GZ

We are finally in GZ!  Our plane was delayed by over 2 hours last night and we did not arrive to The White Swan until almost 11pm.  Emma was great for the most part...of course she embarassed us on the plane for about 10 minutes, but once the jet engines fired up, she was konked out.  Chinese people kept laughing and saying, "grumpy baby". 
 
We LOVE GZ, just the change of scenery we needed and we are reunited with our group...I nearly cried when I saw one of the other couples at the airport last night.  We are all in the same boat with crying, non-sleeping children and we had a hugfest when we saw one another...I nearly cried at the sight of them. 
 
Emma only slept for 6 hours last night and was ticked off, but she is like a new kid today even with that little of sleep.  She is on her third nap as I type this and has been laughing, smiling, giggling and of course eating up a storm as usual today.  She continues to wake up hysterically crying and someone suggested she may have had a crib mate so she is a little disoriented when she first wakes up.  This quiet, shy girl has big lungs.   We are going to have to create white noise in her nursery as she is used to sounds while sleeping.  We leave the TV on in the hotel so she can sleep better, but it's too bright. 
 
Emma "ate fresh" with us at Subway today and loved the bread, cheese and green peppers I had on my tuna sandwich.  Other than lack of sleep/teething grumpiness, when she is happy, she's happy.  Right now Doug and Emma are by the waterfall in the lobby having a nap. 
 
Today was the medical exam and Emma HATED people touching her, she was clawing to get back in my arms.  The staff said with a chuckle she is a VERY normal baby..no ear infections, can hear properly and definitely has good lungs, lol.  She now weighs 17.92 lbs and is 27.5 inch tall.  Everyone that sees here exclaims how pretty and tiny she is, including the chinese people...we can't keep people's hands off of her.
 
The Ergo baby carrier has been our saviour...she loves the ride and so does our backs...today she rode strapped to me for nearly 3 hours and even sat in it during lunch.  The drool is out of control, so I can't wait to get it home for a good washing!
 
Doug took some great happy shots and videos today, but doesn't have them loaded yet, so be on the lookout for those!

Melting down...

For the last 24 hours, it's been not so good.  Emma is teething and melting down, constantly.  We are toggling ibuprofen and tylenol and letting her chew on whatever she wants, but it only gets us so far before melting down again.  Just now she had a mega meltdown...thrashing, kicking, screaming, gasping...it was horrible, but now she is asleep and we hope it lasts for hours.  We tried to get out of the hotel for an hour or so, but in the state she is in, it's just not possible.  I am sure half of the problem is teething and the other half is grieving/adjusting.  Our backs are killing us from all the holding.
 
She did play by herself on the floor this morning which was a new thing.  She woke up happy, but then it became a downward spiral.  Today we are really missing home...tired of buying bottled water for bottles and tired of this heat.  The humidity here is FAR worse than Ohio.
 
Tomorrow we leave for GZ, so this is our last post from Nanchang.

The happiest I was all day

Unhappy

This morning started off well, but slid off during breakfast and has yet to recover.  Starting last night she fights us on sleep, despite rubbing her eyes and her head jerking back, as soon as we lay her down she screams.  We finally got her to nap for about 1.50 hour today and she woke up angry, in fact had a small night terror just before waking.  Doug fed her a bottle and she seems ok for the moment.  

Tonight we are supposed to see a night music/light show in a park, but not sure.  Our guide is really excited about taking us there, but it is at Emma's bedtime and the day she has had, not sure that much stimulation is good...I'm hoping a thunderstorm comes in as expected so maybe we can skip without hurting Engel, our guides, feelings.

I have 2 teeth

People's Park

making strides

In the last 24 hours, Emma has:

sat in a grocery cart

eaten green beans

laughed

smiled

rode in a stroller

walked with us holding her hands

slept in her crib

taken marathon naps

babbled

taken a really nasty poo

went to a park

rode in her Ergo carrier

pushed the buttons on her cellphone

sat on the floor all by herself for about 5 minutes

slept 10 hours straight

gained a little confidence, but slowly

Emma is:

a very shy little girl

is clingy like a monkey

beautiful

our daughter!

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Tuckered out

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I am proudly wearing drool in these pics!

Nanchang

Beijing

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Sorry...

for the suspense, but we were dealing with a very angry grieving child who wouldn't eat and a momma who contracted "Traveler Trots".  Yesterday was ROUGH, but she likes us both, she just wouldn't eat nor tolerate being put down.  At 4am she finally took a bottle, chugged it like a beer in fact.  Chinese babies like formula hot, so we have to put 1oz of boiling water or she won't take it.  Insane right?  

I haven't slept more than 6 hours over the last 3 nights and the exhaustion has been horrible. Emma and I just took a one hour nap and now Doug is finishing off the nap with her...this is her second nap today!  Last night she did sleep in her crib twice, but she was also in our bed in the beginning as much as we didn't want to do that, it had to be.  Doug is a GREAT baba...so patient, calm and he was a huge help last night because I was so sick.  I am taking Cipro now and hopefully relief comes soon so I can eat properly.  We got very dehydrated in Beijing from the humidity when climbing The Great Wall, so that's part of the problem...I am drinking Emma's pedialyte because they don't have sports drinks here.  We drank water all day long in Beijing, but the sweat was insane, so we were barely breaking even.

This morning Emma chugged another bottle, ate some congee, porridge, watermelon and bread off of our plates at breakfast and just had another bottle and prunes for lunch.  We are trying to avoid giving her an anemia...the orphanage purposefully backs them up with rice/formula when they bring the children to families from a long distance.  She freaks when we change her diaper, though it has gotten better, so we don't even want to think about an anemia...I think I would cry as much as she would.  Also, she came to us with a HORRIFIC diaper rash...open sores...broke my heart at first sight.  They brought us a special cream and of course we are piling on the Desitin; already looks significantly better.

9 month clothes fit her perfectly and 12 month jammies are just right.  She is going to be swimming in the 12 month clothes we purchased.  The shoes we brought were just right, a size 4.  When I get a chance, I'm going to climb on the scale with her.

Today we went to the adoption registration office to file the adoption and get rid of all this money we have been carrying around.  What a relief!  Tomorrow is passport photo day and Emma will be wearing a special dress that Baba picked out all on his own.

I will post a few pics shortly...trying to take advantage of nap time!

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20 minutes....

until Emma time!

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Did you know...?

That Jennifer is famous?  Everywhere we went today, people stared and wanted pictures of us.  Some people took pics covertly, others would walk right up and try to take a picture. We had a lot of fun with the scenario as a group...someone in our group asked me what it was like to be Angelina Jolie for a day, lol.  Doug said I'm Meryl Streep here...I punched him...not really, but my eyes said I wanted to.

Doug had a great time bargaining over a "Rolex" and there is now a competition amongst the group to see who can buy one for $4.  Everywhere you go, someone tries to sell you something.  Rolex guy followed us for quite awhile until the guide got forceful with him.

We walked a very steep section of The Great Wall and then went to The Summer Palace...the word "hot" doesn't even do the temperatures justice. We are literally expelling every liquid we consume.  I have run 10 miles and did not sweat this much, so I'm sipping pedialyte right now; I woke up with stomach cramps at 2am this morning and never went back to sleep.  Our local guide says the Chinese call these type of days, "sauna days" and do their best not to be out and about...didn't stop tourists at any of the locations though...very packed with people.

We leave the hotel at 8:50am tomorrow for the airport and we probably won't check back in again until at least Monday.  Emma is being brought to us in the hotel lobby tomorrow afternoon, then we legitimize the adoption early Monday morning.

Our little travel group is being split up tomorrow as we all head to different provinces and we are sad to see them go.  It's been a great 3 days here, but we will have to wait until next Friday for the group to reunite in GZ at The White Swan.  Our days in Nanchang are going to be a good bonding period with Emma and after the hot strenuous days in Beijing, we are going to chill inside as much as possible with her.  When we step out onto the street with her, my "fame" is going to skyrocket and we don't want her to feel unsafe.

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Good morning/evening

We slept at least 8 hours and were OUT within 5 secs of our head hitting the pillows.  This morning we had a continental breakfast and Dougie had baked beans on toast.  BLECH! There is a picture to go along with this image, but I don't have the stomach to upload it right now. HA!   

Both couples traveling with us are very nice, but we will all be traveling to different cities when we leave Sunday to meet Emma. The families will meet up again in GZ for the least leg of the trip.  They both have daughters from China already and the little girls have become fast friends.  One of the couples is from Goshen, OH which is about 10-15mins from our house and Doug works with the husbands half brother.  SMALL WORLD!  

We are meeting the couples in about an hour to go off for a bit on our own to the Silk Market and find a place for lunch before our organized tours begin this afternoon.

Today's exchange rate is $6.71 USD to 1 Yen.

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Arrived!

We are here, dog tired of course.  As I am typing this, we've been awake for 28 hours.  Neither of us slept much more than an hour on the flight.  Air conditioning just isn't the same in China as the US, but we will adjust.  The sky is perfectly gray with smog and the smell...well, if you've ever been to China, you know what I mean.  It's not a bad smell, just different and soupier than we are used to.
 
Tomorrow morning we have to ourselves, then we will meet with the group at 1pm (1am EST) to see Tiannenman Square, The Forbidden City and The Acrobatic Show in the evening.  We can't wait to sleep tonight!

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Newark

Tried to post via cell and it was wacky, not sure what happened.  We have made it safely to Newark and are sitting here for 4 hours.  I had a piece of luggage fall back on me and now have a bruised inner wrist; smacked the vein just right, formed an instant lump and bruise.  Only me!  All in all, we are good!

Doug subscribed to a VPN, so we may have full Internet access once we are in China!  Blogger, facebook and YouTube are blocked without a VPN.

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Mural

We thought this was a fun way to dress up the walls, without a long term commitment...they adhere by static and don't damage the paint...um, didn't realize until I took the pic it's crooked, but oh well...the wind was blowing when I stuck it to the wall. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Today I gave the nursery a good spring cleaning, so that's why her bedding is missing...it's in the dryer. :)

Trip is all mapped out!

YAY!  We are all set to go!  Doug received his paid FMLA approval today, we received our trip itinerary and will be mailing final payments tomorrow.  Next week we have a conference call with our agency for final trip details..we believe there is one other couple traveling with us for a special needs adoption.

We will be in Beijing for 3 days, Nanchang for 5 days and 6 days in Guangzhou. The day we land in Nanchang, Emma will be brought to our hotel in the late afternoon...we assume she is being driven to our hotel, not flown.  That is going to be a very rough night and we do not expect much sleep and have a very early start the next morning to register the adoption.

The Suichuan orphanage is 8.5 hours away from Nanchang, so we will not be making a visit. We can arrange for this on our own, but a flight and another $500 is just not worth the efforts as Emma will be with us at that point in time.

After tomorrow, we can finally just chill until we leave, everything is done!

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We are coming Emma!!!

We were given tenative travel plans today with a couple of options to choose from and we will be paying for the flights on Monday; leaving from the Dayton airport on Continental was WAY cheaper than the United flights leaving from Cincinnati.  Via a few people, sounds like United suxs anyway, so why pay more for cramped seats when we are going to be traveling for 19hrs? 
 
The flights are not 19 hours, but we have a 4 hour layover in Newark on the way over and another 4 hour layover in Beijing on the way home.  The china flight is a little under 14 hours long...piece of cake compared to my South Africa flights!
 
Today we have kept our activities mininmal as we were both feeling under the weather...we think it's allergies, but geez, it has really sucked the life out of us today.  Now is not the time to get sick, so I chugged some Emergen-C and have been drinking lots of fluids and eating fruits/veggies trying to keep the immune system up.  Maybe the last 2 weekends of excessive/obsessive cleaning, laundering and packing caught up with me???  Doug said he doesn't have an excuse like that, lol...I swear, his words, not mine.

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TA!!!

Our agency called us at 8:45pm tonight!  I was outside installing the carseat and Doug told me I needed to come inside for the phone...um, I admit, I was slightly annoyed, thinking, "why the heck is he bothering me, knowing I'm installing the carseat".  LOL.  It's only a balmy 95 degrees right now (insert sarcasm), perfect weather for climbing into a back of a vehicle and wrestling with the latch system.
 
Anyway, we are now waiting for the U.S. consulate office to approve our appointment request, then we can book travel.  I'm thinking early next week we will be able to buy tickets.   WOOT!! 

Also, there seems to be some confusion...this is a post to our blog...the blog automatically sends the newest posts to the people we have defined as "key" people...emails in your inbox are posts to the blog so you don't have to look at the blog if you don't want to.  :)

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Nada

We know...nothing, zilch, zip, nada yet as to when we are leaving, where we are staying or which airline we are using. The travel approval from China has not made it's appearance today like we hoped for.

What we do know is that we will be flying during the highest airline rates ever for a trip to China. I keep playing with the dates on popular trip planner websites and the fares are horrendous no matter what I plug in. I'm sticking my head in the sand for now until I actually have to swipe the credit card, then I may weep for about a week, lol.

On a slightly OT matter...whoever designs packaging on baby monitors, baby gates and tub kneelers...I despise you! Part of my weekend was spent unpacking these items and you seriously need a bomb to get some of these products out. I'm shocked there was no trip to the ER and the leatherman tool is still in one piece.