One Final Thought for Anna

One there were two women
Who never knew each other;
One you do not remember,
The other you call Mother.

Two different lives,
Shaped to make your one,
One became your guiding star
The other became your sun.

The first one gave you life
And the second taught you to live it,
The first gave you a need for love,
The second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality,
The other gave you a name.
One gave you a talent,
The other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions,
The other calmed you fears.
One saw your first sweet smile,
The other dried your tears.

One sought for you a home
That she could not provide,
The other prayed for a child,
And her hopes were not denied.

And now you ask me
Through your tears,
The age- old question,
Unanswered through the years.

Heredity or environment,
Which are you a product of ?
Neither my darling, neither.
Just two different kinds of love.

-- Author Unknown

...ok, that's it for this blog. I have four kids, and a full time job, and am in the middle of a major home remodel, remember? Thanks for being part of this journey with us.

One Last Editorial Note

I love telling people we adopted from china because we have 3 boys and wanted a girl. As if something so complex and “non traditional” could ever be such a no-brainer. As if foreign adoption is ever the “obvious choice”, especially when you can pop out bio kids with scheduled precision.

It’s a funny answer because it is so simplifying – yet actually way more complex than the real reason we did this. I woke up one morning just about 3 years ago knowing – just knowing – that the sister Ben had been asking for was in china. Can’t get much more straightforward that that.

Although I don’t think I ever imagined we’d end up here. We’ve just journeyed to what must have been the farthest point away on the planet and brought home a little girl who hasn’t been a stranger for a moment. We’ve got four kids, two big jobs, a house in the middle of a remodel. No idea how on earth we are going to get back to work next week. Plus I still have mild laryngitis, a hacking cough, and am going through about a half box of Kleenex a day. And things couldn’t be more perfect. Our family now feels complete.

One of the first things I did when I realized the quest we had to make – and the task I had to overcome to get Steve on board (No one can fault him for giving me a screwy and skeptical look when I announced my intentions) – was to go to the china adoption community on the internet and ask them the question: “Bio vs. Adopted – is it different? How? Can we do it?”. I got dozens off thought-out heart-felt replies. I know there are a number of families reading this blog thinking of making this journey as well, so I feel the need to share my opinion to these very natural questions – with the obvious bias of someone blessed enough to have formed a family by just about every means possible – self selected acquisition (Corey & Steve), bio (Ben and Grant), and adoption (Anna).

I would say that when it comes to the most important considerations there is NO difference between expanding a family biologically vs. through adoption.

THE WAIT: “the wait” is filled with the same joyful anticipation and preparation. In fact, I would say adoption offers a more extreme wait experience than pregnancy, so should be the choice of the A-type personality crowd. It’s like the X games of family expansion. At any given moment you don’t know where your child is, or if they even “are” yet. And you don’t know when it’s really going to happen. You can follow all the yahoo groups out there plotting LIDs, 2nd calls, etc etc etc and still be caught off guard when you “get the call” – the “my water broke” of the adoption world.

During the wait I was equally as cranky and scattered brained as when I was pregnant – but maybe that was just me. …ok, so maybe this is a bit of an overstatement. I never sat myself in the backseat of the car and tried to put the keys in the headrest to drive while waiting for Anna.

DELIVERY PAIN: The pain of delivery is fairly equivalent. You really won’t miss out on any of this by forgoing the bio experience. Note that this is a big thing for me to say since I had three kids with no epidurals, two of which came sunnyside up after 18+ hours of labor each. I know I commented to the other bio mom on the trip more than once that I was a sucker for thinking this was going to be less painful than giving birth. When you are sick, and exhausted in China it is hard not to long for the warm blankets and crushed ice of the Standford Maternity Ward. And there is no such thing as epidurals for a week in Guangzhou…although I could make a fortune by inventing one.

THAT “NEW PARENT” LOOK: Within 24 hours you are exhausted overwhelmed and look like shit. Same as with a newborn bio child. Cool huh?

YOUR CHILD WILL LOOK LIKE YOU: Your new child will look like you – either immediately or eventually. I know this seems weird but I kid you not. I am being 100% honest. Maybe its like one of those pet/pet owner things? But every new sister and every older sister on the trip completely matched with their family. It didn’t even cross my mind that this one 12 year old older sister was adopted, even though her mom and dad were both blond. And apparently we match Anna so well that 7 year old Meggie informed us one morning in Changsha that our baby didn’t even look Chinese (good gawd Meggie, then what the heck am I doing half way around the globe eating bad breakfast buffet in a smoke filled dining room for the 11th day in a row!!!).

YOUR KIDS WON”T MAKE ANY SENSE: Your kids will be no more of a mystery to you than if they were bio. I’ve heard many people say they “want their own” children because they want to understand why they are how they are. Anyone who knows Grant and his thick stocky build, is challenged to explain why he is like that. And anyone who has commented how Corey and Steve are so similar should make a note of the 0% overlap in DNA.

YOUR PRE-TEEN KIDS WILL MAKE LESS SENSE: When your child hits 12 they will have a pre-teen crisis. If you child is adopted from China you can guess now what that crisis will be about. If not, they will manufacture a crisis equally as challenging and probably for which there is NOT a whole community of families, loads of literature, and a booming “homeland tour” industry to help you through. (Technically this would imply that “bio kids” are the X Games of the pre-teen years and whimpy parents should consider adoption. Having just been through 25% of my pre-teen crisis allotment I am excited about “being wimpy”.)

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Your love for your baby is as instant and as unconditional and as deeply moving as if she came from your own body and your own genes. Trust me on this one.

The First Day(s) of Forever

It didn't feel like we'd ever make it back - and we almost didn't. My fever spiked up on the flight to Tokyo. I was sitting in a wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket with a JAL thermometer under my arm. Our flight was fully boarded when they asked us to describe our luggage so they could unload it. I downed a half bottle of water in under 30 seconds and used the energy boost to nearly storm the plane.

After signing a waiver to not sue the airline if i died in flight and to be financially responsible if they had to emergeny land the plane because of my health issues (excuse me - where on earth is there to land a 747 between tokyo and san francisco? a detour to midway island? beach vacation on the kellonds!) they let us board.

9 hours later I had the best remedy to my ills.



4 grandparents, 3 brothers, 3 lacrosse games and a piece of chocolate birthday cake later Anna clearly felt right at home.



She fought to keep her eyes open more than once this weekend so as not to miss anything, and I thought the best part of the day was when the boys were wrestling with my dad and Steve. She fussed until I sat her on the floor at which point she promptly rolled over on her back and sckootch-arched herself over to the action. She also loved hanging upside down - bucking her head back for more everytime Steve turned her upright.


And we got the biggest giggles yet out of her when we play "free fall" on to the matress. And the little girl who didn't eat for 2 weeks is now consuming everything in sight seemingly trying to keep up with Grant. I've spent the past year hearing people comment how amazing it is that the communist buracracy always seems to match children with just the right family. Anna is no exception.

Ben kept saying all weekend that Friday was the best day of his life because his sister came home.

If the newfound sparkle in her previous blank eyes, or the smile ready to burst out on a face marred by a furrowed brow just two weeks ago are any indication, I suspect Anna feels the same way Ben does.



You know the rest of the story, right?
...and they lived happily ever after. The End.

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia

Our last night in Guangzhou and I have to admit our “farewell dinner” was a bit surreal. We were in this odd hotel night club eating bad hotel food (Best Western I think) and there was some very strange Chinese Kareoke thing going on, which occasionally would cut over to topless European super models. The Le Coq sisters were dressed like Shanghi lounge singers – and sounded like the same as they belted out Hotel California.

And the China team handed out these little stuffed bears to all the girls. Ruby’s said “Cheesecake Factory” on the back. Anna’s had a Florida Seminole’s emblem on it. There was intermittent conga line and just a whole lot of families ready to go home.


Two of our favorite mom's from the trip with two of our favorite girls.
Anna, Lila, and Ruby: BFF


I suspect if we hadn’t gotten so sick this would have been a fabulous trip and I am a tad bit bittersweet about leaving. But only a tad.

Next Stop? Home.

The "Typical" Adopting Family?

We came here thinking that there was probably a "typical" family we'd meet on the trip and that we'd be on the odd ones out. You know, late 30’s going to get their first baby after years of trying to get pregnant or single movie star moms.

How wrong we were. While there were a relatively large number of Prius drivers, similarities stopped there. The faces of these new families were not nearly as predictable as we imagined. And we feel lucky to have met some really great people.

• The couple getting their 2nd daughter, but planning to request their third child from the grandparents village.
• The single mom nearing 50 wishing she had done this 15 years earlier
• The mid-30’s couple who didn’t even try bio and went straight to adoption because it’s just what they wanted to do.
• The couple who woke up 30 years into their careers to realize something was missing
• First time parents picking up a new baby who, based on the size of her new mom’s belly, is about 4 months away from becoming an older sister
• The couple with a high school son and a tweener who decided about a year ago that they actually weren’t done with kids quite yet
• ….and the family with 3 boys that was desperately missing a little sister…..

And despite our differences we now all have one thing in common. The sweetest spicy Hunan girls you could imagine…..

Better Late than Never: YouXian Post 1

Everyone needs to make their own choices about children and the best way to expand their families, but I have to believe that if everyone who has ever told us that they too had thought of adopting a child had seen what we saw today, there would be a lot fewer children waiting for families right now……

The YouXian Directors met us at the toll both about 15 minutes outside of the town. YouXian the town was actually much bigger than we expected - it was a small city, but didn't feel crowded. To get there we had driven about three hours through a combination of beautiful contryside intertwined with small two story homes right on the street. There was trash everywhere - some of it appeared local, some of it hauled in to be sorted through.

The Directors took us to a local restaurant. When they came onto the bus, Anna's eyes immediately lit up with recognition. Mr. Zhou wasn't even up the steps of the bus before he was reaching for her. We had to hang back while everyone went into the restaurant in order to change her pants, and he held back so he could grab her right from us as we entered.

The first thing I will always remember is in this world of YouXian, the girl we call Anna, has an alter identity. Everyone who knew her before calls her QinQing (sounds sort of like Chaching). She took to the Director’s right away but INSISTED on being able to see us the whole time to make sure we weren’t going anywhere. They even held her during lunch – again as long as we were in sight.

Lunch itself was great. Very local Hunan – and YouXian food – apparently. Spicy, but with really complex sweet undertones. The best stuff was this soup that looked like dishwater. It had what looked like chopped up chicken neckbones in it and was filled with these slimey looking grey gelatinous noodles – about an inch and a half in width. It went around the table twice and none of the American’s touched it. Then Mr. Zhou stood up and served Steve and I. He left all the chicken in the bowl and just fished out the noodles. Obviously we had to oblige and eat. It was actually delicious. The noodles were made from evaporated sweet potato milk or something. We also had this spicy marinated lotus root and some local green vegetable (dong fe shi or something) that were both great.

During lunch there were plenty of toasts given by the Directors welcoming on our visit etc. Steve was able to give a toast for our group – both thanking them for hosting us – and obviously thanking them for their special gift to us.

As lunch was ending the Directors and China team started to talk quickly in Chinese. After some back and forth we heard “Mei Qing” and focused in. Sarah had given them the information on Anna’s finding site and they said they could take us there after the orphanage visit!

After lunch we headed to the orphanage. We had to drive through YouXian city, and then through a small residential area. The orphanage was latterly at the end of the road and the outskirt of the town. It was very very quiet. As we pulled up the nannies were already starting out the upper window looking for us.

Anna spent the first 9 months of her life in a bedroom with 7 other girls. Seeing her empty crib was really emotional. It was grey, a little worn, the sheets were a bit torn. There were no colors. No toys. It was just empty.

The room itself was relatively quite and we figured the other babies must be asleep…until we looked in their beds. Nearly everyone was full. With the exception of one baby who couldn’t have been more than a month old, all the babies were awake. Staring silently at the ceiling. While Anna obviously recognized her caregivers, she wouldn’t go to them. She insisted on staying with us. Linda actually saw one baby that looked so pale that she couldn’t help but touch it to see if it was really real – or really alive.

We met ZheZhen, who was apparently Anna’s buddy occupying the crib next to her. However, whenever they tried to put ZheZhen near Anna, Anna would cry. She clearly wanted to make sure there was no chance she was separated from us. She

After seeing her room and her crib, we went into the playroom. Oh my gosh. There were 18 girls bundled up like Michelin men in suspended animation in their walkers all staring at a TV blaring painfully loud children’s music. It was something out of a post apocalyptical science fiction movie. Could our daughter have spent the first 9 months of her life like this?

After visiting the playroom the nannies all waited to say goodbye to their little QinQing. They all passed her around and gave her little kisses. All the while Anna and an eye or a hand glued to me. It was very telling.

I think the playroom struck me differently than anyone else. Others pointed out that by worldwide orphan standards this whole set up wasn’t so bad. However, their daughters had been in foster care. To imagine the first 9 months in my daughters life to have been spent this way – despite the love she got – was really painful.

The saddest part for me was actually when we were leaving. The nannies and ZheZhen were all watching us from the upstairs window and waving at us until we had pulled down the road, hand turned the corner and were out of sight. The place we had been had just been was Anna’s whole world up until just 3 days before. We were leaving a little piece of her past behind forever. I couldn’t imagine her or us ever being in this strange and remote corner of the world ever again.

Do American Brains Stop Working in China?

The two biggest thing our "tour guide" has been promoting during our trip to Guangzhou are the foot massages at China Hotel ($12USD for 1 hour - and I have heard they are awesome) and the electronics market where you can get Adobe Photoshop for just 10 yuan (about $1.25 US) and "Brokenback Mountain" for 5 yuan. Today is the day we go to the electronics market. I've got to laugh. 95% of our agency's clientel is from LA or SF. We are adopting this countries children with salaries made from the movie and software industry - yet they just can't stop telling us about our opportunity to buy stolen software and movies. What's even better is that somehow the word "piracy" doesn't seem to translate quite so cleanly to STOLEN once you get over here.

During breakfast this morning a fellow mom - who knows I work for Adobe - told me that she wasn't going to be able to make it to the electronics market today but wanted to know if I could pick her up a copy of Photoshop when I was there. HELLO???

On a related note we heard a story on CNNi this morning about Beijing protesting an EU companies petition to trademark "Not Made In China". Beijing claims that such a trademark infringes on their "Made in China" trademark and will damage the perception of their country and impede growth of their industry. Funny how they feel when the shoe is on the other foot, eh?

Under 24 hours until take-off.

What a Difference A Day Makes

FINALLY. The first day in a week we've all been well in a week.

I spent yesterday in bed with water-related stomach issues, but am doing better today. Anna and Dad had a great father daughter day yesterday, and it only took Anna a day to start plugging in where she left off before she got sick. She smiled a bit, giggled once and even sat in the high chair and ate a bit of egg at dinner. She still has a rash - which seems like it is from her formula - but I am sure it will go away once we get her home.

Sorry for no pictures - again, illness has a big negative impact on blogging.

We are off to do some shopping today and I think we are doing a little boat cruise tonight. We promise to get plenty of pictures of Anna with her new friends then.

...and I still have those YouXian posts coming.....

And to add insult to injury…

The only movies on cinemax today (think how infrequently WE get a movie day...) are Ghost and this terribly depressing moving about the destruction of Sarajevo and a sharpshooter who took out kids. The sick and twisted Milsoevic memorial film festival - with chinese subtitles?

This makes it all worth it....

The Other Downside

The other downside of being sick is that it hit us just as Anna’s personality was starting to show itself a bit. But with the sickness she has wanted to sleep – and frankly we have needed her to sleep. Anna’s an orphanage baby. If you put her in a her bed in a dark room she will lie their silently wether she is asleep or not. It’s what she learned to do in the orphanage – crying or being bored wouldn’t change anything there so she learned to not even try. While it’s been helpful in our current predicament it is really really sad and it has caused her to go back into her shell a bit more. She just needs to come home to her brothers.

China 2 Kellonds 0

So I got half way through posting about our trip to YouXian when we had to leave for our flight to Guangzhou. 48 hours later I have enough energy (barely) to sit up and type. Whatever bug had Steve sick on Friday grew in size and consumed all three of us. By the time we arrived in Guangzhou we headed straight to the hotel medical clinic. Steve’s fever was up to over 102 and he could barely walk. Anna’s fever was a solid 103 and I lied to the ‘doctor’ in the medical clinic telling her I felt fine because as soon as we walked into the clinic our mission changed from “get more antibiotics” to “keep us out of the hospital”. Apparently any one with a fever over 102 is required to be sent to the hospital to be quarantined for bird flu - mind you they never bothered to ask if we had actually been around any dead birds.

Luckily we escaped with some antibiotic and two mystery herbal medicines. I flatly refused their advice to give Anna an enema to “pull the fever out of her”. Good gawd let us come home!

Steve was up, feverish and delirious all night. I think he took a bath at 3am and I am not sure if he remembered it in the morning. All three of us spent Sunday sleeping in the dark. We were doing well enough today to eat a bit and take Anna to her immigration medical appointment. Luckily her fever had abated – we were worried they’d keep us here longer if it hadn’t.

Of course the “rash thing” on the back of her neck caused the ‘doctors’ some concern. I have to admit at this point I was about to loose it. They are questioning me about the 3-4 separate rashes on my baby – they gave us to her this way. Everytime we ask what we should do about them we get a different “voodoo” answer. First it was “feed her more water”. Uh, hello, my 9 month old baby eats 16 oz of formula a day – period. This girl does not need water, she needs nutrition. Next it was “she must be too hot” – a particularly ironic diagnosis given that we’ve been berated for the past 6 days for not dressing her in 15 layers of clothes (when you see the clothes we received her in you will be amazed). Today was the best though. The verdict from the immigration approved ‘doctor’? “You will need a laser to get rid of it”. Have I mentioned that we just want to come home?

I hate to admit but at the height of my frustration, feverish myself, and with a sick baby I had to bite my tongue not to tell them all where to go. I am an experienced mom with 3 healthy kids and am really in no mood to take wives tale advice from a country that seems to think it is OK to throw away their little girls.

Did I mention that the AC smells like it is blowing live mold spores into our room?

Hopefully we will feel better tomorrow. When we talked to the boys today I asked my dad to see if he could get our plane tickets moved up so we could leave on Saturday. Plus I heard we might get Anna’s visa on Thursday night – which means Friday departure is also possible.

PS – Thank you all for all the blog notes. It is totally keeping us going….even the one reminding me that I agreed to swim Alcatraz in exchange for the FF miles we used to get here!

PSS – my dad reported back that there is flight availability Friday morning. We just called about our visas. We are crossing our fingers – being home for Grant’s birthday would be AWESOME.

Light At The End Of the Tunnel

We were able to change our flights and we are coming home Friday morning instead of Sunday morning! This also means we'll be back in time for Grants birthday. We stayed up late last night in order to call and tell the boys right when they woke up. We miss them so much it is unreal.

This is just the boost we needed. We've got a full day of paperwork to do today, then consulate apppointment on Wednesday and Visa in hand during the "farewell dinner" on Thursday night. And then off to the airport on Friday morning. I think Jenny and Lila are leaving Friday morning as well - the rest of the group heads to LA on Friday night. Sweet!

It's unfortunate we were sick the past few days. There was a little pizza party event on Sunday, but the highlight was they had decorated the room with pictures of past USAA groups. There must have been nearly 1000 kids pictured. These girls only become more beautiful with age. It is pretty cool to be the latest chapter in such a cool story.

Ok, Anna and dad just went down to pick up our laundry and get starbucks. I need to jump in the shower and mentally set myself to feel like 100% today.

Only 72 hours left....

Our Day in YouXian - Prolog

I am sure I spelled Prolog wrong. Both my honey and my sweetheart (it's odd having a sweetheart and not just a buddy, but once you meet her it will be clear that sweetheart is the name that fits right now!) are sleeping and we have 45 minutes before we have to head out to the airport, so I will try to catch up on my blog about YouXian.


i want to caveat our day in YouXian. One of the oddest Juxtapositions we experienced in YouXian was with the orphange and the orphanage staff itself. There were 3 directors for a 30-50 child orphanage where all the kids end up going for international adoption by the time they are 14 months old. Seemed like an awefully high ratio.

They drove a tricked out Honda Accord in a neighborhood which is purportedly too poor for foster families (the garbage photo was right around the corner from the orphanage - although so was the picture of the farm hours and the pond). They had nice furniture in their offices. All three Directors gave us business cards with pictures on them.

The also took us out for an excellent local lunch - which in addition to killer food included the largest lazy susan i have ever seen - and I think it was motorized because it continually revolved at the perfect pace.


We made a $3000USD orphanage donation as part of our adoption fee as all adopting families do (that is like $24,000RMB!). We gifted them another $80USD when we received Anna and we made a $500RMB donation when we visited the orphanage.

None of the cribs had mobiles on them so the babies just stared at the ceiling. All of the walls were dingy and could use paint. We didn't see any toys. There was no rug on teh floor. The bedding was greyed and torn in some places. Our baby is 9 months old and can't sit up by herself. She had never seen the sun.

However, if you thought Mr. Zhou was sweet with Anna, you should have seen this other guy Mr - I forget his name (the guy waving his hands in the picture below). He was as sweet with her and I think she may have even liked him more. She was obviously well loved.


Sort of gives you a funny range of emotions as a parent. We are just glad she is "home".

Girls Day

We are packing up to leave Changsha right now and head back to Gaungzhou. The cell phone just died as we were talking to the boys (we left the charger back in Gaungzhou by accident. Dad didn't want the charger to get lost so he kept it in the special cell phone case in his suitcase instead of putting it with all the other chargers in the carry on bag. No comment) and I can't get into email.

Surfing here is frustrating. Radom roving blocks of sites and log'ins. I suspect there is an underground network of proxy sites or government sponsored email sites we could use, except we don't know Chinese.

Anna & I had a girls day yesterday becuase Steve woke up very sick with a high fever. He's doing a bit better today, but probably is only about 30%. I'm at about 60%. Everyone seems to be getting sick - kids and parent alike. Probably becuase they keep the place at a germ-loving 27 degrees celcius as punishment to us american parents who don't dress our kids warmly enough.

I had a great coversation with the boys yesterday. Grant was concerned that since I was having a "girls day" I wouldn't have a need for boys anymore. Ben committed himself to soy milk for life, and Corey has been digging in the couch cushions for change to buy jamba juice so he doesn't starve before we get home (we forgot to give him money before we left).

Two notes on China for those coming behind us:
First - Your ATM will NOT work in China, and very few stores take international credit cards. Unbelievable in a country that is hosting the olympics in two short years. Most hotels won't give you money either. We laugh at travelers checks as being something only our parents travel with. Ha. Maybe they know something we don't or they are as backwards as China is ;-P We actually had a crazy harrowing journey to China bank the other day to get money. We waited for like 40 minutes and the transaction itself took another half hour. After we left with our money they came running out of the bank to get us (we thought they were going to arrest us!) because we forgot our US Zip Code on one of the fifty forms we had to fill out. Not the most modern banking system. Our friends' banking experience involved strait pins to hold together the papers - lack of computers seems like nothing once you degenerate into lack of paperclips. And yet we get 5 bars of cell phone service in the elevators!

Second - Chinese medicine. It's half modern and half wacky folk tale. Acording to people here Anna's rash is not because of milk alergy or lactose intolerence it is because formula contains "heat". It is a heat rash and we need to feed her more water. Huh? The only heat rash she would get is from being overbundled in hot rooms her whole life. And I am certainly not giving a girl who eats only two bottles a day water for one of them. Ugh. We also heard that in Guangzhou we can't give them Cheerios (an american food) becuase it gives them sore throats. Hmm. I spent a day in Guangzhou and 4 in Beijing and I think my sore throat was from the stifling air polution NOT the Cheerios.

Oh well. Needless to say we are ready to come home (although i still owe you all the real account of our journey to YouXian and my observations on Beijing). One week left and it can't go fast enough. We love getting the blog replies and emails and we are so glad we have so many loved ones following our journey.

Actually Grant, Anna Likes Watermelon

The only thing more amazing than the emotional journey Steve and I went through today was the one Anna went through - and the transformation that happened with her becuase of it.

Even though she officially became our daughter on Tuesday (we had to sign some temporary "lease" paperwork on Monday in order to take her home after gotcha day), she official chose us as her parents today.

Again, too tired for more details now, but check out our little bug.....

The End of the Thread

I can't even describe the emotion of today. It hit us even harder than we would have imagined. In made gotcha day feel like a joke.

I need to go to sleep now and let it all sink in before I can describe our day. However, in addition to our photos, we were very lucky to have two wonderful new friends - probably forever on out known as "Margot's Mom" and "Ruby's Dad" that took video of our entire trip to the orphanage and to Anna's abandonment site.

However, here are some images to just give you a taste. If my face looks swollen it is is because of the tears.


This is Anna's empty crib. The babies, bundled in 5 thick layers of clothes would lie under these very heavy quilts. When we went into the room we thought they were all asleep. All their eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. The littlest one had to be under a month.


These two women, plus the one that traveled with her to Changsha for gotcha day, were Anna's primary caregivers. Everyone at the orphanage called her QinQing.


Here is the room where Anna was changed, and bathed, etc.


These are the caretakers that waved goodbye to us until we were turning the road at the end of the corner. The baby was the girl who shared a crib next to Anna - ZheZhen was her nickname (i think) and she was about the same size as Anna.



On May 29th 2005, a woman left a 5 day old little girl in front of this supermarket with a bottle, some formula, a note written on thin red paper. The girl was wearing a flowered hat. That girl is now my daughter.

Unless......

We traveled 4 hours south today to YouXian - Anna's town. Four hours journey in "developing nation" time. Very different than four hours "going to Tahoe" time.

Unless you've traveled the developing world pictures cannot possibly capture the contradictions - the beauty and the squalor, the chaos and the peace, the backwardsness and the moderninity - that make up such a journey.






There was a thick fog all morning, and combined with the red dirt that seems to be present everywhere it felt more like a journey to mars than to the remote corners of Hunan Province. Or maybe they are one and the same.

Ironcially there is one other woman in our group who has also spent time in Dakka (Bangaldesh...yea, how odd is that huh?), and her comment put it best in my mind: "It's like Dakka, only better". Unfortunately only a few others (like the Huq's) can fully comprehend that reference.

There were 3 other families that accompanied us on our journey today. Their daughteres were from a town farther away and in the opposite direction. The girls had been raised by foster families. Their stories will be different from ours. Because today was the day we alone were able to connect the dots - however few there may be - about the daughter we call Anna....

Hunan Kids Rock!

We've spent alot of time walking around Changsha. Walking outside seems to be Anna's favorite activity. Yesterday during our walk we were infront of an elementary school as it was letting out for the day.

We were instantly surrounded by about three dozen kids. People in Hunan, young and old, are very affectionate to young babies, touching their hands and face, and Anna seems to get even more attention because she is so fair. I think some mom's don't like it, but I love it. So they were all gently touching her hands and cheeks and giggling as they tried out their English on us. They would all very proudly say "HELLO" - and from the tiniest girl to the biggest boy would say it in this funny deep voice. They were so cute. One little boy made the Ok symbol and asked me some question in Chinese that I couldn't understand. So I made the same handsign and gave him an animated OK. All at once all the kids starting giggling, and in the same deep voice started saying OK.

Obviously Steve stands out like a sore thumb here so he was the next focus of attention. One kids noticed how big is feet were and they all started giggling and talking frantically. One of the girls actually spoke very good english and acted as an ad hoc translator, although conversation was hard admid all the giggling. Even as we walked away, some kids went out of their way to walk right behind us or next to us until they got up the courage to give us their own "Hello".

It was wonderful.

Slowly Discovering Our Daughter

Anna still has a look of stress on her face, and she hasn't smiled yet, but she did pass the first (very painful) poop milestone (i think they fed her quikcrete at the orphanage). She's also getting more comfortable with us. She's a dad's girl so far. When I carry her she likes to grab out and hold Steve's fingers, and when he is carrying her she is spending more time studying me, which is progress given that yesterday she looked at us with puzzeled looks instead. When we go out walking down the street she responds to others as strangers - not us. She still doesn't like it when we put her down. That is apparently pretty common for the first few days or week with these girls.

For a girl who has never been outside before she LOVES being outdoors. She needs a ton of stimulation and her eyes are looking everywhere aborbing what is going on. She makes a lot of vocalizations, but in a sweet voice. And when Steve was playing and "tossing" her in the air this evening - she didn't smile, but she did startle or cry either, so that seems like a good sign. She also has a REALLY long tongue. Sort of like a giraffe or a snake. When she is happy she does all this silly stuff with her tongue. We also have the beingings of what seems like a whole lot of facial and eye expressiveness - very Kellond eh? Still a big too early to tell, becuase as you will see from the pictures, there is still a lot of tension in her.

She sleeps like a charm. She hasn't eaten much - 2.5 bottles and little steamed egg since we got her (I know that is impossibly little food, but maybe this is why she is so tiny). She doesn't act hungry and she is downright refusing food even before tasting it, although when she does eat she's is focused. I am sure once she settles in she'll eat more so we are not concerned. With that said there is no way we belive the feeding schedule we got from the orphanage. She really really is more like a 5 month old than a 9 month old. Should be interesting to see when she starts to get teeth.....

Here are some shots we took today. We already see a difference from Monday. I suspect she'll be near unrecognizable once we get home.

More Emotional Than Yesterday

I would never have imagined that anything could have been more emotional than yesterday. But today was.

We met the orphanage director Mr. You. We got to ask him a few questions...apparently Anna is very loving and outgoing at the orphanage. She's also almost never been outside. Little things like that. Nothing earth shattering...until...Mr. You didn't leave when we were done talking.

For the next hour we got to see how much he loved our daughter. His emotions were subtle -and he tried to hide them but MeiQing was obviously very special to him. As a mother to see that someone loved my daughter even though I couldn't be there for her had a very profound effect on me. I cried today way more than I did yesterday. This is a time that words - and even pictures - fall short. These people gave me a gift I can never repay.

He was insistant that we keep in touch about how she grows up. I am overjoyed to oblige.

I'll post some pictures of Mr. You and one of Anna's caregivers (who she actually didn't seem to thrilled about). But they don't capture what today meant for us.

Anna seemed more settled after it all - maybe being held by Mr. You while i tickeled her feet helped with the transition. I don't know. May be every day just gets a little better.

Answered Questions

We've spent a year dreaming about things we now have the answers to...

• Anna sleeps with her arms over her head.
• She makes this cute little sucking sounds as she settles herself down to sleep.
• She has a milk alergy and will need to switch to soy once we get home.
• Her head is VERY funny shaped, and her ears stick out almost perpendicularly and are bent up at the lobes.

Just to put what we've gotten ourselves into in perspective. She is 6.5 kg which is only about 14.5 lbs. She seems more like a 5 month old than a 9 month old. She can't roll over, or sit and can't even really lift her head up. (most girls catch up developmentally within the first couple of months, so we are not worried) She is very tiny and very fair skinned (how completely ironic - the first 'new trick' i need to learn is called sunblock).

I should have also mentioned in my last post...
We got a very special surprise on gotcha day. In addition to the 75 layers of wet dog smelling orphanage clothes we get to keep, the orphange director presented us with some photo's of the orphanage. He also returned the disposable camera we had sent to him full of pictures (we need to get them developed tomorrow). And most amazingly, we were given the flowered hat and the note (written by her birth mother) that were found with her. There are not even words that can describe how rare this is or how much these means to us, and will mean to her.

We are also the only family that will get to visit the orphanage. If permissions proceed as expected we will head to YouXian on Thursday.

This has already been the most amazing journey and it is not over yet.

Gotcha Day

[we were too tired to post about gotcha day yesterday, so I am playing catch-up today]
I don't think there are words to describe gotcha day. We want to post our video but Anna is sleeping and we don't want to wake her by downloading it etc etc etc.

[NEW! Here is the Video - but only watch it after you read the post.]


As our bus was pulling up to the civil affairs office the 14 girls from YuanLiang (sp) SWI were just arriving. They were dressed in little matching yellow snowsuits (it was at least 72 degrees here yesterday) and red chinese embroidered vests. It was like a rock star sighting as everyone squeled and paniced and rushed to see if they could spot a peak at their daughter as the caretakers tried to cover their faces as they rushed in the building before us.

As a logistical note - of the 15 families in our group - 14 have babies from an orphanage that is 9 hours outside of Changsha. All of these girls were in foster care. We are the lone YouXian family, which is an orphanage 3 hours away and Anna has spent her whole life at the SWI. This means that most of the girls had just arrived to "meet" their new parents after a 9 hour bus ride with their caretakers. Calculate that truama. (meet is such a euphamistic word in gotcha day parlance. it really means "tag, you are it forever")

After they sneak the YuanLiang girls into the building the 15 families crowd into this relatively small overheated room (notice in the pictures I was wearing a tank top). We each receive our babies one at a time. We just had time to enter and start to make photo arrangements with some of our fellow parents to be when we hear them call our name. (good to be first - I suspect we have the best pictures and video of anyone!)

I was jumping up and down and crying and oh my gosh. Anna was wearing 4 layers of clothes including a big blue snow suit and hat. She was crying like crazy, oozzing buckets of sweat (and sort of smelled like a wet dog). The anarchy grew from there. Within a half hour we had a room of 15 crying babies, 35 crying adults and a handful of 3 year old sisters having emotional melt downs. I can't wait to upload the video. It was amazing.

Then imagine moving this chaos onto a bus to go back to the hotel.

Miracle

We crashed out pretty hard last night and we have a full day of paper work to do today but we wanted to get a few quick pictures up, even without all the juicy details.

Anna is a little bug if there ever was one. We are in love.

Under 2 Hours Left

We're in the hotel in Changsha, we need to fill out some preliminary paperwork and then we are off to the civil affairs office to pick up Anna - we have a 5pm appointment. When we were on teh bus the facilitator actually said we were going to head directly to the Civil Affairs office. My heart lept into my throat. She was only joking - and it was actually rather funny.

For awhile last night we had a moment of calm just contemplating the foreverness of this all...but today it's sheer adreneline. Just when i think my stomach can't knot any tighter, it does. Nothing can prepare you for the emotion of this day - and we are still two hours away. Good news is my eyes haven't started "leaking" yet - but I am sure I will bawl when i see her...if I don't throw up first.

G-Day...9 hours and counting

We leave for Changsha in 1 hour and should have Anna by 5pm this evening. Anna probably gets on a bus in YouXian right after lunch to be in Changsha by 5pm. I suspect her stomach is churning the same way ours is - albeit for different reasons.

I stayed up late last night watching Snakehead Attack on HBO - obvioulsy I was having trouble sleeping - it actually made me miss Corey as I am sure he would have relished every cheesy minute.

Then we were up at 4:30am (again) (and in the ernie and bert beds still) but this time we didn't even try to go back to sleep. We just called the boys instead. Sounds like Ben is feeling the excitement as well. My mom said he's attention span for activities was peaking at about 10 minutes.

I can't even explain how excited we are. And it only got worse yesterday as we met up with all the other families. It's like Christmas for adults.

Nothing much more to say now - our next post will have pictures of Anna.

No Juice in Guangzhou

We are finally in Guangzhou and only one day a way from Anna. We meet up with the group in one hour. GZ is a joy. Everything is a dingy shade of greenish brown – the air, the water, you name it. There was even smog INSIDE the airport. I didn’t dare wash my face with the water from the tap fearing my skin might melt off. To make it even better, we have the deluxe accommodations of the room in front the elevator, with a window looking out on the 24 hour spotlight from the convention center –and (you’ll love this) – 2 twin beds. It was like earnie and bert last night. The lone salvation is free internet from the starbucks in the lobby.

Steve and I found ourselves awake at 4:30am for not the first time on this trip.. both thinking about our little bug. We were imaging the trauma she’s going to go through tomorrow – probably her first car ride, maybe her first time outside and lots of strangers. That's a lot for a little girl who has been through so much already.

I can’t imagine how we’ll be able to sleep a wink tonight. The dragonflies in my stomach are in motion already. And I'll just fess up right now that everytime I think about tomorrow I get all choked up.

Getting Closer

Too tired to blog tonight, although plenty of observations and thoughts about Beijing, but generally not sad to leave. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow on the plane.

All I know is that we are two and a half days away from Anna and it is all we can think about. We head to Guangzhou tomorrow (Saturday China time), the group arrives Sunday morning, and then we head to Changsha on Monday morning for a monday afternoon Gotcha day.

As we walked home from dinner tonight we saw two couples with their new daughters (likely british since UK does outprocessing through Beijing not Gaungzhou) - I can't believe we are really next.

Can you Hear Me Now?

I think Steve and I both always dreamed of going to the Great Wall. That cool place - that back in the 70's we all believed could be seen from the moon - that's we'd never get to because it was just so far away.

Ha. We were there. And it definitely didn't disappoint. It's a little undersold in how hard it is to actually climb. There are like a million uneven stairs on a completely vertical grade. But it was awesome.




And what better to do on the Great Wall than call the kids and make sure they are all doing their homework. The irony of a cystal clear connection from the top of the Great Wall wasn't lost on Ben, especially after a really "hard to hear" call from the HK Airport the other day.

Warnings from Around the World - Part II

Here are two of my favorites from today:

This first is from the 2nd tower on the Ba Da Ling segment of the Great Wall. Why on earth someone would be half way up the GW in a Thunderstorm AND not within the shelter of one of the watchtowers, I can't even guess.



The second is one I expect to never be topped. Not even sure what to say about it.

If you can't fully see it, it seems to imply that the government is watching all your personal communications (cell phone, computer, etc) with a big satallite, and if you do something you are not supposed to, they will kill you.

Fun for Ben & Grant

Hey guys, thought you would like these funny pictures of the Monkey King. Corey, we got you this fresh Chinese Rap CD in Hong Kong, and then saw the video last night on MTVChina and it had the monkey king in it too, as the guy did this super-fast rap thing to the standard Peking Opera finale music. I'd put his name in this blog post, except that I can't type in Chinese.



And here is a game for my favorite almost four year old...Grant, can you find Mom in the picture?