May 29, 2010

From Guangzhou

This is a post I had sent from China, but it is still floating somewhere in cyberspace. It is summary of some of our days in China. I know it's long, but I wanted to write some things down because I am afraid this old brain of mine may forget some details of an amazing journey.

Hello from Guangzhou
We are in the final days of our trip! I know it has been a while since the last post and I’m sorry, but spending time with Zac is so much fun that the last thing I want to do is get on the computer. I know you all understand. I do know how hard it is to be waiting for updates, so I will try and get this one posted soon. So here goes a little back track up-date.

Thursday, May 20th
We took a ride out of Nanchang to a nearby village. What an experience that was. Our agency takes the group out to a village because it is thought that most of the babies come from the villages. They think they are brought to the city in hopes of being found sooner.

The people we met in the village were extremely friendly. It was one of the most interesting afternoons I’ve had here in China. We saw people working in the rice fields. Women were doing laundry in large bowls on the front step of their homes. A man was selling pieces of a hog for the evening dinner. He had the hog hanging on a pole and people would come up and he would cut off whatever they asked for. It was all so very interesting. It was like stepping back in time. I have some great pictures. I’ll post most of them when we get home.

Friday, May 21st
This was our last day in Nanchang. Since our plane didn’t leave until the late evening we were able to go on one more tour. First we went to the People’s Park. We loved the park. It was a beautiful place. There were people playing badminton, doing Tai Chi, and other types of activities. Even in the rain it was an enjoyable walk.

After the park we went to the porcelain market. Jiangxi Province is known for being a large producer of rice and for their porcelain. There were so many pieces that I wish I could have purchased, but I don’t know how I would have gotten them home. I did find a wonderful family chopstick set. There are baba, mama, and baby chopsticks in the set. Love it.

Once we got back to the hotel we had two hours to get our bags packed and out for the bellman. One of us also had to go up to a meeting to pick up the baby’s passport. I went up to the meeting while Ryan stayed in the room with Zac. Karen handed me the passport and I read Hong Min Yang, which is Zac’s given name. When I looked at the picture, my heart started beating 240! I looked up at Karen (one of the guides) and she must have noticed the problem at the same time. She came over and took Zac’s passport back.

The notary had mixed up Zac’s picture with Max -the other little boy in our group. Our passports were wrong! My heart sank. Evelyn (our guide) was wonderful. She got on the phone right away and started making calls. All three guides were on the phone trying to get the problem fixed. I was told to go back to our room and they would call as soon as they knew something.

Meanwhile, we had to be in the lobby by 3:00PM to leave for the airport. Our group is so large, there are 20 families in our group, and because of the large number of babies the airlines would not take that many babies at one time, so our group was divided into two planes. Our group was supposed to fly out at 6:30PM.

Ryan, Zac and I were in the lobby waiting to leave and for news about the passport. Finally Karen came back and told us that we could use his adoption documents to get to Guangzhou. We didn’t need the passport for that. She said that they will get us the passport. The notary is working on them and if they didn’t finish before we took off they would mail it to us. (Not my favorite solution, but what could we do?)

A few minutes later word spread that the first plane had been cancelled. The first group (our group) was told to go back to our rooms and wait. The only problem was that we had already checked out. The hotel had to give us all back a key, and we went back to our rooms.

While in our room CiCi (a guide) brought Zac’s new passport. It was perfect. She said that they aren’t used to two boys so they mixed them up. That doesn’t make sense to me. They didn’t mix up 18 little girls, but they mix up two boys?? Oh Well! I was happy to have his passport in my hands!

At 6:30 we were on the bus to the airport. Going through security was easier than we thought it would be, thank goodness. When we arrived at our gate second group still sitting there. That wasn’t a good sign! Without going into all the dreaded details I’ll just wrap up this day’s summary with it was a really long night in the airport: Zac took his first tumble off a chair and there were tears from both Zac and me, there were three ‘skirmishes’ where guards were called in, Zac was the last baby to fall asleep – not willingly, we didn’t board the plane until 1AM, and we didn’t get to the hotel until 4:00AM. It was a long, hot, smelly night that I have no desire to EVER repeat. I was never so glad to get out of an airport in my life!
What A Day!


Saturday, May 22nd
This morning we had to be at the medical clinic for Zac’s exam ~ if that is what you can call it. We arrived at the clinic and there are babies and parents every where. The clinic is only open on Saturday mornings. All adopted babies have to have the check-up before their paperwork can be processed at the consulate. It was WILD in that room.

There are three different rooms you have to take the babies through. They checked his hearing, by shaking a rattle. In the second room a man took his head measurement and then checked him over. I am not exactly sure what he was looking at. The third room they took Zac’s weight (he weighs 24.8 pounds), his height, and his temperature. That is it. They move each baby through as quickly as possible. Understandably since there are so many waiting to be seen.

That was all we did on Saturday. All three of us were so exhausted that we decided to hang around the hotel. After a nice long nap in the afternoon we went to Lucy’s for dinner. It was so good! Ryan and I have never had onion rings that tasted so good! :o)


Sunday, May 23rd
For the last couple of days Zac had been rather snotty and coughing. On Sunday morning he woke up sounding very croupy. We called one of our guides and told her that we needed to go to the clinic here in the hotel. I was worried because he started having lots of green gunk when he sneezed. I know that’s not a good sign. I was worried that if we waited too long to take care of this it would get worse.

It turned out that Zac had bronchitis. Even though he had been on an antibiotic to clear up his ear infection, it wasn’t strong enough to battle the bronchial infection. Thankfully the ear infection is gone, now we just need to get rid of the croupy cough, weepy eyes, and runny nose. I tell you, for a little guy who is sick he sure is a trooper. We have had to wake him up every morning and at every nap because we’ve had some place to be. He always wakes up and is ready to tackle the adventure. He isn’t cranky or crying. I hope this continues when we get home.

Due to Zac being sick Ryan and I skipped the tour on Sunday. I am a little sad that we didn’t get to go to the Buddhist Temple. I was looking forward to that. Getting Zac healthy is more important to us.


Monday, May 24th
This was a big day for us. After breakfast we had to wait in our rooms while the guides took all of our paperwork over to the US consulate. If there were any problems the guides would call us before 11:00AM. The amount of paperwork we did before coming to China and all the paperwork we did here in China all came down to this moment. We have been told several times that the US Consulate is very, very picky. That is every ‘i’ isn’t dotted and every ‘t’ crossed it could be trouble.

Thankfully we got a call about 10:30AM saying that we passed and all was good! YEAH!!! Now all we had to do was take our oath and wait for Zac’s visa.

At noon we all boarded a bus and headed to a pearl market. Oh! My Word!!! Six floors of nothing but jewelry, it was amazing. I wasn’t going to get anything since I had already bought a beautiful jade bracelet in Hong Kong, but it was my birthday so what the heck!! I got another bracelet. It’s gorgeous. Ryan says he is done for my birthday and Christmas this year. :o)

The best birthday present in the world is sleeping in a crib right behind me. We are starting to see a little more of Zac’s personality every day ~ and every day this little man steals more and more of my heart. He is just so amazing!

After the pearl market we went to McDonalds. That was an experience. We were the only Caucasians in the restaurant so to say we were stared at was an understatement. After all of the noodles and rice over the last several days I must say those were the best French fries I have ever eaten.

When we got back to the hotel a birthday cake was delivered to our room. It looks really amazing. We were going to cut it with some friends last night after dinner, but it was after 8:00PM when we got back to the hotel. We had three tired babies who all needed to get to bed, so we decided to celebrate after we get back from the Consulate on Tuesday.


Tuesday, May 25th
Today is the last duty we have for the adoption. We go this afternoon to take our oath at the US Consulate. After that all we have to do is wait for Zac’s visa and then the packing for home can begin.

Both boys are taking a nap now. We will be leaving in a couple of hours. I can’t wait.

I know this is a really long post. I have actually been working on it for three days, but couldn’t finish it. Now it is up-to-date. It will most likely be the last post until we get home. Neither Ryan or I are looking forward to the 24 hour journey to home, but we are looking forward to getting home.

Thank you to all of you who have sent emails, and posted on the blog. I can’t read blogs, but I can read your comments. It is so nice to get the words from home.

One more add-on: We left the hotel in Guangzhou at 7:30AM on May 27th. Zac was the BEST traveler!! We are so proud. He slept 10 out of the 12 hours on the long flight. He napped on the two short flights. He laughed and played when he wasn't having a snack. The only time he cried was on our last flight from Chicago to our home base airport. I couldn't blame him in the slightest. I was dog tired too!

We are so blessed to have this little boy in our lives. He was most definitely Worth the Wait!!

Zac LOVED the waterfall at the White Swan.
If we were seated near it during breakfast he had a hard time concentrating on food.

All of the babies in our group!

What are we doing here, Man?

Zac is all smiles ~ until you pull out a camera.

5 comments:

  1. LOVED readingevery last word of this post!! Can"t wait to see more pictures from your journey and hear about life at home!

    XOXO
    ~Kristen

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  2. Love reading your updates! One thing I wish we could have done was to go to the rural areas! I would have loved seeing where our baby girl was from!
    Yep, he has the same poker face that Tessa gets when we get out the camera, the only thing I can do to get her to smile is to play peek-a-boo and quickly take the picture.

    Angela

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  3. He is handsome. Our son still goes solemn for the camera most of the time; I think it's cultural.

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  4. Welcome home Stacy! So glad you all are back safely! Zac is so amazing and simply adorable!

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  5. Wow, Stacy - thanks for sharing so many details! What an incredible journey, this last leg in China. Hooray for the happy family - and lots of love! xoxoxo

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