Part 1
Since so many people are looking forward to traveling in the next few months, I thought I'd share my travel story from last year, before I got on the list. This is really long, written mainly from memory.
First, our stats:
Heidi (36), Mark (38), Andrew (bio son almost 4) and Hope (almost 7
mos at time of adoption) DTC: 2/7/96
Ref: 4/23/96
Travel: 5/23/96
Agency: Alliance for Children
Thurs, 5/23/96
Departure day is here! We get up at 4 AM, take showers, and go downstairs to meet the limo taking us to the airport at 5 AM. My mom gets up briefly to see us off (she stayed at our home with Andrew while we were gone). It all feels very exciting and weird and scary.
At the airport at 6 AM, we meet up with Don and Sue, one of the couples on our trip who is getting a baby just a few days older than Hope. We also meet Barbara, who is traveling alone because her husband is staying home with their 5 yr old daughter. We will meet Barbara's sister-in-law from Seattle on the West Coast, and she will join our crew. The waiting area for the flight to San Fran is packed. We compare our jam-packed carry-on luggage and try to be sure we all have everything.
The 5.5 hour flight to the West Coast is boring and uneventful. It's strange: since I don't fly a lot, a 5.5 hour flight to me would usually be a big deal. Today, it's just the first minor part of a long trip.
We land in SF sometime around 10:30 AM their time. We have to then find the boarding area for international flights and get checked in for that. We met up with Marcia, one of the single moms in our group, as well as Barbara's sister-in-law from Seattle. The only one missing was Nicole, a single mom from NYC, and Mary, another single mom who had flown in a day earlier (she had adopted from China before and didn't want to spend extra days in HK).
Now the fun begins: the 14-hour flight to Hong Kong! This flight is also packed, and we are mooshed into a little row back by the galley. It's not bad because it's just two seats together, but everytime they bring the food carts in and out, they manage to bash into our row! We stayed up for about 5 hours, reading and talking and visiting with the others, but then Mark went to sleep (he's good at it!) and I took a sleeping pill and tried to do the same. It all gets kind of surreal for the next nine hours ... I was only able to doze/sleep for about 5 hours, so I did some walking around, spent time looking down on the frozen tundra of northern Russia for a while from the back window. About 2 hours before we landed, things started to get more lively and we tried to revive ourselves from our stupor.
We circled above Hong Kong, which is pretty spectacular, and luckily we had been warned about the landing. The airport is located at the base of some very steep mountains, so you basically graze over the top of them and head straight down toward the harbor. It wasn't bad, but a bit scary.
So there we were in Hong Kong, landing at 4:30 PM on Friday, 5/24! We had been traveling about 24 hours, so we'd lost half a day somewhere over the Pacific. HK airport was very busy and confusing but we made it through customs and finally emerged out into the hot street to find a shuttle for our hotel. It was about 90 degrees and humid, and there were huge lines for cabs and buses. We waited at least 1/2 hour in the heat.
Our hotel was nice so we settled in and took long hot showers. We all decided not to go out to dinner that night ... we were just too tired. Mark went down to the hotel bakery and got us some cheese and chicken-filled croissants, and some cookies. It was the start of a healthy trip. So we stayed in, read our HK guidebooks, watched a repeat of ER on TV, then took sleeping pills to go to bed and try to adjust to the new time.
Sat., 5/25
We decided to walk down to the harbor and take the famous Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. The hotel staff just shrugged when we declined a taxi .... 20 blocks later in the 88 degree heat at 9 AM, we knew why! We were totally sweaty by the time we hit the waterfront. Unfortunately, it was a foggy humid day and much of the skyline was obsured in clouds and mist. We were disappointed that it would be worthless to take the gondola ride to Victoria Peak to see the city. We took the ferry, which was really neat, and got off on the other shore. Armed with our trusty map, we went off in search of the island's oldest Buddhist temple. The downtown area was totally chaotic, and probably seemed even more so to us suburban dwellers. The streets are narrow and teeming with people, buses, motorcycles, and bikes. Much of the city is hilly, so there were these amazing steep stair-sidewalks snaking up between the buildings. Crammed into every alley or free space were little stalls where old people sold everything from groceries to electronics to Gucci bags. One alley reminded me of a yard sale: just people sitting on blankets with lots of household junk in front of them. It's a lot for a borderline introvert to handle!
We found the temple and it was a bit disappointing ... a nondescript building crammed in amongst dreary high-rise apartments. Inside was pretty amazing, though: an ornate stone room with huge cones of burning incense hanging from the ceiling, and more incense burning in pots and on altars around the room. You could barely breathe but it was neat to see.
We did some more walking and should have ventured to the Stanley Market, where others in our group found some good shopping, but we decided to head back to the hotel for an afternoon nap (it was midnight US time and we were pooped).
At dinner time, we hooked up with the other couple from our group and went out to an evening outdoor bazaar that had been recommended to me. There were lots of little stalls selling all kinds of merchandise. We bargained with a guy for a couple of Hong Kong t-shirts, then it started pouring, so we moved on. We had a heck of a time finding a restaurant ... we went to one place that looked good but had no signs in English. We went in and found that there were hostesses shuttling groups of people upstairs in an elevator, constantly talking on little cell phones to the management or something. We motioned to them that we had four people and they kept ignoring us, just kept letting other groups into the elevator ahead of us. We tried to talk with them and they just kept shaking their heads no to us, so we left, still totally baffled! We finally decided to go to the hotel's big seafood restaurant. There was a wedding reception going on and they asked us if we minded sitting at the side of the room and we said fine. The bride was exquisite in a western-style beaded gown, and the little flower-girls were all in traditional Chinese dress. Made us excited that soon we'd have one of those petite, dark-haired beauties! We got a good meal and practiced with our chopsticks.
By 10 PM, we were in bed. The next morning, we had to be ready to go back to the airport and fly into China.
Part 2
Sunday, 5/26/96
The big day we flew to China! The hop from Hong Kong to Guangzhou is just 40 minutes, so this was a minor plane ride on China Southern Airline. Some people in our group had way overpacked so there was a flurry of discussion and delays at the counter as they figured what people could carry on and what needed to be checked, and how much of an 'overage' fee they had to pay. We all made sure to use the restrooms at the HK airport as we'd been told the ones in China would be awful (and the ones in HK were actually nothing to write home about).
We arrived in Guangzhou about noontime and walked off the plane into the heat, another 90-plus day. We schlepped our carry-ons over to the terminal, then had to find our stuff in baggage claim, then negotiate customs. It took what seemed like forever, but we finally were able to leave the terminal.
As we headed out of the building, we were greeted by two smiling men and Mary, our travel-mate who had gotten to China ahead of us. We were so happy to see her and meet our guides, Martin and Fang. Martin was a professional Chinese guide who knew the adoption process inside and out (Martin Qin of Guangzhou Youth Travel is a gem - email me for his contact info), and Fang was the son of the college professors in Massachusetts who did all of our agency's translations. His family was from Shanghai and he was helping out on the trip to make extra money for school. From the second we met Martin, we knew we were in good hands. :-) So many of our fears evaporated within minutes of meeting this terrific person!
We schlepped our luggage through the huge parking lot to the area reserved for buses (schlepping stuff long distances is a major theme of this trip!). The bus negotiated 20 minutes of hair-raising traffic to reach our hotel (I am a born-and-bred Boston driver and I was non-plussed by the total lack of rules on the roads in China). The Dong Fang was nice enough but everything moved at a snail's pace. We finally got checked in and we were all staying in adjacent rooms on the top floor. Martin requested that we meet for instructions after lunch, which we had at the hotel's "Western Restaurant." Our food was okay, but one woman ordered chicken and it arrived whole, barely plucked and boiled at the table. We all insisted that she not eat it and we shared some of our meals with her.
At the meeting, Martin cheerfully told us our sketchy game plan: Monday afternoon at 2 PM, we were to meet in the lobby to go to the provincial registry for foreign adoptions. Later that day, Nicole (single mom from NYC) "might" be getting her baby from a nearby orphanage ... she would probably arrive sometime between 4 PM and 8 PM. On Monday, Mary and Fang would leave for a 10-hour train ride south, then a 3-hour van ride to retrieve Rebecca, who was 12 months old and in foster care in Dian Bai, south of Maoming. The rest of us would be meeting Martin at 6 AM on Tuesday to take the train 3.5 hours north to Shaoguan. Like our agency, he had never been there, knew nothing about the orphanage, but he was very sure everything would be "just great." We would stay for two nights but possibly three, so pack accordingly. He also advised us to pack as light as possible as we would have to carry our own luggage through the train stations.
We spent that evening trying to figure out what to bring with us in our smallest suitcases. We also met and put together gift bags to give the orphanage directors, caretakers, bus drivers, hotel personnel, etc.
Monday, 5/27
We started our morning with croissants from the hotel bakery. We walked all around the hotel, checking out the amenities, which was another running joke: everything we asked about was "under repair!" Gym, pool, restuarants, fountains, you name it.
We spent the morning walking around the blocks surrounding the hotel, and it was a different world. People doing laundry in buckets on the sidewalks, garbage all over the place, old people selling stuff on corners. We felt very conspicuous in our Western dress and our cameras ... we had planned to shoot lots of video and take pictures but it felt very intrusive, so we just walked. We saw some decent looking parks to check out later, and bought some snacks.
After lunch, we hung out with our friends and sorted out which paperwork we needed for our registry appointment. We all met Martin downstairs, he verified our documents and cash, and off we went. The bus stopped in a nondescript-looking residential neighborhood, but there was a little unairconditioned building with a tiny sign: Adoption Registry for Foreigners. Martin took us all upstairs, sat at a desk, and started attacking a pile of paperwork. The registry person finally showed up. A young woman also walked in and started talking to us in broken English about what we were doing, how much did it cost, etc. Martin spoke to her sternly and motioned for her to leave, telling us not to talk to her. It was weird but she finally left. Then another lady came in and they had a lengthy conversation in Chinese. She sat down and just smiled at us.
The registrar called us each one at a time to sit with him and answer questions and sign papers. Martin acted as translator, as we answered questions. About halfway through this, Martin introduced the older lady as Mrs. Deng, director of the Shaoguan orphanage where our girls were from! We were so excited. We asked if we could ask her questions about the orphanage, and he said she would be happy to tell us more. She proudly talked about Shaoguan, which is a large industrial city of 1.6 million people ("it's like the Pittsburgh of southern China," Martin told us cheerfully). She also told us that their orphanage had just 30 babies and toddlers with ten caretakers -- this was excellent news! She also told each of us a bit about our babies, and each comment was prefaced by something about our babies' skin color -- this is a big deal in China but we were totally clueless. She said that Hope seemed "very black" when they first got her from the train station, but now she is no longer black. (We thought this meant maybe she was dirty from coal or something, but she was actually commenting that the baby was more fair-skinned than they originally thought.) She also said Hope was sweet and gentle. (We often wondered about this comment as we endured night after night of screaming ... maybe she was trying to put a positive spin on our demanding child!) Anyway, she really gushed over two of the other babies so I felt a bit slighted.
When our interviews and paperwork were over, we got back on the bus to go back to the hotel. Everyone was curious as to whether Nicole's baby would be there yet. Sure enough, when we walked into the lobby, there were two men and two women sitting with a baby on a couch. I grabbed Nicole and made her look (she was so nervous), then Martin caught on and shooed us all up to our rooms to wait for the baby to be brought up. We all ran to our rooms and waited in a line in the hallway, while Nicole frantically got out baby clothes and tried to make a bottle. The entourage arrived off the elevator and came down the long hall, with us videotaping and snapping photos.
Martin led them into Nicole's room and the ladies presented Nicole with her baby, whom she decided to name Sadie. Sadie was a really big baby with a big shock of auburn hair standing straight up from her head! She was very quiet and went to Nicole easily. We took tons of pictures while Nicole held Sadie and did her interview and paid her orphanage donation. We hung out with her for a bit, then gave her some privacy.
At 7 PM, we all met for dinner and tried another hotel restaurant ... this one was traditional Chinese food and was better than the other. Sadie sat in Nicole's lap and we each took turns holding her, as she was restless.
That night, we re-packed our luggage for the trip to Shaoguan, and we (as the experienced parents in the group) checked in with Nicole once before turning in. Sadie was already asleep and Nicole was doing fine. We felt bad that she would be left in the hotel by herself for 3 days while we went to Shaoguan, but Nicole was a New Yorker and not intimidated at all!
Part 3
Tues, 5/28/96
We were all up early to take the train to Shaoguan. Martin requested that we have our luggage which was to be stored at the hotel outside our doors at 6:30 AM. Then we were to bring our traveling luggage downstairs to meet him at 7 AM to go to the train station. We were a pretty hyper bunch!
The train station is a story in itself. It is the most dangerous place in the city (probably the whole province) and we got a big lecture on safety. Lots of thieves and pickpockets hang around there, stealing wallets, slashing luggage, etc. I can't even really describe what it was like. There is a huge plaza in front of the station and there are hundreds of people camped out and begging for money ... you have to snake your way through this very desperate and unfriendly looking crowd of starving people to get into the train station. Martin told us that many of the people came to the city because they thought they could find work, but they could not, so now they were all trying to find some way to get back home. We got off the bus and Martin admonished us to stay together, hold our luggage tightly at all times, and not to stop and talk to anyone. It took us at least 10 minutes to snake through the crowd but we finally got inside. This was a bit better, as only people with tickets can enter. Martin left us in one spot while he confirmed our arrangements. We became aware of a cat yowling nearby and discovered that an old man standing next to us had a cat in a burlap bag and it was trying to get out. He kept shaking the bag and muttering angrily at the cat ... we slunk away from him as a group when we realized that this cat was probably destined to be his dinner.
We finally got on the train. We were traveling in the "soft seat" cars (as opposed to the "hard seat" cars with just wooden benches). We had clean and comfortable seats, air conditioning, and there was no smoking or spitting (both are permitted in the other cars). The car wasn't very crowded and we were treated to 3.5 hours of blaring Chinese muzak, which rattled my brain after awhile. The scenery at first was dismal, lots of industrial areas that were totally polluted looking, brown rivers, children doing laundry in gutters behind their buildings, huge piles of trash behind each apartment building. As we got into the mountains, it was really spectacular ... just like you'd see in National Geographic: craggy green peaks, lush rice fields, ladies in straw hats walking with oxen and water buffalo, rushing rivers, etc. Photos just don't do it justice.
We finally arrived in Shaoguan and schlepped all our stuff through the train station. By now it was almost noon. We were met by a local guide and herded out to a shuttle bus. This took us to the hotel, which was practically right next to the station. The Royal Regent was a 3-star hotel built in 1992, and was pretty modern. It had a nice lobby (except for the people constantly chainsmoking in it), and two restaurants. We were a big curiosity, as they see few Westerners there.
Martin got us checked into our rooms, then told us to come downstairs at 3 PM, when *something* would happen: either the babies would be in the lobby, or we would be taken to the orphanage, or we would meet the babies someplace else in the city. He had not been able to confirm which scenario it would be, but he was sure it would be "just fine and great."
At 2:55 PM, we all met up in the hallway and nervously got into the glass elevator at the front of the building. When we got near the bottom floor, we could see a small bus waiting at the door. We jumped out and found Martin in the lobby and he confirmed that we would be going to the orphanage. He also asked us if we objected to being on TV: a local news crew wanted to film our trip to get the babies, as we were the largest adoption delegation to visit this orphanage. We all said, "whatever" ... at this point, he could have asked us all to stand on our heads and we would have done it! A car pulled up in front with Mrs. Deng from the orphanage, who would be escorting us. We got on the bus and headed out into the city.
The traffic here wasn't nearly as wacky as Guangzhou, mainly because there were more bicycles and fewer cars. Martin explained to us that Shaoguan was the city of three rivers, and that we'd be crossing two of the rivers on our way to the orphanage. The rivers were brown, with high-rise apartments and office buildings jammed along the banks ...not too picturesque. We wound through the city and finally down a rutted old road and up a hill. The orphanage was on our left, through a crumbling gateway. We parked in a courtyard in front of a white two-story stucco building. We got off the bus and were motioned to go upstairs, where it seemed there were just two rooms. We went to the further room, which was the orphanage office. They had lined up some bamboo chairs and couches along one wall for us to sit on, and there were little tables with oranges and apples laid out. Otherwise, the room had just two desks, a couple filing cabinets, and a hot water maker for tea.
We all sat down on the couches and one of the girls came in and started slicing the oranges and apples for us. We'd been advised to eat peeled fruit only, so we hoped it was safe and we each took a piece of orange. Then they came around with black tea for us, which we tried to drink. Then, Mr. Li, the other orphanage director, came in and offered each of us a Marlboro cigarette. We had been told not to do anything to offend them, so we each took a cigarette from him. At that point, Martin came back in the room and burst out laughing -- he knew we didn't smoke and wanted to know why we all had cigarettes! We told him we didn't want to offend Mr. Li, but he said that we would have offended Mr. Li more by taking cigarettes we didn't intend to smoke. He explained the little mix-up to Mr. Li, who laughed and nodded, then we made a big ceremony of handing the cigarettes back to him. Smiles all around ... all was well again.
Now the babies started arriving. Martin told us they would call our names and we would come forward and take the babies from Mrs. Deng out on the balcony. First was Rosie, daughter of one of the single moms. Amazingly enough, Rosie arrived wearing all red, a sign that Marcia had certainly picked the right name for her. Rosie was tiny and not too healthy looking, but Marcia was thrilled and held her close. Next came Lissa, the 15-month-old, who did not want to have anything to do with this Caucasian woman she was handed to. She screamed and cried, and there was quite a lot of back and forth with her and the nannies and her new mom. They kept trying to explain what was going on, but Lissa wanted no part of it. She was very exotic looking, with nut-brown skin and a crew cut in a little yellow dress, her lower lip protruding out just as far as it could go. This scene continued for a while.
Then it was our turn. Martin called out, "Jiang Zhan Ru, Heidi and Mark, come get your baby!" We went over to the door and Hope was handed to me. She was tiny like Rosie, but seemed alert. I held her against my chest for a couple minutes, as I was afraid of frightening her with my blonde hair and blue eyes. Mark talked to her as we walked back to our seats, and she just looked around. She cried for a minute when I sat down, so I got back up and started that instinctual sway thing with her. I was pretty instantly worried because she seemed very hot to me and her breathing was quite rapid. I was sure she was sick (not deathly, but I felt she had a fever at least) and all I wanted to do was take her back to the hotel and get some Tylenol into her. She also smelled not so great and had what looked like cradle cap, so I wanted to clean that up, too. She was very content to just rest in my arms, so that's what we did the rest of the time there.
Sue and Don were the last to get their baby, and Nan was presented like a princess. She was obviously a favorite there, and one of the things she was favored for was her light skin. Martin said, "They call her the White Lady ... she is the whitest baby they have!" But, with his pronunciation, we all thought he was saying WIDE lady, which was also appropriate because she was much bigger than all the other girls. (We still called her the Wide Lady for the rest of the trip because it cracked us up.) Nan was able to sit up well, and looked around quite curiously, and immediately smiled at Sue and Don. Mark and I were thrilled for them because they were first-time parents and really needed this great start to build their confidence.
So, we all had our girls, then we were asked to go next door one at a time to pay our orphanage donation and sign more papers. We were all very happy to hand over the $3000 cash and get it out of our wallets! These interviews were brief and we were handed a ceremonial booklet with the adoption decree.
When this was over, Martin shooed us all back downstairs. We were late for our *next* notary appointment and we had to move along. We all got out our gift bags for the officials and the nannies, some of whom came over to see us. We did not get to meet Hope's primary caretaker, because she was busy working, but we did get her name and I had a gift for her. Before we knew it, we were on the bus, heading back down the hill. Within a minute, Hope was asleep against my chest for the ride back to the city.
We got to the notary and had to stand around and wait (another recurring theme of our trip). The TV crew was still filming us, and lots of people were stopping on the sidewalk to see what was happening. We finally got in, this time had a ceremony with bananas and tea, and had more interviews with officials -- why did we want this baby, what were our plans for her, would she be able to go to school, would she inherit from us as if she were a birthchild, etc. When this was over, Martin told us we now needed to go to the local police station for some other kind of clearance, even though it was past 6 PM. We were told we could take our babies back onto the bus and change their clothes if we wanted to. We changed Hope into a one-piece long sleeved outfit, since it was now raining. We ended up sitting on the bus for nearly an hour while Martin tried to figure out our next move. He finally came back and said we didn't need to go to the police station after all, so we would just go back to the hotel.
We arrived back at the hotel around 7 PM. No one wanted to go out to dinner. We all just went to our rooms and spent more time getting acquainted with our girls. Hope was still very quiet and watchful. I took her temperature and it was relatively normal, so I didn't give her any Tylenol. We laid her out on the bed and realized that she really couldn't do anything at 7 months. She wouldn't reach for toys or even try to move. I knew she'd be delayed so I wasn't too concerned, I was just trying to do my own developmental assessment to talk to my pediatrician about. My estimate was she that she was in the 3-month age range as far as her reponses and capabilities. We tried to give her a bottle but she really wasn't responding. I have a picture of Mark sitting there giving her her first bottle, but she didn't drink any of it, just sucked for a while with no success. I spent a half hour cutting various size holes in the nipples we had brought, and trying different bottles ... she had no response to any of them.
We gave up for a bit and went next door to Don and Sue's, where Nan was howling. She was not going for the soy formula, either. The orphanage director told us the girls had been on milk formula and wrote down the name for it. We sent Mark and Don downstairs in search of Martin at 9 PM. Martin was great ... he went out and found us formula and was back by 9:30 (no convenience stores, so this was not easy, I'm sure). We mixed some up and Hope still wouldn't drink it, but Nan sucked down 8 oz. and wanted more! I helped them with mixing more formula, then they fed Nan again and she conked out for the night! We gave them some of our peanut butter crackers for "dinner," then went back to our room.
Our hotel had no cribs, so they gave us each a thick pallet and some blankets to put between our double beds on the floor for the babies. It worked out better than it sounds. I walked with Hope around the room til she fell asleep, then we put her in her little bed.
We got ready for bed ourselves. We felt really lucky and still in shock that it had finally happened. We were so grateful that our girls seemed to be well cared for and didn't have the lice, scabies, or worse problems we had heard about. I was worried about her not eating, especially since we'd been told that the girls were fed 7X a day, including a 1:00 AM feeding. We figured we'd just keep trying and she'd be hungry enough to eat sometime.
I don't have a chronology of that night, but Hope was up crying about every 2 hours, whereupon we would repeat the scenario of mixing fresh formula, trying different bottles and nipples, and she still wasn't drinking. One of us would walk with her until she fell asleep, then it would start again later. I brought her in bed with me after 3 AM or so, but she still continued to wake and fuss. Little did we know (actually, it's a good thing we *didn't* know) that this scenario would continue on a regular basis for our first full year with her! It's scary to think that I haven't been truly rested in more than a year now.
So, it was not a completely joyful, picture-perfect meeting: it was nerve-wracking and chaotic and I was sure that this baby was not well (and my intuition was right). We couldn't just sit and enjoy her and get to know her, we were in this big group that had to keep moving from one thing to another and deal with the paperwork and money, etc. I thought she was prettier than all the others (spoken like a true Mom!) and more alert than the others and I was instantly glad that this baby had been chosen for us. All of our babies seemed to fit just right, and we all marveled at that within minutes of getting the girls. Anyway, it is still very vivid and emotional ... in the midst of our happiness, there was a part of me that felt a deep sadness for her that I'd be taking her from her homeland, and that she would never be able to know her birth mother or father. It was a bittersweet feeling ... we knew we would love this baby with all our hearts, but we did not know if it would be enough for her over her lifetime.
Part 4
Wed, 5/29
After our long night, we got up and tried to revive ourselves. Tried feeding Hope again with no success. We put her in the Snugli and took her down to breakfast at the hotel's Hollywood Restaurant. (This was supposed to be a Western-style restaurant ... we got quite a kick out of it.) Several of our group members were already there. Everybody reported that their babies slept through the night, except us. Lissa, the 15 month old, who was starting to warm up to her new Mama. Lissa was just flabbergasted by the presence of food and wanted to stuff in everything she could. In the orphanage, we were told that she was very quick to eat so as to have the most food she could, and there wasn't much food to go around. Barbara was told that Lissa's favorite foods were tofu and frog! Hmmm, that wasn't on our menu at the Hollywood restaurant, so she settled for eating whatever she could get her hands on.
Hope was fussy and I took her back to our room. I took her temp and it was around 101. I got out my trusty Tylenol and squirted it in her mouth ... she was bewildered by it but didn't spit it out at least. And it was liquid, I figured. After a while, we tried a bottle again and she actually drank about an ounce or so, but it seemed like such hard work for her. We put her in the Snugli and took a walk across the street to the river. On the banks we could see many ramshackle houseboats where families lived. The river was very brown and sad looking. We didn't stay long because it was not a very nice area and we had seen some strange incidents ... men yelling at young girls trying to get them onto a bus, crazy driving, etc..
It rained in the afternoon. We met Martin for lunch at the Hollywood Restaurant again (there was another restaurant upstairs but it was so smoky we vetoed it). I got an Indonesian fried rice type dish (Nasi Goreng -- it was my favorite meal in China) and it came with some small cooked squid on top -- surprise! And seemingly every dish came with a fried egg on top, too.
Martin offered to take us out to do some shopping nearby. We weren't particularly prepared for rain, but we covered the babies and all walked over to the train station plaza. There were some vagabond types there, too, but not like Guangzhou. We went into several small all-purpose stores ... Mark bought a tie, and we bought some soda and bottled water. Then Martin took us down into an undergroud shopping area ... tons of stalls crammed into a hot tunnel. One booth was all obviously bootleg cassettes (the owner got really upset when he saw that we had cameras), others had electronics and clothing, etc. We had Martin pick out Chinese children's music cassettes for us as souvenirs, but we didn't buy anything else. We had lots of people in our faces and touching our babies, so we kept moving. Back out on the plaza, we were surrounded by a group of peasant women -- they, too, commented on all of the babies' skin and motioned to their own faces, very brown and lined from working in the fields. They were all smiling and happy to meet girl babies going to America. It was a memorable encounter.
Later, we tried our first bath, and Hope was petrified like all the others. We had brought a little inflatable tub to use, but it was obvious she hadn't been bathed like this before. My main goal was to shampoo her hair and start working on the crusty, foul-smelling goo on the top of her head. After the bath she was quiet, and we laid her on a towel on the bed. I took a little comb and started working through her hair. She was amazingly cooperative as I worked on her scalp and peeled off the layers of dirt and dead skin ... I spent 15 minutes and made tremendous headway. She finally smelled like a nice clean baby!
Martin found out that we were going to be on the local 6 PM news, so we all gathered in our room before dinner to watch it. Three of us had our videocameras trained on the little TV as we waited for the story to start. We were the 4th story that night, and it ran about a minute and 30 seconds (pretty good air time for this kind of story). All of us were shown, and Mark was specifically interviewed and shown because he had been to China before and they wanted to get his impression of today's China and why he wanted a Chinese baby (he gave very politically correct answers). We all looked hot and sweaty. Then they interviewed a provincial official at the notary's who said abandoning babies was highly illegal and carried fines of up to a year's income. We taped the story then we taped Martin translating what had been said. It was a fairly positive report, which said that all the babies looked comfortable in the arms of their new parents who would take them to the United States. (Martin later told us that this story was picked up by the provincial tv station, then the national China tv network, then it was broadcast in the US on Chinese-language feed broadcasts in CA and other places ... he got calls from several adoptive families who knew him to tell him he was a TV star. He got such a kick out of this.)
Martin arranged for us to eat dinner at the upstairs restaurant. We were tired and Hope was crying, so it was not a particularly successful meal. Her temp was back up to 101, so I gave her more Tylenol. I was beginning to suspect an ear infection, as she was feverish, congested, wouldn't suck on a bottle, and cried whever we laid her down ... she had only napped when we held her during the day. One of the other moms came to our room after dinner with some rice cereal she had brought. We scrounged up a plastic spoon from the hotel and mixed some up with formula. Success at last! Hope ate some watery cereal and fell asleep after we walked around with her.
That night was much the same as the previous ... she was up crying a lot, and we found one trick that always made her stop: taking off her diaper. In China, babies wear these little split pants with cloth diapers underneath, so their clothes are rarely taken off. When we opened up her pajamas to check her diaper (wanted to be sure she wasn't dehydrating), she would immediately quiet, so we did a lot of undressing that night!
I also discovered that she was very interested in the corners of the cloth diaper I'd sling over my shoulder ... it was the first time I saw her try to reach for anything, so I let her hold it. This led to an instant attachment to cloth diapers, which holds true to this day! I was happy to find that she created her own self-comforting mechanism, or perhaps this was something she had been doing at the orphanage.
Thurs, 5/30
Hope was still running a fever of around 101.5, so we were back on the Tylenol bandwagon. We gave Hope more cereal but she still wasn't drinking. She was also cutting her first two teeth, which probably wasn't helping. We went out to take a few pictures outside, even though it was dismal and overcast. Martin came up and told us Mrs. Deng from the orphanage would be arriving later to see the babies before we left.
When she arrived at our room with her assistant, we were really impressed. She took one look at Hope laying on the bed and immediately said, "Oh, she has a fever! We need to make her more comfortable. Let me show you what to do." She instructed her assistant to go and get some washcloths from the floor attendant and soak them with cool water. She picked Hope up and felt all of her extremities, then laid her out on a blanket. She placed cool cloths on her forehead, wrists and ankles (Martin translated: "it is most important to protect the brain when there is fever. Cool the head first, then the pulse points."). We told her we had been giving Hope Tylenol for the fever, but she kind of dismissed this. We told her how Hope was not drinking from a bottle, and she said "Oh, she just is feeling poorly, she will certainly drink from a spoon." She got a tea cup of water and we found her a spoon, and she sat and spoon-fed Hope about 4 oz of water. Sure enough, Hope started making some little noises like she was enjoying it -- the first sounds we'd heard besides crying!
Now I wish I'd asked lots more questions, but at the time, we were just focused on her illness. I did ask her to write down the name of Hope's primary caregiver in my journal. We took a couple pictures of everyone together, then Mrs. Deng had to move on to see Nan next door.
We finished our packing and had our last lunch at the Hollywood Restaurant. The girls there all fussed over us and kissed the babies goodbye. We were pretty antsy to get back to Guangzhou ... our rooms there were much bigger, the area was nicer for getting out, and it would bring us one step closer to finalization. Finally at 1:30 PM, we boarded our shuttle bus to go back to the station. When we got there, Martin told the station manager that our little girl had been found at the station last November and now she was going to the U.S. They led us to a waiting area for "mothers and soldiers" (about 10 times nicer than the general waiting area) and quite a crowd of ladies from the station gathered around to see Hope. We took lots of pictures with them and FINALLY our train arrived. We boarded and said farewell to Shaoguan, again feeling a bit sad that this was the last we'd see of Hope's home city for many years.
The 3.5 hour train ride was long, and we had seats at the very front of the car. This meant we got the biggest blast of Chinese muzak and the biggest blast of air conditioning. They brought around some snacks for us, like a juice made of celery and seaweed (no one dared try it, we were such wimps!) and a pureed corn juice (Don tried this but didn't recommend it). The stuff was so funny, we wanted to keep it as souvenirs, but the cans were really too heavy. By the time we got back to Guanzhou at 5:30 PM, we were beat. Then we had to face running the gauntlet again at the station, only this time we were carrying babies in addition to all our luggage. It was pretty torturous ... it was still about 90 degrees out and beastly humid ... we had to navigate a series of underground tunnels to get into the terminal, then through the terminal, then the dangerous walk through the plaza to find our bus. Marcia could not keep up and we lost her ... Martin found a relatively safe spot for us to stand while he flew back through the crowd to get her. It was a nerve-wracking few minutes before they appeared again.
FINALLY, we reached our bus just after 6 PM and got back to the hotel around 6:30. We were so happy to be back in civilization! Of course when we got there, there was a big wait to get us checked back in and find our stored luggage, etc. We were all starving but no one felt like dealing with restaurants. We finally got settled back in by 7:30 and made our usual trek to the bakery for some baked goods and Orange Crush!
There was a crib waiting for us in our room so we tried Hope out in it. We had our usual night of her being up every two hours, but we were getting her to drink more formula off a spoon, and she was still having wet and poopy diapers so she wasn't dehydrated. Things maybe were looking up!
Part 5
Friday, 5/31
Today was kind of a breather day for us ... no paperwork to do and no scheduled activities. Everybody went their separate ways in the morning, with several people headed over to the fancy White Swan hotel for their famous breakfast buffet. We hopped a taxi to the Friendship Store in Guangzhou, which is a big, tourist-friendly department store. It was a bit slick for my liking but they had a big baby department and we were in search of a feeding set with a decent spoon and some different bottles to try. We found our dream product: a bottle with a spoon attachment! It was a British cereal feeder, and it had a plastic spoon with a hollow channel that screwed right onto the plastic bottle. We were very excited and glady paid the 2 dollars or whatever it was. We also went down to the lower level which had a market and stocked up on baby cereal, more formula, crackers, peanut butter, cookies, and even some M&Ms.
We brought everything back to the hotel and tried out the spoon feeder -- it worked great and Hope ate a whole 4 oz, her biggest feeding at one time yet! Sue & Don stopped by our room at lunchtime ... they had brought Nan to the White Swan hotel which has a doctor on premises. She saw their baby and pronounced that she had bronchitis and insisted that she get a shot and a whole bunch of other Chinese medicines. They let the doctor give her the shot, because they were so concerned about Nan's bad wheezing, but they didn't give her any of the medications. They were all in tiny, unlabeled bottles, with a piece of paper with scrawled directions. Don's dad is a doctor so they were going to call him later and see which U.S. medications would be appropriate and get her started on those.
We decided to take Hope to the doctor, too. We got a cab down there later in the day (95 degrees and 90% humid, one of the worst of the trip) and managed to see the doctor. She was an older Chinese woman and very nice, with a young housekeeper from the hotel acting as translator. They did an axillary temp check (thermometer under the arm for 8 minutes ... tell me that was fun!) and her temp was in the normal range. She pronounced Hope very weak and malnourished, but with no bronchitis. She declined to look at her ears, told me there was no such thing as an ear infection. She said Hope simply had a cold and she would give us medicine to help her breathe better and get stronger. She gave us a little bottle of red stuff, a little bottle of orange stuff, and a little bottle of clear liquid. One was a "strength tonic" which we were to apply to her arms and legs and leave on for 12 hours, but BE SURE THE BABY DOES NOT INGEST ANY OF IT. We nixed that one immediately but politely thanked her and took it all home.
I think that night we went to a buffet restaurant near the hotel and had a pretty good dinner. Funniest item on the table: Ram Chops! Also American mac and cheese plus English fish and chips, neither of which was anything like its namesake.
At 9 PM (which was 9 AM Eastern Standard Time), we put in a call to our pediatrician. He was busy so we made arrangements to call back at 9:30. He was so funny when I got him on the phone -- he said this was the longest distance call he'd ever taken in his whole career! I laid out the scenario for him: she is turning 7 mos old, she weighs maybe 12 lbs, she is developmentally like a 3 month old but she's alert, she is congested but not wheezing, she won't suck on a bottle, she cries when she's laying flat (and she cries much of the rest of the time too), she's been running a temp around 101-102, and I think she has an ear infection and I want to start her on Amoxicillan. Poor Dr. Breen hems and haws, he really can't diagnose this over the phone, I should really have her seen by a physician, etc. But the bottom line is he trusts my mother's intuition as a parent for 4 years, and he says okay, here's the dosage to try. We review all of the possible allergic reactions to look for and he makes me promise to get her to a hospital if anything happens. I love my doctor! We get out our drugs, mix up the Amox with the sterile water we've lugged all the way over there, give Hope her first dose.
Saturday, 6/1
This was another good day for us. Two doses of Amoxicillan had done Hope good. She actually cracked her first smile at Mark when he was sitting on the bed and making goofy faces at her (he's really good at this). I grabbed the camera and took at least 1/2 a dozen pictures of that brief moment ... no laughs yet, but a smile was pretty exciting!
We got up and decided to try breakfast at the coffee shop at the hotel. Met others in our group there and tried to find non-pork items (pretty challenging, as even the most unlikely foods seemed to have pork added to them somehow!). Anyway, we passed Hope back and forth while we ate (she was fussy as usual). Near the end of the meal, I ended up with her and was lifting her into the air to keep her occuppied. That's when she decided to smile at *me* and it was so exciting. I started yelping to everybody at the table and soon had the whole restaurant looking. They probably couldn't figure what was so exciting, but it was a real milestone: she liked me!!
We all met up with Martin to do some sightseeing. First we went to the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, one of the oldest temples in southern China with these huge centuries-old trees. There were several buildings but the most impressive was in the center: an ornate 13-story pagoda. People were milling around it, lighting incense at various altars and chanting. We went over to another pagoda and saw the "Benevolent Ladies" -- they were who you prayed to for fertility! The traditional Chinese fertility symbols are apples, oranges, and peanuts, and lots of these were left at the altar (they are also traditionally served at weddings). We wentThis was another good day for us. 36 hours of Amoxicillan had done Hope good. She actually cracked her first smile at Mark when he was sitting on the bed and making goofy faces at her (he's really good at this). I grabbed the camera and took at least 1/2 a dozen pictures of that brief moment ... no laughs yet, but a smile was pretty exciting!
We got up and decided to try breakfast at the coffee shop type restaurant at the hotel. Met others in our group there and tried to find non-pork items (pretty challenging, as even the most unlikely foods seemed to have pork added to them somehow!). Anyway, we passed Hope back and forth while we ate (she was starting to move around more). Near the end of the meal, I ended up with her and was lifting her into the air to keep her occuppied. That's when she decided to smile at *me* and it was so exciting. I started yelping to everybody at the table and soon had the whole restaurant looking. They probably couldn't figure what was so exciting, but it was a real milestone: she liked me!!
We all met up with Martin to do some sightseeing. First we went to the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, one of the oldest temples in southern China with these huge centuries-old trees. There were several buildings but the most impressive was in the center: an ornate 13-story pagoda. People were milling around it, lighting incense at various altars and chanting. We went over to another pagoda which housed gold statues of women. Martin told us these were the "Benevolent Ladies" and they were who you prayed to for fertility! The traditional Chinese fertility symbols are apples, oranges, and peanuts, and lots of bowls of these were left at the altar (they are also traditionally served at weddings). We went into yet another pagoda and Martin asked us if we wanted our babies blessed in a traditional Buddhist ceremony. We all agreed and he arranged it for us. We knelt with the girls in front of three *huge* gold-leafed Buddhas, and two monks performed a 10-minute ceremony for us, with lots of chanting, waving of incense, and laying on of hands. We didn't understand a word of it but it just felt right getting our daughters blessed in their native country.
Next, Martin took us to the jade market. In the front, there were places to buy paintings and have "chops" carved . We got a chop carved for Hope with her Chinese and English names, and picked out two paintings. We looked at all the jade things but ended up not buying anything ... too indecisive. This was my one and only experience using a traditional Chinese bathroom: a stall with a hole in the ground. You have to squat and bring your own toilet paper. It was not the worst thing I've ever had to do, but it takes practice not to splash your feet, drag your clothes on the floor, etc. We were told by Mary, the woman in our group who had adopted before, that this was actually the nicest Chinese bathroom she'd seen!
We were pretty hot and tired by this time so we voted to head over the White Swan Hotel for lunch. Most of us decided to go for cheeseburgers and fries. I'm not a big meat eater but that burger really hit the spot! We also looked around the fancy shops there and ended up buying Hope a jade heart pendant on a traditional red string necklace. Also boughtrnoon, we walked over to Liuhua Park, the big park next to our hotel. It had a manmade lake, walking trails, picnic benches, and little cafes. It was a pleasant break from the city noise and crowds and we walked all around the lake.
Can't remember what we did for dinner or after ... sleep problems continued and I ended up sleeping with Hope most of the time. We did SO much walking in that hotel room and our 7th floor corridor ... if we stopped before she was asleep, she'd start screaming! I estimate that we spent at least 2 hours a night just walking, switching off every few hours. I know one day at 6 AM Mark got up and took her for a walk in the park, just to have some variety! Oh well, she was definitely eating more and becoming responsive.
Part 6
Sunday, 6/2
We had dim sum at the Pan Xi restaurant (largest in China, seat over 2000 people!). It was a fun and funny experience. We were all seated at a big round table in a section obviously reserved for tourists ... there were groups from California there, Swedish and English tourists, and Japanese groups. Lots of people came over to ask about the babies. Martin and Fang had ordered everything ahead of time for us then went to sit in another area to do some paperwork. The service was slow as we were getting accustomed to! We got one round of food, then nothing else came for more than a half hour. Meanwhile, the party next to us had gone but waitresses had come and left huge platters of rice on their table (we had seen this done at another restaurant ... the people got tired of waiting and got up and left, then the waitress put the food out on the table anyway when it was finally ready). Well, we were all pretty hungry, so Nicole the New Yorker took charge. She marched over to the table, grabbed the huge platter of rice and brought it back to our table. We passed it around then finally some more of our food arrived (but no rice yet) ... we ate that course, then after another LONG wait, the dessert stuff arrived. It was like a 3 hour lunch and the babies were exhausted. My husband had taken Hope into the men's room to change her diaper (he is a totally equal opportunity dad) and was told he was the first man they ever saw in there with a baby, and changing a diaper, no less!
Mark and I went to the Nanfang Department Store ... this is a traditional Chinese Dept store and had five floors to look around in. The first floor was groceries, second floor was women's clothes (bought my mom a silk blouse, was too cheap to buy anything for myself, which of course I now regret); third floor was electronics and appliances (all they sell are tiny versions of everything, since apartments are so small); fourth floor was kids clothes and toys (nothing we couldn't buy at home -- Lego, Tonka, etc.); and the top floor was giftware and jewelry. We didn't buy much but enjoyed looking around, and planned to come back.
Monday, 6/3
Today was the day we brought our girls to a clinic for medical exams.
First we took a bus to the consulate area, which is the British quarter of the city ... European buildings, less crowded, etc. We had to get our babies' pictures taken for their passports first at a little photo store. We stood in line in the heat with a bunch of other Americans for about a half hour before we could get in. They have you prop the baby up on a stand and kneel next to her, holding up her head for the picture ... and if your hand appears in the picture, they have to call you back and do it again. This happened for most of us, so this little errand to a while to accomplish.
Next, we took a bunch of paperwork to the Guangzhou People's Medical Clinic #1. Very spartan and crowded ... another long wait. Thank God for Martin, he seemed to know what he was doing and would shuffle us around from line to line to try and move us along. Again, we hung out with a bunch of Americans, many of whom had babies who looked sicker than ours and had had problems along the way. First, we had to wait in a line for weighing and measuring ... a nurse took each baby and put them on an old rickety baby scale and before the scale stopped moving, yelled out a number and handed the baby back to you. Hope weighed just under 12 lbs., like Rosie. Nan and Sadie, on the other hand, each weighed around 16 lbs. Finally, we made it through the next line and into a cubicle with a Chinese doctor. We realized he seemed to be testing hearing and vision, though it seemed ludicrous given the noise level of the place. He had me sit with Hope on my lap and he shined a flashlight at her, then clapped his hand on one side of her head and then the other. Hope had absolutely no response to any of this but he pronounced her a fine baby and stamped her paperwork. The last line was to have the babies examined, by a doctor who looked to be about 16. You brought the child in and were supposed to undress her and lay her on a big table (with no paper or sheet). We got out our changing mat and put Hope on that. The doctor glanced at her, felt her stomach, pronounced her healthy, and that was it.
We all went to the White Swan again for lunch and to enjoy the air conditioning. In the afternoon, we had to make a trip to the Guangzhou Provincial Police Department, entailing a hairy taxi ride. Another silly trip ... Martin said we needed to make a personal appearance before an officer to obtain some kind of clearance. We schlepp down there, Martin takes all our papers to a window, somebody stamps them without so much as glancing at us, then we are free to go again. Oh well, we certainly have gotten to see a lot of the city during our taxi rides.
Tuesday 6/4
Today is our most important appointment: our interview at the US consulate. We have to show our passports and other documents to be let in. We go through metal detectors and are led upstairs to a conference room. They are all set up for babies! They have cribs, a playpen, swings, and some toys along with couches and a couple interviewing stations. After about a half-hour wait, a young consulate officer comes in and welcomes us. He says he's only been on the job a few weeks so he hasn't done too many adoption groups. He stresses how important it is that we have all our required documents and that we answer questions truthfully. We are told to say, if anyone asks in transit, that we are adopting *orphaned* babies rather than "abandoned"* babies ... the difference in terminology could cause trouble if someone really wanted to detain us. We are also told that we will be given a large, sealed manila envelope of documents. Under NO circumstances are we to let it get out of our possession nor are we to open it ... it is only to be opened by the immigration officer in San Francisco. If it is missing or tampered with, our daughters may not be allowed to enter the country and could be taken from us into temporary custodial care. Well, that's pretty scary to think about, so we all get pretty obsessive about our manila envelopes!!
The interview was pretty anticlimactic ... just exchanging pleasantries, reviewing the paperwork, and signing some things. At the end, we all got our pictures taken with the INS officer, who was probably a bit baffled by our giddiness. WE WERE DONE! OUR DAUGHTERS WERE REALLY OURS!
Then Martin took us on another interesting excursion! He had us walk over to the the Qing Ping Market, which is the traditional way of shopping. We descend a footbridge into the marketplace, which is actually under part of a roadway. There are huge puddles of murky water everywhere -- poor Nicole steps right into a big one with her sandals -- yuck! Once again, Martin chides us to stay together, keep our wallets and passports against our bodies, etc. We start in the area of medicinal herbs: these are stalls that sell roots, powdered goat horns, herbs, tonics, etc. It all smells really weird but it's not scary. Then we round the corner to the livestock area and see lots of things not found in American markets: cages of live chickens and ducks, lizards, snakes, and the biggest rats I've ever seen -- they were the size of prairie dogs. Martin assured us that rats are delicious but we keep on walking. Frogs and turtles were laying gutted on trays, kittens meowed from stacks of cages nearby, and the worst thing was a little dead fawn lay staring at us in the middle of one of the stalls. We finally exited the Qing Ping Market with a renewed sense of appreciation for our local grocery stores.
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to souvenir shopping in the blistering heat.
In the evening, we had a pizza party in our room! I had read on the Net that there was a Pizza Hut in Guangzhou and someone had posted the phone number, which I brought with me. We were all actually giddy at the thought of eating pizza. We had Fang get the menu for us and place the order. It was hilarious! He had to insist that YES, we wanted sauce and cheese on our pizzas and YES, we really did was the EXTRA CHEESE variety (they still didn't believe us and sent a regular pizza with an extra container of Mozzarella cheese). It took 15 minutes to get the order in. Fang and Martin explained to us that in China, people generally don't like cheese and they don't like tomato sauce ... so pizza's not a real big concept there yet! Martin says most Chinese he knows order the Meat Lover's Pizza with no sauce and no cheese!
Our pizzas got delivered and we gave the delivery boy a tip that was equivalent to about $10 U.S. He was so excited and flustered that he left the pizza cases behind and we had to chase him down to the lobby with them. We had a great time! We had brought a portable CD player and some mini-speakers (Mark and I are really big music fans), so we put on some Hootie and the Blowfish, ate pizza and drank Orange Crush, and had a good old time. Attracted a lot of attention from other guests on our floor and the maids.
Part 7
Wednesday, 6/5
Our last full day in China, with no more official business to do. Martin planned a half-day of sightseeing for us, with a farewell banquet at night.
We took a bus to Yuexiu Park, largest park in the city. On the way, Martin told us the legend of the five goats, who are very important to the city's history. Apparently five spirits appeared to five goats and gave them each a sheaf of wheat and rice to plant. The five goats did so and the city prospered. (This is a totally abridged version of the story, of course!!) We got out and hiked up to a large plaza where people sold souvenirs and there was a huge statue of five goats. The most interesting thing was the deafening buzz of cicadas in the air ... we hadn't heard much of any nature noise for two weeks, so it was neat. This was the park where we'd read people take their pet birds for walks, and sure enough, there were old men carrying little cages with finches inside into the park!
We took pictures in front of the goat statues, then Martin led us down a steep path into the woods. We reached an area of relief carvings that told the legend of the five spirits and goats. We went down another steep set of steps and ended up by a waterfall and pool. We took some nice pictures and saw lots of amazing red canna lilies and orchids. We also saw a group of older people doing tai chi. We walked somemore and finally got back to the bus.
Next we went to the Guangdong Porcelain Factory, where we watched porcelain being painted and we could shop for souvenirs. We didn't buy too much (my husband thinks I have enough pottery already!) -- just a couple necklaces, and also some Christmas decorations.
In the afternoon, we went back to the Nanfang Dept. Store and bought three dresses for Hope. We couldn't figure out the sizing, so I just bought stuff that looked big. Turns out that Hope wore one dress for her christening in the fall, and can already wear the other two now ... wish I'd bought some even bigger sizes. We also bought a tiny tea set for her, some silk pajamas for her, and some other odds and ends.
That night, we had dinner at the seafood restaurant adjacent to Liuhua Park, across from our hotel (for those going to Guangzhou, it's the restaurant with the Rolls Royces parked in front with the midget doorman ... sounds totally bizarre, I know, but a great place). This was quite fancy with about a dozen hostesses in formal dress. We attracted a lot of attention, and waitresses buzzed around us constantly. We let Martin order and he did a great job. We had some excellent eggplant and tofu dishes, plus chicken, shrimp and fish. We had traditional Chinese tea and wine, and several big toasts to Martin and Fang.
The big surprise came when Martin went around the table and presented each of us with a 5 x 7 laminated picture of our group. We had taken a group shot at the White Swan the day we went to the Consulate, but we had no idea what Martin would do with it. On the back of each picture, he had laminated in a personalized message for each family, in Chinese and English, wishing us the best of luck with our new daughters and inviting us to return to China someday. He also passed out a list of everyone's addresses and phone numbers, as well as his, Fang's and the address for our orpanage. We were SO touched! We had a big bag of gifts for Martin and his family (he and his wife had an 8 year old girl), plus an American cash tip. He did not open anything in front of us, as is Chinese etiquette, but I'm sure he and his wife were excited that night at home!
We parted at the hotel and went back to pack up. We left a lot of stuff behind for the hotel maids to make room for our souvenirs, but managed to get it all just barely in!
Thursday, 6/6 -- flight home!
Our total time in transit to get home was set to be about 26 hours. We had to be in the hotel lobby, ready to go to the airport at 6 AM. We got ourselves checked out relatively without incident and met Martin one last time in the lobby. At the final banquet, we had all lamented about bringing cartons of Marlboro cigarettes and never even using them for gifts or to get favors. Martin cracked up and told us we should have SAID we had cigarettes with us ... he could have used them along the way. So we promised to give Martin all our cigarettes plus the leftover cans of soy formula our kids wouldn't drink ... he'd find an organization to take them. So we showed up in the lobby with our bags of cigarettes and formula. We took pictures and then it was time to go.
We took our bus to Guangzhou Airport and waited in a huge line to get into the international terminal. We said tearful goodbyes to Martin and schlepped our stuff to the check-in area. Some people had to pay overage fees because their luggage was too heavy, but we did okay. All this time, Hope was being pretty good ... she liked being on the move. We finally heard an announcement about our plane and had to carry all our stuff across the tarmac to get to it! When we got on the plane, we sat on the runway for 45 minutes, getting more and more nervous that we might miss our connection in Hong Kong. Two stewardesses came back and told Don and Sue that there was a problem with their tickets, one seat had not been paid for. Now we had paid for all our travel upfront and Martin did all the arrangements, so they argued back and forth for a bit. Don finally realized that the cost worked out to only about $35 US and that was well worth getting out of the country!
Just before we took off, Hope fell asleep in my arms and slept the whole 45 minute flight and didn't wake up til we were midway through Hong Kong airport. That was really confusing to try and figure out, but we finally made our transfer and found the gate for our United flight to San Francisco. It was mobbed! Marcia's baby, Rosie, was sobbing hysterically. We were all trying to help her and she was feeling awful about it. Rosie had not cried too much in China so this was new for her.
We waited around and did not get to board the plane til almost an hour after the scheduled departure time. We were all really depressed, as we had only a 2-hour layover time in SF to do customs, immigration, and baggage transfer stuff, and now we were down to only an hour ... way too close for comfort. We started squawking to the stewardesses about it the minute we got on the plane, but they were not much help.
Miraculously, Hope fell asleep in my arms again just minutes before take-off, and slept for the first hour or so. The next 11 hours are totally surreal. Rosie screamed two rows behind us. We played with books and key and links. We took turns walking the aisles, then tried to take turns sleeping. There were no empty seats on the whole plane, so it was cramped. I sat with Hope for two hours while Mark slept, then I spent a lot of time loitering at the back of the plane, looking down at the ocean. Hope was really truly good ... she got fussy but no out-and-out screaming on the flight.
When we got to within an hour of landing, we ganged up on the stewardesses and begged them to call ahead to hold our connecting flight to Boston. We were told not to worry, they were aware of how late we were, blah blah blah. We were all pretty pissed. As it was, we were supposed to be getting into Boston at 8 PM, 26 hours after we started. No way did we want to be later than that, plus we had family and friends waiting.
We finally land. It takes eons to disembark, then we all race to the luggage area. Our luggage was NOWHERE to be found. We pace around that carousel like lunatics, more than a few of us in tears. After 40 minutes, our luggage FINALLY appears ... the very last off the plane. We grab it and ran to the immigration line (special area for first-time arrivals). The guy there is nice and speeds us through but tells us it's unlikely they'll hold the plane. By the time we get to the United transfer desk, it's five minutes before our flight is scheduled to go. We are told that they will not hold the plane for 4 adults and 4 babies. We go ballistic ... woman we talked to says she'll have to get her supervisor. Fine, we're ready for him or her! Supervisor finally comes out and says it's against policy to hold a plane, they are sticklers about leaving on time (hmmm, tell that to our United pilot in Hong Kong who left a whole hour late and got us into this mess!), and they will get us on a later flight. We see there's a flight to Boston in less than 2 hours. Sorry, she says, that flight's full, but she might have seats on the one that leaves in 5 hours and arrives at 1 AM. Totally not acceptable to us. She offers to fly us to LA, then get a flight to Boston from there. No way, we don't want to risk doing another connection on United. We rant and stamp our feet a little more, and she retreats. Ten minutes later, a new person appears and asks us to give her our tickets ... she's found some empty seats on that next flight to Boston after all, and will get us on it.
Phew! We got down to our gate and hang out for an hour, use the restrooms, call our families, etc. We had booked a limo to take Andrew and my Mom to the airport to meet us, so we had to re-book that. My mom and Andrew were out on a school field trip, so I had to leave a message on the machine and hope she'd see it before she left!
Finally, on the plane to Boston, set to arrive at 10 PM. Hmmm, what do you know, it's not even full with us "extra" people on it!? A nice man offers to change seats so Mark and I have a seat for Hope in between us -- luxury! Not that she can sit up to use it, but it's nice to have some room! She slept through take-off once again, and was more agitated on this flight. We did a lot of walking, but now we were getting our adrenalin back so we didn't mind so much. I even read part of a book! The last half-hour of the flight, Hope broke down and screamed, but mercifully fell asleep once again just 5 mins before landing. She slept all through de-planing and didn't wake up til we were out of the gate! There was Andrew, looking very sleepy, and my mom, looking very excited. Andrew had brought a teddy bear for Hope but was most excited by the limo ride. We schlepped down for our final time at retrieving luggage, and said our goodbyes to our friends. We found our limo and tried to settle Hope into the car seat, but no way! She screamed and screamed and screamed. I finally took her out and rode with her in the Snugli in my lap, as we had in China. We arrived home in NH just before midnight, 30 hours after leaving China! It felt great to be home!!!!
Phew, what a long story. Thanks to everyone for your interest in reading it, and it's been great to get it all down on paper before my memory erodes any further. I suggest you all do the same as soon as you get home from China.
Heidi D. Mom to Andrew (5) and Hope Zhanru (20 mos)