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Last full day in China...

Yesterday was our last full day in China and it was the busiest one yet. We started the day as always with a great western breakfast at our hotel, then loaded up our bus and went to Tianenmen Square. I've seen so many pictures of it, but didn't really get a sense of it's vastness until we were standing in the middle of it. Then we went through the Forbidden City, which was the Emporer's home for all but the summer months each year. It's massive!! It took us over 2 hours to walk from one end to the other and that was without stopping to look at any of the exhibits. We walked through the center of 7 of the palaces and through the Imperial Gardens. I'm glad we have lots of photos, but so many of the things we've seen really must be experienced to be truly appreciated.

After lunch, we hustled back out again and spent 2 hours at the Silk Market - one of my favorite places. We didn't get a lot of time to shop because we had a charcoal sketch of Olivia done by one of the Chinese artists. It was amazing how this guy could sketch babies and people that were squirming and moving all over the place. We are just thrilled with the work he did.

Supper was to be out with the group for our last night here, but because the day was so busy, 2 of the families had to opt out as their babies just weren't tolerating the long day. The dinner was great and Yufin had a beautiful cake made that said "Good Bye China". It almost made me teary except for the very tired, and squirmy girl that was definitely letting us know she had had enough for the day. It's 7:00 am here now and Olivia had something of a rough night. I think the level of activity was too much for her on our last day. We are going to start packing like crazy anytime now and get ready to go home. We have loved every second of being in China and can't even begin to express to this county and it's people how very greatful we are for the precious gift we have received. We will do our very best to make sure we honor this gift for the rest of our days. We hope that someday, if she wants to, that we can bring her back here and show her all the incredible things we saw when she came into our lives. Until then, we'll just do our best to be her forever family. 

So many busy days...

There seems to be so much going on every day that one day just seems to melt into another and it's hard to keep everything straight. Today was another day of tourning and shopping while we wait for our final immigration documents to go home. We started off with another great breatkfast in the hotel and then went to the Silk Factory. We learned that a silk worm lives for only 60 days from egg to mature cacoon and produces silk after 27 days. The worms eat and live on mulberry leaves. It was amazing to see how they make everything right from harvesting the silk from the worm to beautiful works of art in the form of Rugs, murals, clothing, bedding etc. After that we went for lunch at a place called the Minority Restaurant. It's called this because in China there are 57 minority groups beside the majority of Mandarin. This particular group welcomed us with drums and music and the food was great. It seemed like a combination of Chinese and Thai food. Our guide, Faye, has been so good at ordering for us by not getting anything too spicy or strange to our eating habits. At this restaurant, there was also cultural dancing entertainment during lunch and Jenny, who is the 10 year old daughter of one of the families in our group, was invited on stage to dance with the troup - she was great. After lunch, the rest of the group went to the Pearl Market, but Ron and I opted to take a cab back to the hotel. We have just felt that the days are so busy and poor Olivia seems to have to be woken from every nap and we really wanted to give her some good sleep time and us some down time. The cab ride was about 30 or 40 minutes across town and cost 40 RBM which is $5. Anyone who has been here knows that when you get in a cab, you just close your eyes, or keep yourself distracted, otherwise you will be gasping at the close calls every 30 seconds. As it turned out, opting out of the afternoon shopping was a good move for us. Olivia slept from 1:30 until 4:00 and has now gone down for the night at 7:45 pm. We didn't even go out for dinner. Ron walked down to a little Chinese fast food place that was recommended by Yulin and brought back some vegetable won ton and some chicken with rice and vegetables - different, but good. I was feeling really bad tonight when we had to opt out of going to the Chinese acrobats because Miss O was just too tired, but it turns out that no one went with babies. Only Jenny and her Grandma, Marg-Anne went. I'd love to do and see everything, but there just isn't enough hours in the day and the day is sure tiring with a little one in this heat and humidity - still 36 degrees today with 85% humidity. Tomorrow we will see Tianenmen Square, the Forbidden City and shop at the Silk Market which is the HUGE market we shopped at the day after we first got here. As much as we love it here and have learned a huge respect for the Chinese people, their way of life and their culture, we are ready to come home and start to be settled in our own home. I really miss my puppy, Emma and I just know her and Olivia will be great friends.

One more thing - Olivia loves, loves, loves the bath. She has no fear of water at all and squeals with delight everytime she gets in the tub. 

Pics from Summer Palace and Beijing Zoo

Just before the Summer Palace, we made a quick stop at the Beijing Zoo and saw some of the Pandas. I don't particularly like seeing animals in anything other than their natural habitat, but the Chinese are very protective of this animal and are working very hard to keep them from extinction.

The Summer Palace

After our medical appointments, we went to the Summer Palace. This was the Summer Home of the Emperors and is an absolutely beautiful place. We were treated to a little thunder while we were there, so it was kind of cloudy, but still very hot and humid. Olivia is so great when we go places. She really just takes it all in. We experienced a huge mileastone at the Summer Palace. One of the people in our travel group wanted to hold Miss O, and as soon as he picked her up and started talking to her, she turned around to me, held her arms out and started to fuss. I was so thrilled I almost cried. This might not sound like a big deal, but in terms of starting to bond and attach, this is a very good sign. Yay!! 

Medical Appointment

Sorry, we were too pooped to blog last night. Yesterday morning was our official medical appointment for immigration. Our Olivia passed with flying colors. She is a tiny but long. She's 70 cm long and 14.2 lbs. They said we need to fatten her up some as she is in the 3 percentile for weight. Boy, did she come to the right family! She continues to amaze and entertain us and it's incredible how well behaved and content she is when we are on outings. The only time she fusses is if she's hungry, wet or tired and we have learned to identify the sounds and behaviours of each of these needs. She still likes to get us up twice in the night, but that's ok cuz I could just lay with her and stare at her forever. 

"For Mel and Donna"

Olivia Climbs The Great Wall!

What a great day we had. We started with a very happy baby and a great breakfast. We all loaded into the group van and our first stop was the Jade Factory. This is the biggest Jade Factory in China and we got to see and learn how Jade is processed and were shown how to tell the difference between the real stuff and the fake stuff. We also bought a few things for Olivia for gifts when she is older. Our next stop was the Great Wall. It really was awsome. While I certainly don't want to minimize the greatness of it's history, or seem ungreatful for such an incredible opporunity, it was pretty set up like a tourist attraction with lots of people and lots of commercial business going on. I would have loved to go to a part of the wall where there were no other people just to be able to get a better feel for it's awesome nature. At any rate, it was very cool. I only went as far as the second tower because I forgot to wear my runners so was stuck wearing thongs which aren't good for climbing. Ron, on the otherhand, decided that he wanted to be able to tell his daughter that he climbed the Great Wall with her, so up they went to the third tower which was a very steep climb. Afterwards, we went to the Friendship Store and Cloissonne factory for some great shopping and a FABULOUS chinese food lunch - probably the best meal we've had since we got here. There were no official appointments today, but tomorrow morning we have to be in the lobby by 7:00 to go for the babies' medical exams.

A little more about Olivia: She is such a blessing. I'm so very convinced that she was truly created just for us - I just hope and pray that her birth mother has some peace with her decision, and could somehow know that Zhi Meng is now with a family that will aboslutely cherish her forever. She continues to amaze us with the progess she is making both in her physical abilities and in her emotional well being. Her fourth tooth is just piercing through. She is soooo happy to see us all the time now. When I approach her, I get a HUGE ear to ear grin and she loves to giggle and play with both of us. She holds out her arms and cuddles right in to me when she wants to be picked up or held. Ron has become very protective and gets really agitated when the Chinese ladies want to pick up Olivia and start wandering around with her. I don't think this bodes well for her dating years.

Olivia is sleeping now, so we gotta get a few things cleaned and organized and off to bed ourselves. Here are a few pics of the Great Wall and one of Amanda, who was at the orphanage with Olivia. They are only 3 days apart in age.

A few More Pics...

A few Firsts...

We are now back in Beijing and Olivia was an absolute star for her first plane ride. She slept quite a bit before the plane ride, so we were a little concerned, but I'm proud to say she was the only baby on board that didn't fuss or cry at all. In fact, she played and laughed and gave us some of her best giggles yet. It was a long day and once we got back to the hotel in Beijing, she had some trouble settling in for the night. Today, we had her photos done for immigration and did a little shopping to get water and stuff for the second week here. We also bought a stroller as this hotel doesn't have any loaners and we would need one for the Great Wall trip as well as hanging in the airports on the way home. This afternoon, we took Olivia swimming in the hotel pool and she really seemed to like it. I noticed in most of the pics we've posted, she's not smiling, but she does smile and laught a lot, it's just that the camera seems to confuse her a little. Tomorrow we are touring the Great Wall which we are really looking forward to. Today is Kathy's last night here as she goes home tomorrow, so she went to the Great Wall today with our guide Faye and had her own private tour. Right now, there is a pretty big thunder and lightening storm going on and I haven't seen one of those since I was in Ontario last - it's pretty cool. Let's hope the weather holds out for tomorrow. Enjoy today's pics. We didn't think it was possible, but we love this little girl more every hour. She was definitely made for us.

Going Back to Beijing

We are busy packing up to head back to Beijing so here are just a couple of photos from last night...

Last Full Day in Changsha

Today was our last full day here and tomorrow we return to Beijing. Last night, Olivia had such a good sleep and subsequently, so did we. She was full of life this morning and eager to share more of herself with us. We are learning so much more about her everyday and she amazes us with her beautiful smiles. After breakfast, we went to tour the oldest university in China and it was a very peacefull and serene place. I could just imagine the ancient master scholars giving lectures in the outdoor lecture halls. Many of the walls are filled with ancient inscriptions and we also got to see what was Chairman Mao's bedroom when he was studying there. Lots of people came up to us to admire our daughter and when I showed them the card that says "This is our adopted daughter" in Chinese, we got huge smiles and big thumbs up. Everyone is so warm and kind and they sure do love babies. It does my heart good to know that the Chinese people have faith in us that we will give Olivia a better life than she might otherwise have. This afternoon was nap and shopping at the local department store. We've had to buy some new outfits for the little miss as almost everything we brought was too big. She is just fitting into mostly 6 month clothing and some 3-6 month stuff. She loves the stroller as long as it keeps moving - this one doesn't like to stay still for very long.

We took some great photos at the University today, but the digital card in our camera may have gone belly up as I can't seem to get to the photos on it. I'll share some of those photos if and when I can get to them, but in the meantime, here's some other photo's from the last 3 days that we thought were worth sharing. One photo is the ferris wheel across from our hotel. Each car on it holds 4-6 people standing up, so you can imagine how big the whole thing is. The others are a few more from the day our world changed. Ron and Olivia are both sleeping and I'm learning quickly that it's best to try to sleep when she does, so I'm off to bed.

A day of rest ....sort of.

We had no official appointments today and actually got a little sleep last night. Olivia slept from 7:30 last night until 6:00 this morning, but woke up every hour to tell us a little of her life story and went right back to sleep each time, and of course we would awake every hour right along with her. We are really getting to see a little of her personality now and she definitely has no trouble telling us if she doesn't like something. There's a playroom for babies down the hall at our hotel and we took her in there to see if anything was interesting to her and Ron had her playing the xylaphone in no time. She completely understood how to get noise from it and loves anything that she can bang like a drum. So far, I seem to be the one who can calm her down or get her to really eat, but Ron is the only one who can get her really smiling and giggling - otherwise, she is comfortable with us both equally and really looks for us if one of us leaves the room. She is a total bed hog - I had to put her in my bed as she keeps getting her legs stuck in the slats of the crib, but she always seems to work her way to the middle of my bed and sprawl out. At one point, she had my whole bed and I had to climb in with Ron in the small beds we have. She started eating a lot better since last night and I've been slowly transitioning her to the formula I brought as the Chinese formula is really little more than milk powder. We will have a little more meat on her bones in no time. She seems to be the exception to the rule and is the only Chinese baby I've ever heard of that really doesn't like congee (a milky, watery, rice soup) that every baby seems to love. She LOVES banana bread though.

Today our guide took us to the Embroidery Factory/Museum, which you might not think sounds all that interesting, but it was really amazing. The ladies that do the work sometimes spend up to two years on one piece working on it 8 hours a day. The work looks like photographs until you are right up close - incredible skill and patience these ladies have. Right outside our hotel is the largest ferris wheel in China. It looks just like the one in Paris. It has several gondolas attached and I'm sure you could see almost to our house from the top! We haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but if the cars are air conditioned, I just might consider it. It is around 35 degrees and very very humid here everyday and sometimes the smog gets pretty heavy. There's plenty to do here thought that we haven't even got to yet. There is a state of the art bowling alley in the hotel, as well as a billiards room, lounges, swimming pool, playrooms, etc. The service here is excellent and North Americans could really take lessons from the Chinese about how to treat others. The people here have been so kind and so gracious and just love the babies. We haven't come across the clothing police yet (the little old Chinese ladies that tell you there aren't enought layers of clothing on your child), but I think that's because it's too hot.

I haven't been able to attach any photo's at all to the blog, but thankfully, our friend Jen has been making sure the photos are getting to the blog for us via email - don't you just love the computer age? Pics to follow...

Ps - It is so humid here that my hair is starting to look just like Monica Geller in the Friend's episode where they went to Barbados.

24 Hours later

I can't believe all that has occurred in the past 24 hours. Getting Olivia was amazing and such an emotional experience for everyone. We recognized her as soon as we came into that room on the 3rd floor of the Civil Affairs office in Changsha. They had already told us that we couldn't go to the babies until they called each family's name and checked our passports, so we thought they would go alphabetically and we would be last, but they called us first and the world changed in an instant. Call it an epiphany, call it pure adrenaline or emotion, but the moment that little girl was placed in my arms, there was no doubt in my mind that the hand of a higher power has been at work here for some time. Everything happened so fast that it all seems a blur now. My sister Kathy decided, in the very late stages, that since I was around for the birth of both her kids, the least she could do was come for ours, so she is with us here and I'm so grateful because she took all the picture and got most of the event on video and I know we wouldn't have been able to have that without her help. It was a very long train ride for Olivia to get there and she was so tired that she slept until 9:00 pm and went down again at 11:00pm - the problem with that is that she was up at 1:30 am and wasn't a very happy camper for the rest of the night. Ron and I took turns walking the floor with her until 7:00 am when we had to go back to the Civil Affairs office to finalize everything. Our Adoption worker here somehow managed to get us in first and we were able to complete all the paperwork quite quickly this morning and Olivia Grace Zhi Meng is now officially ours forever!! I get such a kick out of the fact that before we signed the papers, they ask if we like her and wish to keep her. I know with all my heart that this little soul has been ours since the beginning of time.

A little about our girl: She has 2 bottom teeth and one top one; she loves to be held and walked and won't let you stop moving; she likes bananas and watermelon; her orphanage staff said she was busy and naughty and that she loves her walker.

We will be here until Friday waiting for her Chinese passport, then it's back to Beijing to get her Canadian immigration stuff done. In the meantime, we'll just keep getting to know each other.
Thanks for all the notes and emails - I wish we could respond to all of them, but getting on the internet is touch and go here at best.

We Have Our Baby Girl!

We are the happiest people in the world and completely exhausted. We got Olivia at about 3:15 today and it was amazing. We are so tired so I will tell all about the experience in a later post, but here are some photos. We are all well and our daughter is more than we could ever have hoped for. She is very tiny - on the bathroom scale she is 6 kg which is about 13 or 14 pounds. We are so in love I can't describe it. Thank you all so much for your emails and kind wishes - we love hearing from you all. More later....

Today's the big day

Today was a fun but very long, hot day. It was about 35 degrees with no breeze and pretty smoggy. We shopped like crazy in the market near the hotel this morning, then enjoyed a wonderful 90 minute foot massage in the hotel spa. My feet were very grateful after all the walking in the markets. Later in the afternoon, our guide Shuo and his mom, Yufin took us to a beautiful Park called Jingshan Park which was just just spectacular. We then went to a place where you can have an Emporer's dinner, but the menu was just a little too adventurous for any of us so we went to a restaurant that was more for the locals. It was so loud in there, and it's fascinating to watch how people interact here. So far, I'm enjoying a vegetarian lifestyle here, but it's interesting to see what goes by on a plate. Ron isn't getting too adventurous with food yet, but he's really enjoying what he's trying. One of the dishes our guide ordered for us was some kind of stomach(!!!!) which of course no one ate, but I think he just ordered it for effect. Our room and bed are very comfortable, but I haven't slept well at all. There's so much to see and do and take in in such a short time that it's stimulation overload. We are leaving Beijing in just a few hours to fly to Changsha and we will go the the Civil Affairs office to get the babies shortly after we arrive. I get so weepy just thinking about it now, but I sure hope I can hold it together for Olivia's sake when we get her. It feels like it's taken so long to get here that it just doesn't seem possible to finally be at this point. Enjoy the photo's from today - the next ones will be of our sweet girl. If Doug and Connie are reading this, I hope Emma is behaving - we miss her. Hi to Aaron and Cheryl and Dale and Gisela - wish you were here with us.

Happy Birthday to Ronnie!!

It seems that I can post to the blog, but I can't read it so I hope these posts and photos are making it on ok. Today is Ron's birthday and we celebrated by venturing out on our own in a taxi to the Silk Market, which is a HUGE shopping market where you can buy anything your heart dreams up. Ron is thrilled with his purchase of new Bushnell binoculars and he thinks he can now see Olivia's orphanage in Hunan from our hotel window in Beijing! We are meeting up with our guide and the other family that is here now to go to dinner and tour a Hutong which I'm really excited about, but I'm more excited about the fact that 48 hours from now, Olivia will be in my arms. Here are a few photo's from today, I hope they post. The red sign is posted in the Silk Market and is intended as a code of conduct for the merchants about how they should and shouldn't talk to customers - pretty funny!

We're Here!!

We finally made it! The 12 Hrs. from Vancouver to Beijing was quite uneventul. The movie screen in our section was broken and the stranger next to me (see photo) clearly didn't want to play crib with me. There were 400 passengers on the plane and 399 slept most of the time while I read to same 2 pages in my book 400 times! Yes - even Atavan didn't help me sleep on the plane. By the time we got to our rooms, we had been up and moving for 24 hrs and feel like zombies. My body clock is a little messed up. It's 3:30 am here and Ron is peacefully sleeping, but after my 5 hrs. of sleep, my body wants get going. Anyway, it so so awesome to know that we're in the same country as our daughter now and she is sleeping under the same stars just a few hundred miles away. 2 more sleeps till we have our baby girl! Thanks for all your comments and kind wishes - it's so nice to know how supported our journey is! Photos are taking forever to upload so I'll add some later.

...And They're Off!!

We are on our way to our baby girl! We flew a whole 12 mintues from Victoria to Vancouver already and are now waiting in the Vancouver airport for the 12 hour flight to Beijing. Thanks to everyone for the kind wishes for our journey - our next post will be from China!

Hugs for everyone!!!

"There is only one pretty child in the world...
and every mother has it."
~Chinese Proverb~

A Picture Says A Thousand Words....

...and these ones say even more. Just received a small update with these photos last night. These pics were taken 5 days ago. This little beauty will be in our arms on Father's Day!!