Looking Back- Day Before Gotcha

One year ago today:

There's a Crib in our Room

Today was a travel day. We had to be ready to leave for the airport by 6:30am, which was not a problem since I was up at 2:30 (having crashed at 7:30pm).   We sadly said goodbye to our amazing Beijing agency rep, Jean.  She is WONDERFUL and helped us every step of the way in Beijing.  We're so thankful for her!

We flew to Zhengzhou, which is in the Henan province.  Maggie's province!  It was a quick 2 hour flight, met our 2 new agency reps, then an hour bus ride to the hotel.  We dropped our stuff off in our room, then enjoyed a great Italian late lunch at a restaurant here at the hotel with some members of our group (there are now 6 families total here together).  When we got back to our room, we found they had delivered us a crib!  Talk about surreal.  We just all keep talking about how crazy it is that we're actually going to have a new child tomorrow.  It's easy to get caught up in the travel and tourism things we're doing, and then all of the sudden it will hit me the real reason why we're here.

We got a little update from the orphange on Maggie. No new pictures, but says she takes 4 bottles a day and also eats eggs as a supplement.  No other solid foods yet.  She turned 13 months the day we landed in Beijing.  It also says she likes the bath but it sometimes makes her cry.  Love how things get lost in the translation here.  :) It also says she takes one 1.5 hour nap and sleeps 9pm-6am.  We're going to work on that, cuz she needs more sleep than that!  It says she's lively and active and likes to have attention. Sounds just like her siblings!   It also says she's crawling, pulling herself up and can walk when holding onto things.  We missed Allie's first steps (since she was RUNNING when we got her at 11 months!) so we're excited to see Maggie's first steps when the time comes.

This afternoon we walked about 20 minutes to Walmart.  Not your typical Walmart in some parts! There were whole ducks you could buy, squid, etc. But we also found Lays potato chips and snickers, so we're all good.  We now know where we can find formula and diapers, too.  The streets are wild and crazy here too.  Cars and people everywhere, and here there are scooters on the sidewalks and they do not watch for pedestrians! We walked back at rush hour and it was a little scary.  Made us very glad we didn't bring the kids with us.  There are older kids here in our group and they are doing great; ours just aren't old enough to handle all we're doing.

So we'll meet at 9:30 in the morning for a short bus ride to the registration office, where our babies will be brought to us.  We already feel so bonded to the 5 other families in our group, and I can't imagine how emotional it's going to be to experience meeting our children for the first time together, and to go through these next weeks together.

I don't know if it will happen, but I'm praying for a good night's sleep tonight, as it's our last one just the 2 of us!!!   Even though she is our 4th child, it's just as nerve-wracking and exciting as the first!  We'll post pictures as soon as we can tomorrow.  Any prayers for her and her transition and for wisdom for us would be greatly appreciated!!!  We can feel the love, prayers and support from all of you, thank you so much!!!  This is it!

Looking Back- The Great Wall

Our experience visiting the Great Wall a year ago today:

Today we visited the Great Wall of China.  It was a 1.5 hour drive from our hotel.  We climbed to the 2nd tower from where we started, and it was STEEP and a ton of steps!  Poor Jeremy wanted to go farther but I just couldn't and our guide wanted us to stay together.  The views were beautiful up in the mountains, I'm so glad we got to see it.

We had another wonderful lunch with our group after.  We came back and rested (by mid day here it feels like the middle of the night and we are bone tired!), then joined another family here for a walk around our hotel.  There are no words to describe how many people and cars there are here in downtown Beijing.  There's no pedestrian right-away, no taking turns.  Lots of horn-honking and craziness! We found 2 outdoor markets that were selling all kinds of wild things like snake and starfish on a stick, squid on a stick, bugs on a stick... the second market was down a narrow alley lit up by red lanterns down the sides.  It was literally thick with people making their way thru eating these things on a stick.  Definitely an authentic China experience!  We have been stopped a couple of times by Chinese people who want to take our picture with them.  I guess they get excited to see white Americans here.  They get most excited to see people with blond hair.

After the excitement of the markets, we needed a regular meal.  We found a Pizza Hut in the mall, which was unlike any Pizza Hut in the states.  They had all kinds of Chinese cuisine on the menu, but thankfully also had regular pizza.  We've had some wonderful Chinese food so far, but we were ready for something a bit more familiar.  The waitresses didn't speak English, so there was a lot of pointing at pictures and miming  to place our order.  We ordered Coke to drink, which came with ice. We've been told to avoid tap water and ice here, so trying to explain to them that we wanted the coke without ice was hilarious. We literally took ice cubes out of the glass and were waving our hands over it saying no. They finally brought us regular coke with no ice, but we're not totally confident if it was a new cup of coke or just the old one with the ice dumped out!  Needless to say, we were ready to get back to our hotel room after that adventure.  Thankful we had another family with us to experience that with!

We're still struggling with jet lag.  We're dragging by early evening, but then waking up in the middle of the night not able to sleep. Hence it's 4am here in China and I'm blogging in stead of sleeping. Everyone with us says the same thing. I'd imagine we'll all get on a normal sleep pattern by the time we're ready to come home. :)

The air in Beijing is really smoggy and smokey.  People smoke everywhere and the air just feels thick and dirty.  We're both struggling with sinus pain and headaches, and sore throats.  I'm hoping that the air quality in Zhengzhou will be better.

All this touring has been wonderful, but we're getting really close to Maggie time! In a few hours, we fly to Zhengzhou, the capitol of the Henna province where Maggie is.  Today we'll travel there, get acclimated and organized for Gotcha Day on Monday!!!  We keep saying how bizarre and surreal it is that in a little over 24 hours time we'll have our new little girl.  We have no idea what to expect, what she'll be like and how she'll handle our first days together.  We're so ready to start getting to know her and helping her realize that we're her forever family.

Here we are at the base of the portion of the Great Wall that we climbed.

Here's our view from the top.

Delicious lunch!

 We got to drive by quite a few of the Olympic buildings.

Some views of the market.

Looking Back- A Taste of Beijing

A year ago today we toured Beijing and got a little taste of Maggie's homeland. 

Tiennaman Square, Forbidden City and Little Flowers

We had a great first full day in Beijing.  Our agency rep is fantastic.  She is a great guide and help.  There is one other family here so far with us (3 more to join us) and she took both our families to Tiennaman Square and the Forbidden City today.  Then we rode on a rickshaw (pulled by bike) through the little alleys in old Beijing that are between very old homes. We also were treated to lunch in a family's home, which was amazing.  It was so neat to see some of the history of our daughter's birth country.  It's chilly here but not cold, a great day to be out walking.

After that we were able to visit Little Flowers group foster home.  It's not a typical part of the agenda at all, but one we really wanted to do since we knew that Maggie had lived there from birth until 10 months. (she has been at an orphange in her home city from the age of 10 months until now)  It's a wonderful group home with great care for little ones with medical needs.  Since she spent so much time here, it was really important for us to go.  We had it arranged ahead of time with Little Flowers, and our agency rep was so awesome at helping us figure out how to get there.  It was a bit of a drive from our hotel, but she called them to confirm,  got us a taxi, gave the driver instructions and sent us on our way. It was a little scary heading off thru the busy streets of Beijing without her or anyone who spoke English!  We were dropped off in front of a gate  with no signs in English. We somehow managed to understand the guard's mimes at how to get thru the streets by foot, and we are SO glad we took the risk!  

That place is AMAZING.  There are so many caregivers loving on those kids.  I follow their Facebook page, so I recognized a lot of the little ones and the rooms from pictures.  We got a tour and they told us a bit about how the place is run. Our tour was given by a young Chinese man who coincidentally had lived in the states for several years, about 15 minutes from where we live!  We had a lot in common and we felt very welcomed.  We were introduced to several staff members and volunteers, some Chinese, some American.   They are dedicating their time and care to these babies and it shows. The babies are happy and loved.  And our girl got to spent her first crucial months there.  

When we walked into one of the rooms, I immediately recognized the caregiver who was in many of the pictures we have of Maggie.  It was so emotional; she remembered Maggie fondly and we got to thank her for taking such good care of her.  In fact, many of the volunteers and staff immediately lit up in fond memory of Maggie when they learned we are her parents.  It was just an amazing time to be somewhere where she was so loved.  The young man who gave us the tour then walked us quite a way back out to the main road, hailed us a taxi and explained to the taxi driver where we needed to go.  So very kind and appreciated!  We are so glad we insisted on visiting and are so thankful for what they do there.  

We've already been able to Skype our babies at home a couple of times, they are doing great.  Tomorrow we'll get to tour the Great Wall; and we are getting closer to having Maggie in our arms!  Here are some pics from today:

In Tienanman Square, in front of the Forbidden City

 Some of the bricks we walked on in the Forbidden City are 600 years old.

 Our rickshaw.

Our amazing homemade lunch.

Photographs can't be taken inside Little Flowers, but here we are outside the home.

One Year Ago Today - We were on our way to China!

  It's so crazy to me that a year ago today we were on a plane flying across the world to China! I've been reliving our trip through my blog. Here's my post from our first 2 days of travel:

  Days 1 & 2

We've made it safely to Beijing! It took about 24 hours from the time we left home to the time we got into our hotel room.  Everything went smoothly, just soooo loooonnnnnggggg.  We first flew to Chicago, then had about a 4.5 hour layover before our flight to Bejing.  By the time we left for Beijing around 1:30pm, we had already been up and going since 4:30am.  The flight to Beijng was about 13 hours. It took a lot longer than I had envisioned 13 hours to be! 

 Luckily our flight was not very full so we had room to stretch out.  We had 2 meals on the plane, watched a couple movies and slept off and on.  When we finally landed in Beijing, we were so so tired. We landed here about 3:30pm Beijing time, which was 2:30am home time.  But we still had to go thru immigration, customs and get our bags.  Finally we spotted our agency rep, who then took over in getting us where we needed to go. It took forever to get to our hotel from the airport due to severe traffic.  The traffic and crowds here are unbelievable!  There's just people and cars everywhere.  Our hotel is in downtown Bejing, right in the heart of the city.  Our room is really nice and we're excited to try the breakfast buffet we've heard a lot about.  Today and tomorrow we're doing some touring and hopefully a lot of resting too to get acclimated before we fly to Maggie's province.

The best part is so far we have good internet connection, so we've already been able to Skype home and see our babies.  We'll try to keep blogging and keeping everyone updated as much as we can.

All packed!

Last picture as a family of 5!  

Ready for our first out of 6 total flights on this trip.

On the plane to Bejing!

Finally in our hotel room in Beijing!

Orphan Sunday - Our Story

Today is Orphan Sunday. Many, many people in the adoption community do something to commemorate this day, either with their church or as a family.  It's a day to spread the word about the many children who do not have a family.

However, there are some out there who don't give credit to this day because they don't like the word "orphan".  People nit-pick over lots of words in the adoption world. Some don't like the term orphan or Gotcha Day or Forever Family.... the list goes on and on. I'm not here to debate the terms used. We choose to commemorate this day (and this month as National Adoption Month) because we believe the idea of children without families is too important to be ignored. There are many people advocating for children who need a home, a family, because today is Orphan Sunday.  Hopefully many children will soon find their families because of the advocating that goes on on this day and in this month, and because of that, I am a fan.

We get asked many questions about our family and about adoption pretty much every where we go. That's okay, we're happy to talk about it. It's not like we can just blend in. :)  We have been so blessed by adoption, so we love to talk about it.

The most common question we get asked is something like,  "How did you get started adopting?".  So for those of you who don't know, here is our story:

Jeremy and I began dating right after high school. We were good friends before that.  As a teenager, I babysat for a family who adopted.  I was very close to them and saw the blessings that came as a result of adoption. That long ago (over 20 years ago!) the seed was planted in both of us, as Jeremy came to know that family as well (and we are still in touch with them to this day!).

Fast forward about 10 years and after collage, getting married and focusing on careers for a while, we were ready to start our family. We were blessed with our 2 biological boys.  When it came time to discuss child #3, we just knew we wanted to adopt. It was never a second choice for us; it was always with joy and pleasure that we added to our family by way of adoption.  We had a lot of love to share and we knew that child would bless us immensely.  So along came our Allie by way of adoption from South Korea in 2011.

At that point, we thought we were done. We swore we were done; 2 beautiful boys and a perfect daughter.  Life was full and happy.  But God had other plans.

In 2012, I participated in a bible study about the book of Nehemiah.  Through that study, I learned more about what it means to have our hearts broken for what breaks the heart of God.  Once we feel the pain God feels for his children, we then are moved to act on it.  At the same time, I was hearing adoption stories everywhere.  Every conversation, every news article, every book I stumbled upon had something to do with adoption.  I began hearing more about the staggering numbers of children without a family to call their own:  upwards of 147, 000, 000 of them worldwide.  If all the orphans came together to form their own nation, it would be among the 10th largest in the world.

We should not be okay with this.

Also around the same time we volunteered for an organization called Hands Against Hunger, where we helped pack foods to go to starving children around the world.  The images we saw of the children starving and dying of thirst and dirty water (30,000 a DAY) rocked my world.

Our hearts broke.

Our eyes were opened.

We weren't okay with doing nothing anymore.  We had to do something.  Although our lives were full, we certainly could make room for one more.  We told God, "Okay. We hear you, we know.  Lead the way."

And so we were lead to China.  We began the process for a special needs child and were on a mission to bring her home.  God knit her tightly into our hearts and we couldn't get her home fast enough.

A really cool thing that came as a result of our adoption processes is our spiritual growth. We have been stretched and pulled past our comfort zone so many times since we began adopting that what once felt insurmountable now seems like no big deal. When we chose to adopt from South Korea with our first adoption, we chose that country in part because they escorted children home rather than requiring the parents to fly to the birth country.  We had 2 very young boys (they were 3 and 5 at the time she came home) and at that time we thought, there's NO WAY we could travel across the world for what would have been a 4 day trip.  We also felt like we couldn't handle a child with special needs. Which was okay at that time.  That's where we were then and that process brought us Allie, who is obviously meant to be our daughter.

But when the time came for the second adoption, having a child escorted home was no longer an option.  We had to leave the country and fly to China. In fact, the trip would be 17 days gone away from our 3 kids, to bring home our new daughter with special needs. They were 3, 5 and 7 at the time. What originally seemed impossible the first time was of course daunting, but yet doable the second time. I remember clearly waiting at the airport to board the first of many flights.  I HATE flying. I am not a great traveler. I'm a home body and am not that adventurous.  And yet, I truly felt God lift me up as we boarded that first plane. I was ready for 24 hours of travel to get to my new daughter's birth country. I was ready to face jet lag, a new language, new food, new culture... I could do it.  And He literally carried me through the entire trip.  It was so awesome and SO WORTH IT.  It was an amazing feeling to have the opportunity to literally be Jesus's hands and feet.  He made me brave.

I've learned that we just have to be willing. He just wants our hands open wide, our hearts and minds open. He wants us willing to boldly take that first step of faith, and he'll take us the rest of the way.

We've had to make sacrifices.  We can't go on many vacations or have big Christmases or passes to
lots of places.  We don't eat out much or have new cars; we have to pinch pennies at the grocery. We are a family of 6 in a 3 bedroom house.  We've spent countless hours do adoption paperwork when we could have been doing something way more fun.  And we are totally okay with that.

We are by no means perfect, far from it. We are always tired and sometimes impatient.  But we're learning that we want to focus our lives on God rather than ourselves.  We so badly want to walk the walk, be the church, and do His will.  We have a long way to go, can grow so much more.  But we have been blessed SO GREATLY by adoption.  I would never, ever trade my girls for a more luxurious or easier lifestyle.  

So today is Orphan Sunday.  God calls all His children to care for orphans in their distress.  If you feel something stirring in you, if you feel a nudge towards adoption or fostering, if you're no longer okay with millions of children growing up with out a family, I'm here to tell you that you can do it. Take that first step. Start researching the options, asking questions.  Just don't feel like you have to figure it all out yourself- God will take care of the details. Just be willing to take the first step.  He will make you brave, He will make you bold.  You can change the world for ONE and you will be blessed a thousand fold.

Halloween

This was Maggie's first Halloween home.  It seemed like a really big deal because this time last year we got our Travel Approval to go get her, so we were busy packing and making last minute preparations this time last year.  And now she's here to trick-or-treat with us!  She wore the black and white puppy costume that all the kids in our family (cousins included, begun 13 years ago!) have worn for their first Halloween.  We weren't sure how she'd react to the costumes, etc but she LOVED it! She sucked on a piece of chocolate and hung out in the wagon most of the time.

In addition to the puppy, we also had a kitty (with mask and scarf for some reason), an Angry Bird and a Ninja whom we had to address as Cole (for some reason).  All in all it was a very fun (albeit cold!) night!

The next day we gladly sold back most of the candy to their dentist, who donates it to the troops.

Fall Fun 5 - Soccer Wrap-up

Really glad we stuck it out; this girl ended up loving soccer!

End of season was COLD!

Sam's team won their first tournament game!!

Trophy time!