and Eric sat down beside her and began to sing to her. He put his hand through he crib bars and on her belly when he tried to remove it she grabbed his finger and held his hand to her chest; if he tried to move she would hold it tighter. It was the first instance of her wanting someone for comfort. Eric didn’t get his finger back until she was fast asleep…he didn’t mind. She was experiencing such joy and she was a joy to watch. It was such a blessing. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day, likely, as we visit her orphanage. So even if she regresses back into emotional distress, we have seen the joy possible in her and we know we will see it again.

Progress…I’d say so!!

Uuuuupppp…Daddy.

 

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Joy Comes in the Morning

Praise God that Hope slept from 6 pm to 7 am! She only woke once and I patted her through the bars of her crib and she fell back asleep. She is much better today but still tentative. She appears often on the verge of a breakdown and sometimes does. But she is interactive today and has begun taking things with her hands. She only wants to lie on me or the bed. She doesn’t want to sit up or get on the floor. She took one bottle yesterday afternoon and a bottle this morning after we changed her diaper…which was a huge milestone. She of course cried but since we followed it with a bottle it went more smoothly. She let me take of her jacket but is still in her orphanage shirt. She also let me put on a pair of pants with hot pink ruffles on the ankles and she seems to like them.  We started the morning looking at two photo books I made her with pictures of mostly Eden, my parents, Noah, Eric, myself and her. We looked at them twice (24 pictures in each) and then my parents Skyped us. It was amazing timing. We held the photos of everyone up against the screen and she would look back and forth from live person to picture person trying to figure it out. Eden was beside herself to see Hope with us and brought all her favorite things to the screen. She would say, “It’s me Eden. Hi, baby Hope.” I. MISS. HER!!! It was a pretty cool interaction.

We gave Hope a multi-colored bracelet she just learned to put on and take off and she claps for herself when she does it. Eric is spending some good time with her now and just recently they had a 15 minute mimic session with a point to your body parts session. She. Is. Smart. She likes Noah enough that he can get near her and touch her without her withdrawing her arms and legs. She seems to be playing contentedly with Eric and Noah. It is a good thing. We have to go back to the same building we got her from yesterday at 2:30 again today, that should be a great Vietnam flashback for her. We took turn eating breakfast in shifts today and may do that again tomorrow based on how today’s outing goes. We are all doing well considering. Noah has been phenomenal, I love that kid! Keep us and especially Hope in your prayers.

Looking at the photo books.

I got my bracelet!!

Holding Buh-buh’s finger…when he went away I sat up and followed him and held out my hand for his finger back, which he rushed back and gave me.

I like Buh-buh best.

Enough said. Blessings dear ones!