Gotcha Day!

Amazing day! I can't even tell you how special it was.

Daniel was the very last child to arrive at the Civil Affairs Office. By the time he got there I had already bawled at all the gotchas around me, I no longer felt like vomiting, and we knew what to expect from watching the other gotchas. That place was so amazing. There were probably about 15 gotchas all going on in the same room, one right after the other. Chad and I were able to take pictures and video for some of the other gotchas. We were able to grab tissues, open Cheerios, open Milano cookies, and just do whatever the adoptive parents around us needed help with. I've decided I could live in that room for a very long time and be very happy. 

We only have the iPad with us here. All the pictures are on the camera and the videos are here on the iPad. So, all I have to share are after gotcha pics.

He is absolutely precious! He's stoic, quiet, and watchful. Not even a crack of a smile. He cries if I move away from him. He imitates how Chad plays with the toys, he is eating and drinking. We are just amazed at what this day has brought. 

Tomorrow we finalize the adoption. This will be his last night as Song Ming Xiang. Tomorrow he will be a Joy!

Keeping busy in Guangzhou as we wait for Gotcha Day

The day started out bright and early.

We hit the amazing breakfast buffet at the hotel. Dumplings, curry, omelettes, all kinds of pastries, fruits, fresh vegetables, juices, teas, congee, oatmeal, yogurt, and on and on. We will be eating breakfast well. There were many tables with empty high chairs just waiting for little kids to sit in. One more breakfast for us and then we will need one of these tables.

There is an ancient Han tomb museum just down the street from the hotel. Admission is $2 per person. It was very interesting and a great place to spend a some time before lunch. 

Lunchtime on a Sunday in a city with 15 million people proved to be a small challenge. The two restaurants in the hotel which our guide recommended had over an our wait each. So we trekked next door to the McDonald's. I ate half a burger and decided to quit. I can hardly handle McDonald's at home. Here, I can't seem to handle it at all.

After lunch our guide took us to a large park. It was beautiful, green, and lush. Walking outside in Guangzhou is like walking through a sauna. So hot and humid! I don't remember ever sweating through a shirt before. I suppose I can cross that off my bucket list. Chad and I have talked about how much hotter we will be once we have Daniel strapped to one of us in the carrier. We are looking forward to it!

Dinner was a hoot. Ordering off a menu in Chinese at a noodle shop with no one who spoke English. Not sure who laughed more, us or them. We were definitely the best entertainment they'd had in a while. Chad finally whipped out the iPad where he had downloaded some apps to translate Mandarin. The food was delicious. There were no forks in sight, so Chad used the iPad to ask if they had any, this caused even more laughter. 

We are blessed to have two other families from our agency here to share this time with. Our agency is small and apparently this is very rare to have three families here at once. One of the couples was on our same flights from the US, so we've had some time to chat. They are adopting a 3 year old little girl and naming her Cayla! I need to remember to tell our Kaila this, she will love knowing this. The other couple flew in late last night and they still do not have their luggage. It is in Shanghai. Until tomorrow. Sad. They are adopting a little girl the same age as Daniel, so if the luggage doesn't make it their little girl may be sporting some cute boy clothes. 

We will all get our children tomorrow afternoon. All in all a good day in China, just not as good as tomorrow will be.

Travel day(s)

We made it to Guangzhou. We left LAX at midnight Thursday night and arrived at our destination Saturday at noon. Not sure what happened to Friday. I'm not complaining. Losing a day means we are one day closer to gotcha. We are tired, but not too shabby. We took No-Jet-Lag pills the whole way. I'm not sure what we'd feel like without them, but we are doing better than I would have expected.

This picture was taken in Seoul, South Korea.

The kids at home are doing well. Showing their Uncle Eric what it would be like to be a single dad to four kids for a whole day! 

Here are some random Guangzhou shots:

We are in our hotel room now. it's a bit of a tight squeeze in here. We don't even have a crib in here yet, not sure where it will go. We do have a king size bed so that is a treat. Oh, and the shower has a glass wall that opens up to the bedroom. 

We're going to try to stay awake until at least 6 or 7pm. Chad will probably make it, not sure I will. 

48 hours from now we should be meeting the newest Joy!

Last day together as a family of 6

We fly out late tonight, actually very early tomorrow morning. Today will be our last day spent together as a family of 6. I just have to brag on my kids for a bit. They are amazing! They have all willingly sacrificed so much for us to be able to bring Daniel home.

For those of you who care, here are a few things they've had to give up:

*Time with mom and dad as the complete piles of paperwork.
*Time with mom and dad while they complete adoption education.
*A much anticipated visit from close family friends. I'm talking bosom buddies here. They were supposed to arrive to visit us tomorrow--we are flying to China instead. The kids from both families were super bummed, they'd all been looking forward to the visit since we moved far way from them last July. Huge sacrifice! Love you Renschlers!
*Anything that costs more than $5. We've lived here a year and have not gone to Disneyland, Legoland, Seaworld, Universal Studies, etc., etc. Just not happening.
*Missing out on going to a close family member's wedding last weekend. Ok, the kids were bummed about this but I was probably the one most bummed about missing it. So scratch this from their sacrifice list and put it on mine.
*Having an older sister as a piano teacher. Ok, this one might need to go on my sacrifice list too! Not an always smooth sailing or drama-free plan.
*Only one child getting to visit Idaho with dad. Add this one to my list for good measure as well.
*Eating out at their favorite places. Insert Olive Garden slogan here.
*Samuel would love to do a bunch of sports all the time. He still gets to do some, but not as many as he'd like. By the way, I figured out I am not a good flag football mom. Nope, not for me!
*Moving to a smaller home.
*Both Emily and Kaila would love these boots. Since I think they are beyond atrociously awful and ugly, I wasn't too sad to have tell them they are too expensive.
*Emily was willing to change high schools if needed to be closer to where Daniel will be receiving treatments. She was also willing to move to a different high school to be able to find a cheaper home. This would have been a ginormous sacrifice for her. Luckily, we were able to stay in the same district for her.
*Three girls sharing one small bedroom. 'Nuff said.

To most of the world this might seem like a gripe list. Not to me! To me it shows that our kids get it. They understand what truly matters. They see that what we are doing is very important. A little boy needing a family matters more than comfort, entertainment, or owning a bunch of stuff.

So back to our last day as a family of six!! Enjoy the pics, crazy as ever! Next time we are together the post will read, "First day together as a family of seven." Can I get a hallelujah?



Samuel and I with the crazies

 

Cocooning The Emperor

Chad has started calling Daniel "Emperor." Suits him since he currently rules our world and thinks he's the boss. 

I had posted a bit about cocooning in one of my posts before we left to pick up Daniel. After having him for a little over a week, it is very apparent that we will definitely be needing a time of intentional and intense cocooning. In anticipation of leaving for home tomorrow, I thought I'd share a bit more about what this means and how you can help us. This is especially important for our church family and area friends to read.

Daniel is only 16 months old and he has already endured quite a bit of disruption. For the first three months of his life he was cared for by his birth family. In June, when he was estimated to be three months old he was left in a local hospital. At this point, he was taken to the town orphanage where he remained until he was 7 months old. In October he was moved to Shepherd's Field Children's Village near Beijing. He remained there until gotcha day. So as you can see, he has had the opportunity to attach to caregivers 3 times before we came into his life. Each of those 3 times he lost that special person. Sadly, he has learned that the people he loves and trusts end up leaving him. As far as he knows, we are just another round of caregivers he will eventually lose. This is probably why he panics any time I set him down or leave his sight. Heartbreaking. 

This is where cocooning comes into play. We want to establish as strong of a bond as quickly as we can. We want him to risk loving a new set of caregivers. We don't want him to grow up never having a true attachment to someone. Here is an amazing post on cocooning  written by a fellow mom. We are hoping that a bit of hard work at the beginning of Daniel's time with us, will reap huge benefits for him in the long run. We want him to feel safe, secure, and begin to learn what it means to be in a family. Most importantly, we want him to learn that he is stuck with us. We won't be leaving him. We need to help him overcome this deep anxiety and fear. We want him to form a deep and meaningful attachment to us.

So here we go. We are building a cocoon.

A few boundaries we are setting:

*only Chad or I will feed him for a few months. He needs to learn that this is a need his parents will provide.
*only Chad or I will console him when he is hurt, sad, or tired.
*he gets to have as much play time with his siblings as he wants. However, they will be a source of fun and love. They will not provide for any of his needs. Only dad or mom provide for his needs. This will be tough for our extremely nurturing daughters, but we want to make sure he learns the difference between mama and jie jie.
*he won't be going to the nursery at church or anywhere without either Chad or I for quite a while.
*he will be with either Chad or I 24 hours a day.
*if you ask us into hold him, expect us to say no. Children in his position are libel to attach to anyone who holds him. In fact, Daniel flung himself into the arms of a fellow adoptive mom yesterday and began attaching to her. This is not good. It confirms that his clinging to me is not true attachment, it is fear based. We need to work on changing this a bit at a time.
*if you walk up to talk to us, please do it slowly. 

*we know you'd love to show him physical affection, but at this point this is too much for him. So talk to him softly, but please try not to touch him. He needs space to feel comfortable and safe.

Many of our local church family and friends have asked us what they can do to help when we get home. One way you can really bless us is by bringing us a meal. This is going to be a big need, especially if his clinginess and need for me to always be holding him continues. We ask that you be ready to drop the meal off at the door to allow us not to compromise our cocoon. We promise you'll see him as soon as he's ready!

We appreciate everyone partnering with us in this endeavor. We don't know how long this cocooning period will last. We will have to wait and see what kind of progress we make with our little Emperor.

As always, prayers are appreciated!

A few more cocooning resources:

http://www.theadoptionmagazine.com/2012/06/07/cocooning-part-2/

http://slowmama.com/adoption-2/the-cocooning-stage/

http://simplythestoves.blogspot.com/2013/05/cocooningwhat-to-expect.html

http://ourredthread.com/blog/2013/06/20/let-me-apologize-in-advance/

The next two weeks

We have had many people ask us what our time in China will look like. So here goes.

 

It’s going to be hot, sauna like hot!

 

We are going to miss our kids at home. We know they’ll be having lots of fun and be well cared for, but the fact remains that we have not ever been away from them for this long.

 

We are praying facetime works. See above reason.

 

We will be about 14 hours ahead of the West Coast.

 

Here is our schedule:

 

June 27^th Head to LAX for a midnight departure. We have a layover in Seoul, South Korea.

June 29^th Arrive in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China around noon. It is advisable to try to stay awake on this first day to try to quickly adjust to the current time and fight jet lag. We will certainly try, but no promises!

 

June 30^th We will visit Chan Academy. This is also my 37^th Birthday.

July 1^st GOTCHA day!! One less orphan in the world day! Make that 147 million orphans minus 1.

Daniel is being flown down to Guangzhou from Tianjin. His home province is Guangdong, however, he was moved last October to Shepherd’s Field Children’s Village an hour south of Beijing. He has received excellent care there and he looks healthy. He is undoubtedly in better shape physically and emotionally than he would be in the SWI. Gotcha takes place at the Guangdong Province Adoption Center in the afternoon. Not sure what we’ll do all morning. I’m sure the clock will be going very slow at this point.

After gotcha we sign guardianship papers for Daniel and get to keep him overnight with us in the hotel. This is a time for adoptive families to spend with their child before signing the final adoption paperwork.

July 2^nd We return to the Adoption Center in the morning to complete the adoption proceedings. At this point, he becomes our son!

July 3^rd We review adoption notary books, apply for Daniel’s Chinese passport at the police station. 

July 4^th Complete Daniel’s medical exam required to apply for his US visa. We will visit Yuexiu Park in the afternoon.

July 5^th We will receive Daniel’s passport in the afternoon.

July 6^th Return to the medical clinic to receive exam results.

July 7^th Free day! We will probably head to Shamian Island for some shopping and to drop off laundry.

July 8^th We have our US Consulate appointment in the morning.

July 9^th Receive Daniel’s US visa at the US consulate in the afternoon. This is the last thing we need to be able to leave China with our son!

July 10^th We depart Guangzhou at noon

July 10^th 3:50 pm arrive on US soil with a new US citizen! We have been told that going through immigration will take at least an hour. Hopefully around 5 pm we can walk out and hug our other kids. Any of our local friends are more than welcome to come to the airport. This might be your only chance to see little Daniel for a while since we will be cocooning at home until we feel he is ready to venture out. If cocooning is a new concept to you, please read this excellent blog post.

 

Please pray with us for safe travels, health and well being for our entire family (at home and in China), and for Daniel who's life is about to change once again.

 

 

T minus 3 days

Packing, organizing, crossing things off the to-do list.

Babying my 2 sick daughters.

Praying for a very sick little girl ourplacecalledhome.blogspot.com

Working on a grocery list for a major haul tomorrow.

Laundry.

Stalking Facebook to see which friends will be traveling at the same time as us. Praying that two friends get the news they are hoping for in the morning, and they can finally have their much planned pool party at The Garden, and I can meet them and their precious new kids, Regis and Olivia.

Praying for 3 dear friends who are on a very long and painful LOA wait journey. 

That's about it, that's what's going on today. 3 days until we board the jet plane for this little guy.

Headed to China this week...better get a blog going!!

We are finally headed to China this week to meet Daniel, the newest member of our family! We started this journey in 2012 and all the work is about to pay off.  The most exciting part is about to happen, we get to go pick up our little guy! So here is the requisite blog…yes, I put it off to the bitter end! I will try to post daily while in China, but a lot of it will depend on Internet connection, so no promises. Plus, I will be blogging from an Ipad mini...I can hardly see the little keyboard on that thing, should be fun!

Here's our little guy, in a beautiful collage made by big sister, Kaila:

He's saying, "You! Come on already, I've been waiting!!" 

For those in the adoption world, dates and counting days are very important. Plus, there is a language we learn to speak. It is called Acronymese. In fact, a conversation may go like this:

Adoptive Parent #1: “We are on day 68 waiting for LOA, have you found out if you are LID yet?”

Adoptive Parent #2: “No, we don’t have out LID yet, but we got our PA 9 days after LOI and!”

Adoptive Parent #1: “That is awesome, when were you DTC?”

Adoptive Parent #2: “We were DTC on May 9^th. I can’t wait for you to get your LOA, so you can get your PDF, GUZ#, Article 5, TA and CA!” 

So without further delay, I present what you have all been waiting for, our adoption dates:

7/20/2012 Preliminary Application to Dillon International (Bear in mind this date is exactly 1 week after a cross-country move)

9/2/2012 Formal Application to Dillon International (Hours upon hours of work to complete this pile of papers)

10/1/2012 Homestudy begun

10/29/2012 Homestudy visits completed. Now we wait for it.

12/12/2012 Homestudy received

12/18/2012 I-800A Application sent to the USCIS

2/18/2013 Dossier to China (DTC) (BIG step!!!)

2/22/2013 Dossier logged in with the CCCWA (LID)

2/25/2013 An hour after taking Nyquil for a nasty cold, I receive The Call. We have a referral for an almost 1 year old little boy

2/27/2013 After two days of non-stop prayer, research, seeking advice, and taking one of the biggest steps of faith in our lives, we submit the Letter of Intent for Song Ming Xiang (LOI)

3/11/2013 The CCCWA gives us pre-approval to adopt Song Ming Xiang (PA)

5/28/2013 After 78 agonizing days we receive the Letter of Approval from China allowing us to proceed with Daniel’s adoption (LOA). Oh yeah, we settled on a name during these 78 days. He will be our little Daniel. He has been alone, he has faced lions, he has kept a smile on his face despite what he has endured in his short life, and most importantly we hope he will grow to love of the Lord! He is our little Daniel Song.

5/29/2013 I-800 Approval. You read that right, 24 hours after LOA we have I-800!! Unheard of really. We are expediting due to Daniel’s medical need, and our extremely kind USCIS officer had held our I-800 application on her desk for over 2 months.  She approved it within hours of receiving the copy of LOA from us. Thank you dear officer!

6/3/2013 Receive GUZ# and PDF from the US National Visa Center.

6/6/2013 Article 5 picked up from the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. This step usually takes two full weeks, but due to the medical expedite it was pushed through faster. The US side of the expedite was very successful for us compared to the other side.

6/18/2013 Travel approval received (TA). Final step on the China side. We have permission to come to China to pick up our boy!

6/19/2013 Consulate Appointment (CA) confirmed. We leave soon!

6/19/2013 Receive our Chinese Visas and passports back from the Chinese consulate in Chicago.

 This is our tentative itinerary:

6/28/2013 Depart LAX

6/29/2013 Arrive in Guangzhou, China

7/1/2013 Gotcha day!!!

7/2/2013 Adoption paperwork day

7/3/2013 Medical exam and apply for Chinese passport

7/8/2013 Consulate appointment

7/9/2013 Receive US visa for Daniel

7/10/2013 Leave Guangzhou

7/10/2013 Arrive in the US. One more American citizen in our great land!