Gotcha Day!

Yesterday was the best day and the worst day of our lives all rolled into one.  We took a van to the Civil Affairs Office with one other family at around 2:30pm.  They told us ahead of time that there would be a total of 13 families at the office all receiving their children at the same time.  Our guide Lee told us that when we arrived, we wouldn't get to see the children right away.  The plan was to complete paperwork first and then sit in the waiting room and they would call us one by one to meet the children.  Well, let's just say it went nothing like that.  We got off the elevator and all the other families were already there and had gotten their children.  And standing there in the middle of the room was Livvie looking right at us with two of her nannies.  They pointed to us and said something to her and she waved.  Of course we went right over by her (forget the paperwork!) and I knelt down to say hello.  At first she was fine, super shy, but not scared.  The nannies were talking to her and she was just kinda looking at us.  Then one of the nannies picked her up and gave her to me to hold and that's when everything changed.  She immediately started crying and screaming and trying to get away from us.  Lee told us that this would probably happen since she is older and that the best thing to do is to get her away from the nannies so she could start bonding with us.  So we walked with her down a quiet hallway to try to calm her down.  She screamed for more than an hour, calling out for her nannies. 

 

I didn't go into this process naive, I knew to expect this, but it was a million times harder than I expected.  Her grief and fear was so strong there were actually times during that first hour I thought about giving her back and just walking away. 

 

After the first hour, Lee asked me to come and fill out paperwork and talk to the nannies to get info about Livvie's routines, eating habits, etc.  Cale and Lucky stayed with her out of site so she wouldn't see the nannies again.  I could still here her screaming the entire time I was talking to the nannies and I could tell they were upset to.  I think they wanted to go and comfort her, but Lee told them no.  After we were done talking, Lee told them they needed to leave and I could tell they were very sad they weren't going to get to say goodbye.  I asked Lee if they wanted to go and say goodbye and she said she told them they couldn't because it would only make things worse.  I felt terrible.

 

So the nannies left and Cale brought Livvie back into the waiting room and we let her walk around.  We could tell she was searching for the nannies (still crying), but then it was almost like she realized they were gone and she started to quiet down.  We filled out paperwork for another hour and she slowly started to calm down.  During the last 15 minutes, Cale gave her to me while he was signing some papers and I got out the container of mini M&M's....I showed her one and ate it to show her it was food.  She stretched out her hand and took one and ate it.  Now this may not seem like a big deal, but it was!  It was the first time in over two hours that she even made eye contact with either of us.  So we ate some more M&M's and I started showing her the other treats we brought (My Little Pony, a stuffed monkey, a light up keychain).  She was interested in looking at everything and really latched on the the keychain (thanks Mom!).  She clicked the light on and off on it about a 100 times.  Still no smile, but at least she wasn't crying.  Then the moment that I will never forget, Lucky showed her his ipod and she looked at it and stretched her hand out.  He gave it to her and she started pressing buttons on it and then looked up at me and smiled.  It was the tinyest of smiles, but it was one of the happiest moments of my life.  At that moment, I knew there was hope.

 

Then, the cutest moment of the day.  I tried to take the ipod away from her (since she was waving it around and I was scared she was going to break it), the little turd hid it behind her back and then gave us the most devilish little grin and this little coy shake of her head.  Oh Boy - we are in TROUBLE!!!!!    :)

 

I will post more later about our first night together.  We miss everyone and can't wait to get home! 

 

Oh, one more thing, she just got over the chicken pox last week, so that's why she has the scabs on her face in the pictures.

Guangzhao Day 1

I'm too tired to be clever, so this post is going to be pretty boring.  I can't even begin to explain how sick we are of traveling.  24 hours of straight travel (car and plane) on Thursday, only 4 hours of sleep on Friday, full day of agency orientation and then sightseeing at the Great Wall, 5 hours of sleep becasue Turlte woke up at 3:30am this morning and was ready for breakfast, and now 10 straight hours of travel today.  We left our hotel at 8:00am this morning and went to the Beijing airport for our flight to Guanzhao and we just got to our hotel (The Victory). 

 

Here's the highlights (or actually low-lights). 

- Great Wall was beautiful, but jet lag really hit us when we got there and me and Turtle both ended up having meltdowns on the Wall.  No sleep really messes with a person and when you combine a pretty grueling hike on the wall, you get two very emotionally and physically exhausted people and one bewildered Cale (who has yet to feel any jet lag). 

 

- Food in Beijing was not great and make us pretty queasy.  The highlight of our trip so far was finding a McDonalds in Beijing....yes we came all the way to China and the best part so far has been McDonald's.  As an added perk, we were quite the rock stars in Beijing (I think because of Turtle's red hair) and when we couldn't find a place to sit in McDonalds, the staff actually made other customers get up and move and gave us a big table.  The manager also came out and gave Turtle a free ice cream cone.  And everywhere we go people stop and give him candy????   :)

 

- I shouldn't have bragged about how wonderful Turtle was on the flight because now the universe has decided we need to be humbled.  He has been a absolute BEAR the last 24 hours.  Whiny, crying, llama-drama, tantrums...like nothing we've ever dealt with him before.  We know it's the jet-lag, but man he has been a handful.  He's sleeping now so hopefully a good nights sleep will help.

 

- Living out of a hotel is very challenging, especially one with no drawers and only 5 hangers.  I have 2 weeks of clothes for 4 people and no where to put it all.

 

 

Now for the good stuff. 

 

- We get Livvie tomorrow at 2:00pm....which will make all of this completely worth it.  At the airport we saw a handful of little girls that looked to be about her age and it made us grin....looking at them and realizing we get our ladybug tomorrow is unreal.

 

- We will post pictures as soon as we can.  :)

 

 

Signing off for now....

We Made It!

After being fogged in at Central Wisconsin Airport and then driving like maniacs to Chicago to catch our connecting flight (we made it to Chicago with 10 minutes to spare!).  We arrived at our hotel in Beijing at around 1:00am this morning.

 

We're a bit tired, but not as bad as we thought.  Taking a overnight flight was definitely the way to go.  Lucky was a CHAMP on the plane....24 hours of total travel time in the car and in a plane and he was an angel the whole way.  Not one tantrum or fit.....I swear, the kid is so good it's unreal!  He told me this morning: "I had a really fun time traveling with you last morning mama"   :)

 

I'll try to post more when we get to our province on Monday.  TTFN.....

34 Pounds!!!

Can I get a woot-woot!! I finished packing our largest suitcase today and on a whim decided to weigh it (fully expecting I was going to be way overweight and need to do some rearranging). We weighed it by itself on the scale and then with each of us holding it (just to make sure we got a somewhat accurate weight). All three times it came out to 34 pounds on the dot (for those of you who have heard me stressing for the last month know that the weight limit to stay under is 44 pounds. Yeah, oh yeah, I made that luggage my..... (you can fill in the blank since this is a family blog). :)



On a sadder note, my little turtle made me cry on Friday night. He's been very clingy and overly affectionate the last month. I hear "I love you mama" and "I need to give you hugs mama" about 200 times a day lately (not that I'm complaining, I've been loving it). But we knew that on a subconscious level it had to do with the adoption. We talk to him all the time about how much we love him and how bringing home Livvie won't change that and we hype up all the positives about being a Big Brother. He always seemed satisfied with our talks and we've been asking him over and over again if he's sad about anything (he always says no).

Well Friday night he said he had a "tummy ache" again (another reoccurring ailment in the last month that magically goes away with some cuddling and attention). So we were snuggling in the chair and I asked him if he was sad and he said no. So I took another approach and asked him if he was scared of anything? He sad yes. I asked him what he was scared of and he said in the saddest little voice "Livvie coming to live with us". I asked him why and he said "because you won't take any more pictures of me then". (which makes perfect sense when you consider that the main topic of conversation with family lately is "did you get any more pictures of Livvie?" and also considering I started adding pictures of Livvie to all our family pictures in the kitchen, living room and bedroom, which meant some of his older baby pictures got taken down). So we had a talk about that and I assured him I would always take lots of pictures of him and we talked more about how our love for him will never change. Then I asked if he was scared of anything else and he said "Livvie taking all my toys". :) I figured that wasn't the time for a talk about sharing, so I promised him that for now, his toys are off-limits to Livvie unless he decides he wants to share them with her (we'll cross that bridge when we get to it).

It's just amazing how their little minds work and I feel terrible I didn't get to the root of it earlier. And funny thing is, we had a tummy-ache free day yesterday for the first time in a month. :)