Sunday, November 14, 2004

Sick Baby

When my daughter awakened, she was breathing very heavily. We took her to the medical clinic that was located in the hotel. The doctor spoke very little English, but we were able to explain that she had a cough and a runny nose. They took her temperature, but there was no fever, so the doctor gave us the thumbs up sign. She cried when he listened to her heart with the stethoscope.

The doctor called the hotel manager on the telephone so that he could translate the doctor's instructions to us in English. We were given cough syrup, an anti-biotic and chinese herbs. We watched the doctor grind the herbs up with a mortar and pestal. We had to mix the herbs with the anti-biotic and give to the baby three times a fay for two days.

The baby did not like the taste of the medicine and she cried and scremed her head of when it was medicine time. It definitely made her sleepy so she napped quite a bit today. I wanted AR to go to the clinic too because he had a bad sinus infection, but he refused since taking care of the baby was most important.

Guangzhou~The Last Leg


We are finally on the last leg of our trip. Once we have all the U.S. Consualte paperwork done and processed, we can go home! It isn't that we aren't enjoying our time in China. Of course we are, but I want nothing more than to be at home with our baby. I am thankful for this time that we have with her now. It is probably going to be the only time that we will have her completely for ourselves. You know what I mean, right? No one offering advice or telling us what to do, although we are getting some of that from the clothing police, but you know what I mean. We are using this time to bond with her. We need her to know that we are her parents. We are the ones that will feed her, comfort her and take care of her. She is so precious.


Saturday, November 13, 2004

Leaving Nanchang

November 13, 2004

We checked out of the Gloria Hotel and went to the airport. The flight to Guangzhou was one hour and 10 minutes. It was exciting because it was Katrina's first plane ride and we had no idea how she was going to react, but also because this is the last part of our trip.

Katrina stayed in the baby carrier that AR was wearing for most of the trip. I took her out and let her look out the window on the airplane so that she could say goodbye to Nanchang. I cried a little because she was leaving the only home that she had ever known. I never forget that the happiness that we feel at having her has come at the expense of someone else's sadness. I hope that she will one day want to return to see Nanchang.

She cried a little, but mostly we kept Katrina occupied by feeding her Cheerios. I gave her a sip of strawberry juice and she seemed to like the taste of it. ATtleast she did not spit it out.

After getting our luggage we headed to a bus that was going to take us to the White Swan Hotel It was an hour bus ride. The White Swan is an enormous hotel that caters to business people and families adopting. We stayed in room 1640 and our friends from NH were in 1638. We had the city view from the window which wasn't as pleasant as the river view that was on the other side of the hotel. The room was nice. It was a little 1980s dated, but clean and big enough for us.

Our travel group planned on meeting for dinner, but we were all so miserable with our colds that we did not go. Katrina had her bottle and just kept crying. She wasn't wet and she couldn't be hungry because she just ate, but we could not get her to stop crying. AR walked her up and down the hallway of the hotel. We were at wits end and did not know what to do.

Our room servie order arrived and Katrina pointed to the food on the table. Could she actually just be hungry??? She ate cheese, rigatoni with vodka sauce and bread. This is one hungry baby and mommy and daddy were too stupid to know that she wanted to eat!

With her belly full, she drifted off to sleep quickly. Mommy and daddy drifted off too nearly as fast too.

Friday, November 12, 2004

We Speak English Restaurant

November 12, 2004

We wandered around town and came across this restaurant. The sign out front said "We speak English," and so that is what we call the place. We stood outside and debated whether we should eat there or not. I could hear the clattering of dishes and the loud din of Madarin. It must be a great place since it seems packed. We decided to eat lunch here.

We walked in with Katrina and every head in the place whipped around to take a look at us. The room quieted down and you could hear a pin drop. It was unsettling, but the manager came to take us to a table. Suddenly there were choruses of "Hello" as we passed every table to get to ours. I think we actually were greeted by every person in the joint!

We ordered dumplings, noodles and soup. When the food arrived it filled the table. The serving dishes were enormous. Back home when we order dumplings, we get six of them. In China, we were brought a bowl with 30 dumplings! We were hungry, but not that hungry! Katrina happily ate her noodles. She knew just how to slurp them up.

At 3 pm we met the group to do more paperwork. This time the paperwork was for the U.S. Consulate. We were preparing it in advance so it will be ready before we need it in Guangzhou. We finished at 5:30.

We went out to dinner with our friends from NH and took them to the same We Speak English restaurant. It was super crowded for dinner, but they gave us a private room. We ordered steamed egg for the kids and they ate it like they had never eaten before in their lives. I ordered veggie fried rice and the fired rice was white rice, not like the kind that we get back home. It was very tasty, but so odd that the rice was white.

When we got back to the hotel, Katrina stil drank her botle and then went to bed. She is one hungry baby.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Department Store

November 11, 2004

AR's sinus infection is getting worse. He elt so miserable that he just wanted to stay in bed all day. We are waiting for Katrina's Chinese Passport, so we still do not have any official adoption paperwork to do today.

Another adoptive mom in our group was itching to get out of the hotel. I told her that I wanted to get out too, so we met up with the babies and walked to a local department store. It was a big marketplace and since it is mainly used by the locals, we attracted a lot of attention. My mission was to go in and try to find some sort of medication for AR.
I walked up and down every aisle and finally found some meds. Of course, none of these meds were ones that I would buy at home, but there was not a big variety to choose from. I bought Contact cold meds for AR. I know he had a sinus infections, but I couldn't find anything for that at all.

The mom I went out with made the trip with her mom. Her husband was afraid to fly. She was definitely disappointed that he was not experiencing what she was being in China, but she couldn't force him. She was grateful to have her mom along for the help. I know people have adopted a child without their spouse or another adult accompanying them on the trip, but I don't know how they do it! What if AR came and I didn't? How would he handle the baby when he was so sick? I am glad that we came together and are experiencing the culture first hand.
At night I looked over the paperwork tha the notary and registrar prepared for us earlier in the week to ensure there were no typos. Everything was spelled correctly.
We ordered dinner from room service. Katrina napped so much during the day thats he did not want to sleep at night. She cried and cried and cried. AR cannot bear to hear his sweet baby cry and so he picked her up and walked her up and down the hallway. I gave her a bottle of formula which she gulped down quickly. She finally fell asleep at 9 pm and we fell asleep shortly thereafter.




Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Sick and Bonding

November 10, 2004

Katrina has a cold. Her nose is running. I am sure it is because of the air conditioning in the hotel. We are trying to keep the temperature warm, but it is also 80+ degrees out so we are attempting to strike a nice balance for all of us, but apparently we have failed. We bought more cold meds in Walmart for her to see if they will help. I should have bought more cold meds for everyone from home. AR is sick too. He has a sinus infection and is feeling pretty miserable. So far, I am not sick, but I am sure I will get something before we get home.

We have been staying in at night and not going out with the others. We are also insulating ourselves to bond with her and she is responding. Since the phone book and her hairbrush are by far her favorite "toys" I put them at the opposite end of the room and tell her she has to crawl if she wants them. The first few times she dragged herself to the phonebook, I actually felt terrible about making her do it, but then I saw that she was getting faster and stronger. She was learning to crawl.

She seems like a happy baby most of the time and is sleeping through the night. She is also eating everything in sight. We are breaking every baby food rule in the book. We have given her a little bit of everything so far and one of her favorite things to eat is steamed egg. Here is a recipe: http://www.china.org.cn/english/food/72992.htm The pediatrician back home would have a stroke!

A Stranger in the Park 11/10/2004

Hates her Hood

November 10, 2004

Today was another easy breezy day. We had breakfast and Katrina ate her own buffet of steamed egg, congee and watermelon. We dressed her in a long sleeved outfit and added a blue hooded sweater for our trip to the park. It was grey, damp and overcast and since she already had a cold, we did not want it to get any worse.
We walked a few blocks to Teng We Temple. There was a beautiful park that you had to walk through to get to the temple. We sat down to have a drink of tea. People walked by and admired Katrina. An older women was quite taken with Katrina and us. She seemed to really want to know what we were doing there.

I had purchased vocabulary cards http://www.chinaconnectiononline.com/vocabcd.htm that had phrases on it written in Mandarin & pinyin. One said:

"We come to China to adopt a little Chinese girl. We will always love her and will teach her about beautiful China."

I took this card and handed it to the old woman. She read it carefully and when she finished she looked up, grinned from ear to ear and gave us a huge thumbs up! It was the one of the fondest moments that I have from China. This woman was so happy for us and our baby. You could tell that she thought adoption was a great idea.

It seemed as if we walked up a billion stairs today carrying Katrina in the stroller. We went to the 6th floor of the temple to watch a traditional song and dance performance by Chinese people in ancient costumes. Then we had to walk all the way down those billions of stairs.

We stopped at a little Chinese bodega and purchased diet coke, soup noodles and potato chips which is going to be our dinner tonight. We decided to eat dinner in our room since we are now all have colds.
As for lunch, our guide ordered all of us Pizza Hut pizza. We ordered a veggie pizza and it had pineapple on it. Yuck! Even so, the pizza was still good because it reminded us of home, which seemed so far away.












Tuesday, November 09, 2004

A trip to Walmart

November 9, 2004

Well there is nothing like a trip to Walmart to counter a trip to a poverty stricken village, right? After the village we did take the bus to a Walmart so that we could buy some baby supplies that we needed. For $24 U.S. dollars we purchased: Pampers diapers, baby wipes, sippy cup, 2 onsie outfits, baby cold medicine, three 2 liter bottles of water, one bottle of orange juice, one bottle of jasmine tea, a box of Ritz crackers and a box of Oreos.

The Walmart had three levels. It had three conveyer belt ramps that allowed you to take your cart to each level. It was way better than an escalator. The Walmart looked pretty much like Walmarts in the U.S. except that the foods were significatly different. One level had a fish market on it. I am not so enthralled with Walmarts in the U.S. http://www.alternet.org/story/21658/ , so I didn't want to spend a lot of time there.

Some of the families took longer than others in the store. We were all supposed to meet at a certain time to get back on the bus. Katrina was hungry and I didn't really have any food for her since I thought we would be back at the hotel already. There was a KFC next to the Walmart, so I dashed in there to buy her some mashed potatoes.

In fast food places in China you order by point to pictures on a menu. Everyone orders this way, not just foreigners like us. I pointed to the taters and was served quickly. Katrina had her first taste of fast food and she liked what she ate. She ate the potatoes in the bus and because of the long day she missed her nap and was cranky. She fell asleep on me on the bus ride back to the hotel. She did not wake up as I carried her from the bus to our room on the 14th floor. She was exhausted.

A Visit to a Village

November 9, 2004

Today was a free day which meant there was no offical adoption business to take care of. Our agency arranged a bus to take us to a village. In China there are villages, counties and cities, so depending upon how many people live in an area will determine whether it is a village, county or city. My daughter came from Nanfeng which is a county. A city is the biggest and a village is the smallest.

Our adoption agency wanted us to see what village life is like for people in China. Seeing their everyday life will help us to understand the living conditions and see whay people cannot keep their babies. Most abandoned children come from families that live in villages.

To say that the village we visited was poor would be an understatement of epidemic proportions. People do not have heat or indoor plumbing. The homes do not have doors and the windows do not have glass. They are just open holes in the homes. Children were playing and there were chickens clucking around. Everything is over run with weeds. It looked like a ghost town except that people still lived here.

When we arrived, the children came running over to see us. I felt self conscious about walking around. I was essentially a voyeur and I did not want to gawk and yet I did. The people were gracious and invited us into their homes. They were very proud of how clean they kept the dirt floors and their cooking utensils.

One of the families we traveled with had a huge bag of candy and tossed it to the children in the village. The kids were so excited to get the candy. They smiled from ear to ear. When we left the children followed after us and waved. They were just kids being kids, but it struck me that they really did not know that they were poor. That was their life and all they knew, so I suppose it was just business as usual for them. The kids did not seem unhappy and yet when I saw where and how they lived, I just wanted to cry.

They lived in such squalor...You know that people are poor, but to see it so up close and personal...As difficult as it was to see and smell, I am glad that I experienced it. Now I have a better understanding of perhaps the circumstnaces that brought my daughter to be abandoned as she was. I imagine that my daughter may have come from such abject poverty as I witnessed. I am glad that she will not have to live like that, but I am saddened to know that there are countless people who live this existence every day.

Monday, November 08, 2004

Adoption Paperwork Finalized

November 8, 2004

Today we have to go back to the Ministry of Civil Affairs to have our adoption paperwork finalized and notarized by the Registrar.

Katrina LuRuo Dan slept all night until 6 am. I checked her diaper in the moring and there was a little round poop. Looked kind of like a stone, so I think she needs some fruit added to her diet! We gave her a spongebath, which she did not like so much and cried most of the way through it. She had 3 layers of clothes when she was given to us yesterday and I removed them and put them in a ziplock bag so that they would keep their original smell. That might be important to her at some point.

I put her in fresh clothes and tried feeding her formula again. I figured out that the nipple hole was just too small and so I cut it with a pair of scissors to enlarge it slightly. Once I did that, Katrina happily drank from the bottle. She was holding the bottle by herself. What a strong little girl!

The hotel provided us with a stroller and a baby bathtub. We will try the bathtub out tonight. I put her in the stroller and wheeled her downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. Even though Katrina had her formula, she seemed very interested in everything that we were eating. I gave her a bowl of congee, which is a rice cereal that has meat added to it. This is a traditional dish in China. She liked it and ate it very quickly. She wanted to eat everything I ate, so she had noodles, bread and watermelon. Loved the watermelon!

We headed to the Registrar's office which is where we had to take an oath to never abandon Katrina. They took a family photo of the three of us which goes on the Abandonment Certificate. It was presented to us in a red cardboard folder, like a college diploma holder case. Katrina was very well behaved, but AR was holding her the whole time. She was much more comfortable with him than me, but I was now able to look at her and she didn't cry, so we are making progress.

We then went to the notary and signed a few more documents and then the adoption paperwork was complete. We still had to get her Chinese passport and some U.S. paperwork still needs to be done in Guangzhou, but she is offically our daughter!

The rest of the day we spent playing and bonding with Katrina. She ate like a fiend. She seemed so hungry...She liked to play with the stacking cups. I showed her how they fit one inside the other, but she was happy to bang two of them together. Her hairbrush was a great toy for her. She seemed to like the feel of the soft bristles on her head and she was intrigued by the ridges on the handle.

A Word on Gift Giving in China

Prior to our trip, I obsessed (as many do) about what giftsI should bring to China. We were told by our adoption agency that gift giving is customary in China and that we should buy several token gifts to give to the following people:

Orphanage Director
Nannies
Foster Parents
Notary
Registrar

Gifts are expected when a service is preformed and so it is customary to give them to these people. The gifts will not be opened in front of you. They will be gathered up and given to the official. We bought several t-shirts that I wrapped in red tissue paper. I also bought several red gift bags and put candy, hand lotion and ipstick in for the aunties/foster parents. I also had put a $10 bill in the bag for the foster parents.

When the orphanage director and some aunties came to our hotel room to see if we had any questions, we used that opportunity to give them their gifts. They smiled politely and took them. The following day when we were at the registrar and notary offices, I left the gifts in the hotel room! Everything was just so confusing what with having the baby for all of 16 hours and trying to get ready by a certain time, I just completely forgot! And you know what? It didn't matter.

When we were in the registrar's office and the notary's office, we saw a pile of gifts on the floor. Even though we did not add to the pile, no one said anything to us and we were treated very well by each public official. I was bummed out because I had carted this stuff from NJ to Beijing to Nanchang China and then never gave the gifts to the intended recipients. I had bought some extra gifts too because I wasn't sure if I had enough. I certainly did not want to take the gifts home so we gave them to to hotel staff. They really did appreciate the gifts!

Please believe it when people say not to fuss over the token gifts because it really isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.