China...Part One

We're home. And things are going well, actually. If we could get over this jet lag it would probably just feel so normal around here already. Ellie moved right on into our home without looking back. This girl just fits in here like a glove. It's amazing!

As you can probably get from this late post, I was unable to write anything from China. I even thought that I had it figured out before we left, since we had problems when we traveled in 2010, but I was still wrong. It was so frustrating to get there and realize that I was stuck and would just have to wait.

We had a great trip, although it was hard to say good-bye to the boys. For their part, they did very well and through Skype, we were able to stay in contact with them the entire time. Plus, my sister sent several pictures of Christmas so we could see them opening presents and having a good time, which did my heart well. It was weird to be in China on Christmas. Although there were many pictures of Santa (actually, the same picture of Santa posted everywhere), the day felt commercial-only. Many people told us "Merry Christmas!" but I actually think they sort of thought that was what we wanted to hear, seeing that we were westerners. Still, it was an unforgettable Christmas, to be sure.

Russ and I flew to Hong Kong, spent one night, then flew to Beijing on Christmas Eve. It was an interesting experience to be out on a pedestrian mall on Christmas Eve in Beijing, which was so full of people that we were often shoulder-to-shoulder at times in the party atmosphere.

There was also some sort of holiday show going on in the lobby of our hotel, but overall, it was a quiet evening. The next morning, on Christmas Day, we got up to meet the rest of our group and to make another flight. We had opted out of touring Beijing this time, having done it twice before--not that it isn't a great city or anything. Since everyone else in our group had gone through the tour, they had already had a chance to spend a couple of days together before we arrived. We met everyone for the first time and let me just say, what a fantastic travel group we had! Seriously, we met some of the most wonderful families on this trip. We met those of various backgrounds: some having adopted before while for others, this was a first trip to China. Some families were brave enough to bring their children along while others, like us, had made the choice to let them stay behind. There is something about traveling with other families through this important time that seals a bond--not just anyone can say they have traveled halfway around the world together to meet their children at the same time. We were truly blessed by this group.

We flew to Zhengzhou--a city on the smaller side, we'd been told, of roughly 8 million people. You know, small. This place was the capitol of the province of where Ellie has been living since birth and like our previous adoptions, the babies were brought from various parts of the province to the capitol city to meet their new parents. We stayed at a lovely hotel, although I must admit, I had a difficult time here because of the air pollution. The country is not known for its clean air, that's for sure, and I thought I had encountered such pollution and tolerated it well before. But this time...it was just, bad. Taking a walk gave me a headache after a while and there was a perpetual "fog" outside that lasted throughout the day. I had worse problems here than when I went to Lanzhou four years ago, and that city is classified as one of the most polluted cities in the world.

Otherwise, the place was so remarkable and busy and this is where we met Ellie for the first time. The day after Christmas, we drove to the city's registration office where we waited for the babies to arrive.

Ellie was coming from Nanyang and traveling with three other kids as well. They brought her in and she was wearing a big, puffy coat that was new for her and she was just so...quiet. She just sat there and looked at us, back and forth, for the longest time, like she didn't know what to think at all. She didn't cry, she just appeared a little stunned. We had to stay in this room for quite a while, signing papers, and we had a chance to play with her. She started opening up after a few minutes, got down on the floor to play for a bit, and even smiled a few times when we gave her crackers.

We then took her back to the hotel and she stayed with us ever since. After the first night, we went back to the registration office and then the notary tomake the adoption official. The first few days are kind of a blur, and were spent adjusting to this new little person and going to appointments.

Russ had an opportunity to go with several other families to visit Ellie's orphanage in Nanyang, a trip that was about four hours one way. Although Ellie didn't actually live there much of the time, it was the place where she was originally placed before entering foster care. Additionally, most of the babies often return to the orphanages for regular visits and medical checks, so they knew who she was. The families that visited were allowed to see some of the rooms that housed other babies, waiting for families or those receiving medical care while there.

Ellie had lived in foster care for roughly 16 months, from what we can tell. I believe she was about three months old when she entered her foster home, and she lived with the same family the entire time, which is wonderful and also sad. Wonderful because this gives her roots as to the concept of family, sad because they really seemed to care for her and although it was a temporary situation, it was hard to break them up. We also found out during this trip that she had a foster brother who is the same age and was adopted at the same time by one of the families traveling with us. Because we spent time with the families, the two kids still got to see each other, even though they had both left the foster home. It was obvious that they were used to spending time together, and they played and chattered away together like brother and sister. Fortunately, the other family lives only about three hours from us, so hopefully, we will see them again so that Ellie can continue to have that friendship with someone she obviously bonded with at such an early age. In the meantime, it has also prepared her for her own brothers, who she met upon arrival home....

I'm going to stop here because there is still so much to say. I'll include it in the next post and add pictures to Facebook but suffice it to say that...so far, so good!