Part 1
It has taken me forever to get this written, but here it is...
Zoe is truly amazing, and for the first several weeks, I couldn't quite comprehend that she was with me forever, that I wasn't just babysitting someone else's kid. This whole process is so unreal in a way. I guess I never really let myself believe that I would have a baby at the end of it until it happened. I'd spent the last year reading others' accounts of their trips and stories about their children, but I never quite believed that I too would be on the other side. It's the most difficult part of waiting , to have that faith. It's true that none of the process, the paperwork or the waiting matters now , there really is a child at the end of it all, and once you have her, everything changes.
Zoe was living in an orphanage in Qingyuan City, about 60 miles from Guangzhou, so my whole stay in China was in Guangzhou at the White Swan Hotel for just six days -- much shorter than the trip I originally expected. I was disappointed at first that I wasn't going to see more of China, but once there, I realized it would have added more stress to a trip that's already stressful enough. I enjoy traveling and experiencing new places and cultures, but I was ready to come home at the end of the week. Once I had Zoe, I just wanted to be in a familiar place and somewhere where I didn't have to eat all of my meals out or as a room service meal. We ended up ordering room service several times so that Zoe could play on the floor while we ate, which she was quite content doing and which wasn't possible in a restaurant. I also missed having potable water out of the faucet -- it was just an extra burden making and washing bottles. I felt like I was on a camping trip in a luxurious hotel. So I was happy that our trip was as short as it was. Of course, now I really miss China and wish I'd taken more video and more pictures and can't wait to go back ...
Thursday, June 5
Our trip started with a 6:20 a.m. flight out of Harrisburg, PA with my father along to provide emotional support, haul luggage, take pictures and be a new grandpa to Zoe. Even though I'd been collecting packing lists for a year, we were still up until 1:30 a.m. the night before leaving trying to fit everything in. I'd gathered everything, but waited too late to start trying to pack it, breaking medicines and baby supplies down into ziploc bags, trying to decide exactly what clothes I needed for Zoe, sorting what I needed in my carry-on. My poor father had come with his new suitcase (a retirement gift from co-workers) neatly packed, but when we realized that all of my stuff, plus all the baby's stuff just wasn't going to fit into my one duffel bag, we repacked Dad's clothes into a second duffel bag I had waiting in the wings, along with some of Zoe's things and gifts for the orphanage. We left with two large duffel bags on wheels that we checked and one day pack that we carried on, plus Dad's fanny pack.
Our agency recommended that we take $7,000 in cash, and when I learned that the largest currency is $100 bills (I somehow thought there were still $500s floating around), I started worrying about the bulkiness of the money. We wore three under-clothing money carriers , one that my father wore strapped to his calf; one that I had around my waist under my pants and a third that hung around my neck and also held our passports. I'd used the waist belt for a previous trip to Belize and discovered then how hard it was to get your passport out of it when you needed it, so the neck carrier worked well for the passports. We ended up coming home with almost $2,000, with some of our hotel expenses charged on credit cards.
We flew United, from Harrisburg to Dulles to San Francisco to Hong Kong. When we reached San Francisco, after what was already starting to feel like a pretty long day, we met up with three of the other families in my travel group, all from California and just starting their trip , two couples and one husband traveling without his wife, who had just started a new job and wasn't able to leave. We all compared referral photos and got to know one another a little bit while we waited.
The 14-hour flight to Hong Kong was worse than I expected -- it was just unbearably long and cramped. At one point, I looked at my watch and realized we still had eight hours to go , a whole work day! When I made my first lap walking around the plane, I discovered that several of the back rows had only one person stretched out across three or four seats, sleeping, and that they must have known enough to get moved to the empty seats when they got on the plane. It would definitely be worth fighting for one of those rows , about halfway through the flight, I wanted nothing more than to be able to lie down. We watched three movies, ate lunch, got hot towels for our faces and socks to wear instead of our shoes, then they dimmed all the lights so that people could sleep. It's a very Twilight Zone feeling, hurtling through the air in a long, skinny darkened torture chamber for hours on end, with bright sunshine outside.
At some point during our flight (you lose all sense of time), the head flight attendant came looking for us; she had an e-mail from one of the other women in our group, who is also a flight attendant for United (but wasn't on our flight). She'd let them know there were four families on their flight who were adopting from China and to treat us with extra care, so they brought each of us a bottle of champagne! The champagne probably would have helped me sleep on the way over, but I didn't think my father and I could polish off the whole bottle, and I didn't want to get any more dehydrated than I already was. So I ended up carrying the bottle, still wrapped in its white United napkin, the rest of the way to China and back home with us. (We finally drank it recently when we had a reunion with one of the other families in my travel group, while eating dinner on our deck, with both babies happily eating in their high chairs!)
After an eternity and many laps around the plane, we finally landed in Hong Kong and emerged to very warm, humid air and a walk down a flight of steps to the tarmac, where we waited for one of the transport buses. I'd never really stood right under a 747 before , it's big! It wasn't until we‘d retrieved our luggage and were waiting outside in line for a taxi that I realized how close the runway was to the city as a huge plane passed right over our heads to land (we hadn't had window seats, so didn't really see our landing).
A friend who'd traveled last summer said that she thought it was better to take a red-eye flight, but I thought it worked out better to leave home in the morning. I didn't sleep much on the flights over, so I was really exhausted by the time we got to Hong Kong Friday evening, and slept through my first night. By morning, I was on Hong Kong time.
Friday and Saturday, June 6 and 7
We spent two nights in Hong Kong, staying at the Kowloon Panda Hotel in the New Territories, which was not too expensive (US$109 a night) and pretty nice. It wasn't as convenient to the tourist sites, but the hotel ran a free shuttle to Kowloon. We had to ask the bell hop how to turn on the room lights , you stuck the key card in a slot inside the door to activate the switch, which meant that you could always find your room key, and the lights were always off when you left the room (great power saver). The tv in our room seemed to only have three or four channels on it, most in Chinese.
After we'd settled, my father called the Lees, a Taiwanese family formerly from State College (my father's home town) and now living in Hong Kong. They offered to show us around Hong Kong, and ended up spending our entire stay with us and giving us a whirlwind tour. We visited a restored Hakka homestead close to the hotel; took the train to the street vendors in Mong Kok; ate at an excellent dim sum restaurant for lunch (one of the best meals I had on the trip); rode the Star Ferry to Hong Kong; took the tram to Victoria Peak; toured Sha Tin (where the Lees lived) and visited a temple, the Chinese University of Hong Kong where Dr. Lee teaches, ate another delicious lunch at the faculty club (we sampled eel, jellyfish, thousand year eggs, and other less exotic foods) and ended up at the most crowded shopping mall I've ever been in , wall-to-wall people and incredibly noisy, with security guards in abundance. It was a wonderful welcome and made the time fly to Sunday, when we left for Guangzhou.
The Lees dropped us off at the Hong Kong airport with plenty of time to catch our late afternoon flight to Guangzhou. We found our way upstairs to the waiting area and were reunited with the others in our group. We also met the last two members of our group , two other single moms. We all compared sightseeing stories and waited for our flight to board.
The flight to Guangzhou was uneventful. Flying out of Hong Kong, we were mostly over water, and I could see a steady stream of ships below , it looked like an interstate highway.
After landing and a long wait in line, we made it through immigration. We all retrieved our luggage, then headed out to the main waiting area, where we found Sam and Mrs. Wang, our translator and facilitator, waiting for us as promised, holding a sign that said "Adam Wang welcomes you" (Adam is Mrs. Wang's brother-in-law). We were all very happy to see them. They had a mini bus waiting for us and a separate van for our luggage. We dumped our luggage on the sidewalk by the van, then followed Sam across the street to where the bus was waiting.
Since we saw Guangzhou for the first time by dark, I was struck by the number of neon signs and how modern the city looked, also by how many signs were in English, as well as Chinese. We finally arrived at the causeway to the White Swan, lit by white lights in the shape of swans (or flowers?) along the water. We entered the hotel through the group tour entrance at the lower level, then waited while Sam and Mrs. Wang took our passports and checked us in. Because Mrs. Wang handled the reservations, we had a lower room rate, $90 per room a night (cribs included) instead of $120.
After Sam handed us our room keys, he went over the plan for the morning, and we learned that we were going to the orphanage to get the babies the next afternoon! We had an appointment at the adoption registration office at 10 a.m., but had to get additional passport photos for us first (at a shop right behind the hotel). We'd ride the minibus to the adoption registration office, then leave from there to go to the orphanage in Qingyuan City, which would be about a two-hour ride.
I spent the rest of the evening unpacking and organizing what I would need for the baby the next day. We discovered that one of the cans of formula had burst open on our flight; unfortunately it wasn't in a plastic bag, so there was sticky, powdered formula all over everything packed around it (but fortunately, it was in a pocket and not the main part of the duffel bag).
After the several feasts we'd had with the Lees, neither of us was very hungry, so we ate a dinner of canned chicken salad, rye krisp crackers and peanut M&Ms (healthy!). This was one of only two times that we ate the snack food I'd brought, except for a daily dose of M&Ms (we finished the bag before the week was over, but fortunately found more at the White Swan). I was too wound up to eat anyway, too intent on trying to decide what I needed to take for the baby , how much formula, which bottles, which nipples, what clothes. As it turned out, I needed NONE of the baby things except for two toys and a blanket until we'd returned to the room the next day, but I was prepared!
Part 2
Monday, June 9
The first thing I heard when we walked into the White Swan's breakfast buffet was babies , babies babbling, babies squealing in delight and some babies crying. Because of the way the restaurant is laid out, I couldn't really see them, but I could hear them. It still didn't seem real to me that I too was going to have a baby in my arms by the time we sat down for supper that evening.
The breakfast buffet was great , coffee was the only disappointment. I asked for decaf coffee, which was brought to me as an envelope of Sanka partially torn open and elegantly perched on a small saucer. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, and I was regretting that I hadn't brought my Melitta cone and filters with me so I could make a real cup of coffee.
The restaurant staff at the White Swan was a little overwhelming at times, a little too attentive. Any time one of us left the table, someone came and re-folded our napkins. They were always taking away plates, so we learned to hover over them until we were done. At other times, they could be maddeningly slow, such as when you asked for silverware or another cup of tea or coffee. But everyone was friendly; each person you passed on your way out said "thank you, bye bye" as you left.
After stopping at the photo shop for additional photos, we boarded our bus (we had the same driver and bus for the week we were there). It was a short trip through the city to what seemed like a mostly residential area to the Guangdong Provincial Adoption Registry for Foreigners. The door to the office was off a small courtyard, and just across the doorway was a home where a woman was hanging diapers on clothes hangers to dry the (Chinese diapers look like dish towels , Zoe had exactly the same kind of diaper on her when I got her). The office was up a narrow flight of stairs, and we all trooped up them, only to get stuck halfway up by a logjam of another group that had gotten there ahead of us. We ended up having to walk back down and wait outside for about 20 minutes. We then started going up one at a time until there was enough room in the office for the rest of us.
There was a desk in one corner and a table in the middle of the room with two officials conducting the interviews. The official at the middle table apparently couldn't speak English, since Sam seemed to be helping translate. When we got into the room, Sam handed us some paperwork that included a more current photo of Zoe. She was sitting in the same chair as she'd been in for her referral photo, and she looked like a little imp, still with a full head of hair like her referral photo, but curly! Her red footprint was stamped next to the photo, and it looked so big! I started worrying that maybe she was a lot bigger than I'd thought and that the clothes I'd brought might not fit. Based on her weight of 8 lbs. at two months and the Chinese growth charts, I was expecting her to be between 15 and 20 pounds.
I ended up being interviewed at the desk in the corner by the official who could speak English. My father sat down next to me, which was a good thing, since I couldn't think of the answer to the first question I was asked: "How old are you?" I was mentally subtracting years while the official waited, when my father answered that I was 41. He asked me all the standard questions: Why did I want to adopt, if I'd seen a picture of the baby and had gotten information on her, if I wanted her, if I promised to give her a good education and never abandon her. He wrote all my answers down on a piece of paper in Chinese, and had me sign it. He only asked me why I wanted to adopt, not why I wanted to adopt -from China-, but I was so prepared for the latter question that I spit out the answer I'd been rehearsing in my head -- that I wanted to be a mom and that I thought Chinese children were beautiful, that I admired Chinese culture and that I was looking forward to teaching my daughter about China. Then it was over, no questions about my plans for day care or how I would help her learn about her culture. I signed my name several times, made a red imprint of my index finger on two documents, then was handed a certificate, all in Chinese , I only recognized my name and Zoe's on one of them. I didn't realize it at the time, but the adoption was final at that point, and we hadn't even seen the babies yet! This was also our only interview.
We left the office around noon, but not before using the toilet in a building across the courtyard. It was a ceramic bowl set flush with the floor, with two ribbed ceramic rectangles on either side to anchor your feet. There was a tank on the wall to flush water through it. I used some Purell that one of the other women had brought to clean my hands , I highly recommend taking some instead of packages of hand wipes. Much easier to use.
Our trip to the orphanage took about an hour and a half, and gave us a real taste of Chinese traffic. The traffic was as bad as everyone had said. There were several times I thought for sure we were going to knock someone off a bike or have a head-on collision while passing on a two lane road, but somehow it all worked. We passed only one accident on our return trip from the orphanage, a truck that had overturned.
The road to Qingyuan City was good, four lane at the beginning, then two-lane and paved all the way. Traffic was heavy, with everyone going at different speeds, from 30 mph to 60 mph (or faster), and all kinds of vehicles , buses like ours, trucks hauling pigs, motor bikes, bicycles, and people , we even passed someone walking a water buffalo. Drivers use their horns all the time, and no one ever seems to look back when merging onto a road from an entrance ramp -- you just keep going and figure that someone will move out of the way.
On the way to the orphanage, Sam taught us a few Chinese words , how to say, "This is my daughter", " I love you" and "Grandpa" for my father. He also told us that we would not be allowed to take any photos inside the orphanage, except in the room where we'd receive the babies.
When we got to Qingyuan City, we had to stop several times to ask directions to the orphanage. Finally, Sam found someone on a motor scooter who lead the way, with Sam riding on the seat behind him. Qingyuan seemed like a pretty good-sized city, I think Sam told us it was a million people. We came to an intersection with a non-functional traffic light, turned right, then turned right again down what looked like a small alley , basically wide enough for one lane. We stopped at the gate of the orphanage. I'm not sure what I expected, but the gate led into a very pretty courtyard, which we walked through to a building on the other side, up an open flight of stairs, then into a room with chairs lining the walls and a new-looking big screen tv. It was unbelievably hot inside the room , it felt like 100 degrees. There was one air conditioner thumping away, but you could only feel cool air if you stood directly in front of it.
We all nervously sat down in the chairs, with our bags of gifts and well-stocked diaper bags and camera bags at our feet. Sam introduced Mrs. Huang, the orphanage director, then the staff served us hot tea and watermelon. I don't think any of us felt like eating and were certainly too hot for the tea, but out of politeness, I ate one slice of watermelon and drank some tea. Sam told us that they were bathing the babies, and that they'd bring them in when done. We could hear babies somewhere in the orphanage. I had a mental picture of them in the next room, squealing and babbling as they were being bathed, but I'm not really sure where they were relative to us.
Sam mentioned ahead of time that we should think of what questions we wanted to ask Mrs. Huang, so Dad and I had written down specific questions about Zoe: where was she found, how old she was when found, were there any notes pinned to her, did they have any other information about her. When the time came to ask questions, Sam and Mrs. Huang sat down in the middle of the room, and we asked questions as a group while Sam translated. As it turned out, none of us asked any questions specific to our child, but instead asked the more immediate questions: what did they eat, how often do we feed them, when do they sleep, are they on regular formula or soy (the answer was regular formula, but I'm still not quite sure what kind of formula that was , I'd only brought soy). The babies were eating little solid food, mostly formula, with some congee and cooked apples or applesauce, but not really any other solid food, and their feeding schedule included a 2 a.m. bottle.
We didn't have a chance to ask any individual questions about our babies, since the next thing we knew, the first baby was brought in , Emme, with her wet spiky hair sticking straight up all over. Becky came in next, and with each baby, Sam would ask her name, then announce it to us. They were all Guo Jian ______ (Guo Jian Ling, Guo Jian Ming, Guo Jian Yi, etc.), and we all had a hard time discerning the difference in what he was saying, so he'd often end up spelling the third name after repeating it several times.
Zoe was the third baby that appeared in the doorway, and I knew her from the picture I'd seen that morning, but Sam didn't notice that she'd been brought in. I didn't want to go up to her until I'd heard her name (in case it wasn't her , how embarassing!). In the meantime, the next baby was brought in and handed to her parents before Sam noticed Zoe and announced her name, Guo Jian Ling. While we'd been waiting for Sam, the orphanage worker who'd brought her in had handed her to another woman, who I later realized had ridden on the bus with us to the orphanage. She was enjoying holding this cute baby and didn't seem in any hurry to hand her over, but she pointed at Zoe and gave me a thumbs up. I was worried about overwhelming Zoe (my biggest fear about the whole trip was that she was going to scream when they handed her to me, and that I wouldn't be able to console her), so I held back and just talked to her for a little bit. When I finally realized that the woman holding her wasn't going to voluntarily hand her over, I held my hands out for her and took her.
Zoe didn't cry at all, in fact she was extremely interested in everything that was going on in the room (it was getting quite noisy at that point), and kept whipping around so fast in my arms to look at noises and people that I was worried I was going to lose my grip on her. Her wet hair was very curly, and she looked small (I found out later that she weighed 16 lbs. 3 oz.). She had on a cotton one-piece outfit that looked like it had been donated (no traditional Chinese split-crotch pants), and I could feel that she had some sort of diaper on underneath. She was dressed for the heat and not bundled up as I'd expected from hearing about many of the babies in China being covered up, no matter what the temperature. When I look at the video and the pictures that my father took, I can see now that she had a very worried look on her face, with her brow a little furrowed and her lips pursed, giving her a very soulful look.
After a year of waiting and anticipation and imagining this moment, I expected to be overwhelmed with emotion, but I wasn't, and I'm not sure why not. I think it was a combination of a lot of things, from not knowing exactly how all this was going to happen, to worry about Zoe's health and her reaction to being yanked from all that was familiar to her, to the almost-unbearable heat in the room. The impact of it all really didn't hit me until two days later.
We all sat playing with our babies for a while, then they called each of us one at a time into the next room to pay the $3,000 orphanage donation and $500 notary fee and handed us receipts for the payments. By this time, most of us had wilted $100 bills, since we were all carrying our money under our clothes and the room was sweltering (did I mention it was hot??), but no one seemed to care. In return for our payment, we each received a pile of documents: a certificate of abandonment, a certified copy of the medical report we'd received with the referral, a birth certificate and an adoption certificate, all translated into English. I learned that Zoe had been left in the doorway of a maternity hospital when she was two days old in Qingyuan City, but it was the only information I got about her.
It seemed like it took forever for us to finish up and leave the orphanage. Just before leaving, we handed our gifts to Mrs. Huang. Most of us had packed them in the White Swan shopping bags that we'd found in our rooms. I had one bag of about eight small gifts for the staff at the orphanage , two sets of stamps, a pack of postcards from where I live, post-it notes, pens, etc. and some donations for the orphanage , baby Tylenol, pacifiers, rattles, toys, crayons and coloring books, etc., plus a gift for Mrs. Huang of a Penn State t-shirt and a bag of Hershey candies. Unfortunately, she didn't look like the kind of person who might wear a t-shirt, but I didn‘t know until we got there whether the director was a man or woman. Hopefully, someone in her family has been able to use it. Mrs. Huang accepted all the bags of gifts and piled them on the floor in the room where we'd been, but didn't open any while we were there.
On the way out, we took photos of the courtyard and the outside of the orphanage. My father got some good video footage of some of the women watching us leave, and one shot of two of the aunties and a toddler looking out a window of the ophanage. Our trip back to Guangzhou was pretty silent, with sleeping babies and relieved parents feeling happy and full of awe at the angelic infants on their laps.
When we got back to the hotel, I realized that Zoe's diaper had slipped and that she and I were both wet. Her diaper was two thicknesses of rectangular cloth folded lengthwise into thirds with a piece of plastic sheeting (looked like a recycled piece) cut to fit. This went from her belly, through her legs to her back and was all held in place with an elastic band. Dad and I undressed her and checked her over , she was perfect! We found three mongolian spots down her spine, the largest one at the base of her spine, and she had a little heat rash on her forehead and right arm, but no other marks anywhere else. Since I've been home, I've noticed that the top of her right foot looks like it was either burned or blistered at some time , the skin looks new , and that she has a tiny scar on her right thigh.
After changing her, I gave her a bottle. I used a Playtex disposable with a silicone nipple that I'd found to fit it with an X cut into the nipple with my pocketknife to enlarge the hole. She didn't take a lot of formula, and she had absolutely no interest in rice cereal, so we went on down to the restaurant for dinner. Zoe went right to sleep after dinner. She woke up as promised for her bottle during the night, but fell back to sleep as soon as the bottle was done.
I'd taken a 10-oz. thermos that LL Bean sells to use with Zoe's bottles, and I was really glad I did. I could mix the boiled water into it to the right temperature before going to bed, then just pour from it to mix her middle-of-the-night bottle. The thermos was also indispensable on the trip back and while traveling around in China.
Part 3
Tuesday, June 10
We had no appointments for the day, so Sam offered to take us to a jade shop and to a shop where we could buy chops and silk pajamas. I'm sure we paid more for the chops than if we'd looked around the White Swan (I never did figure out where the lady on the stairs was), but it was convenient. I forgot to take the character for Ling (Zoe's middle name) and realized later that she has the wrong character carved into her chop; Ling is a common name, but with lots of different translations.
The salespeople at the jade shop were relentless; you couldn't just look at anything without one of them trying to talk to you (in Chinese of course). Prices kept getting lower, and we finally bought a jade ring on a red string necklace that Sam told us would help calm the baby.
My father and I planned to walk around Shamian Island that afternoon, since I hadn't been out at all (Dad had gone out for an early morning walk), but just as we were getting ready to go out, a big thunderstorm came up that lasted a while, so we toured the inside of the White Swan instead. We checked out all the restaurants, found the business center where I could send an e-mail, found both swimming pools and looked at the many shops on the ground floor.
We continued to try feeding Zoe food, including congee from the breakfast buffet, rice and soup broth. Most of the time, she made the most horrible face and stuck her tongue out and let whatever I'd put in fall out. Fortunately, she seemed to be doing okay on the formula.
Wednesday, June 11
At the breakfast buffet, Zoe was again very fussy, so we each had to take turns walking her while the other ate. The impact of the adoption hit me that morning when I was standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the Pearl River, bouncing Zoe in the sling and trying to calm her down. For some reason, the song "The only girl I ever love has gone away, looking for a brand new heart..." was running through my head, so I started to sing it to her. The effect was instantaneous -- she stopped fidgeting, gazed into my eyes as I sang, then immediately fell asleep. Tears welled up in my eyes -- that this child responded to my singing, that I was able to calm her, that she trusted me enough to fall asleep in my arms. For me, it was the true "gotcha" moment, more so than when she was handed to me at the orphanage. Unfortunately, my singing hasn't had the same effect since then!
We all met at noon for another bus ride to Qingyuan City to get the babies‘ passports. Sam was very apologetic that we had to return, but the police chief who issued the passports insisted on seeing us and the babies to be sure that we matched the pictures in our passports. So another two-hour ride back to Qingyuan City, this time with all of us much less anxious than for the ride on Monday!
We stopped at the orphanage first to pick up Mrs. Huang so that she could guide us to the police station. While we were waiting at the police station, she took turns holding each baby and called them by name and really seemed to know who they were. After waiting a while (it seemed there was always some waiting around no matter where we went), the police chief came out with all our passports and the babies' passports and handed each of them to us individually, checking photos before handing them over, and congratulating us with a big smile.
When we returned to the White Swan, we dragged ourselves back over to the photo shop to get passport-size photos taken for the babies' visas for our consulate appointment the next day. The photos have to be taken showing the baby's right ear, and I wondered how they would do it, especially since they were all pretty fussy after having spent four hours on a bus. But it went pretty quickly , we each plopped our baby down in a chair, steadied her, and one woman held up a toy (something that made noise), and the other one snapped the picture as the baby turned to look toward the noise. With the visa photos in hand, we straggled back to our rooms.
We met one of the other moms and her traveling companion for dinner that evening at the barbecue, which was the best dinner we had at the White Swan. The barbecue is a series of food bars, one of which is a bar with raw seafood and steaks , you pick out what you want, tell them how you want it cooked, and they grill it and bring it to your table. It was so pleasant sitting outside along the river, with musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments.
That evening, I filled out the forms we would need for the consulate appointment the next day, using samples that someone in our group had gotten as a guide. It was the first time I officially wrote Zoe's new name.
Thursday, June 12
We all met at 7:45 a.m. to walk over to the medical clinic for our appointment at 8 a.m. On the way, we passed a group of women doing morning exercises to music coming over loudspeakers. It was the first time I really had a chance to see the area around the hotel and that I'd been out early enough to watch everyone doing tai chi. Shamian Island is very pleasant for walking, with one long park the width of a street running through it.
By this time, I'd figured out that a sling was the most comfortable way for me to carry Zoe. I'd come with both a Sara's Ride and a fabric sling, and both she and I preferred the sling. I could sit her in it crosswise in front of me with her legs across my stomach, and she could look ahead out of it, or when she got tired, lay back into it and take a nap. I'd also tried out one of the other mom's Baby Bjorn carrier, since her daughter was too heavy for it, but found that it hurt my back too much after an hour of walking with Zoe in it.
I learned that Zoe weighed 16 lbs. 3 oz., and although she seemed small, wasn't the lightest baby in the group. All six of our children were close in age, no more than two weeks apart, all about 11 months old, and they ranged from 16-20 lbs. in weight.
The medical exam went pretty quickly -- one doctor looked at her eyes and in her mouth and clapped her hands to check her hearing, while another felt her abdomen, listened to her heart, and looked under her diaper. Fortunately, my trip was pre-immunizations.
We then walked over to the consulate, through the gate, inside and up a flight of stairs to a waiting room filled with toys and kids' books. I sat down first with one woman who looked over my papers to be sure everything was in order -- the only question she asked me was about the spelling of Zoe's name, since I'd written the "Z" with a little hash mark, and I guess it wasn't familiar to her.
We then sat down with another woman, a pretty Chinese American who grew up in Teaneck, NJ, for the "interview," which was not really an interview at all. As I was sitting down with Zoe, she took one look at her, and said, "She doesn't look Chinese!" She said that she'd seen a lot of kids, and that Zoe was the first one who looked so different, with her lighter, curly hair. We both agreed that she was beautiful.
We left the babies' passports and paperwork and were told that their visas and packets would be ready by 3 p.m. the next day, so returned to our rooms. On the way back, we discovered the White Swan deli, and after seeing the much cheaper food prices, wished we'd discovered it earlier in the week. We bought some sandwiches and pastries for lunch and returned to the hotel.
My father agreed to watch Zoe before we ate lunch so I could go the business center and send an e-mail home, something I'd been intending to do from the moment we got Zoe but hadn't found the time. I'd written it out longhand before heading down there, since I'd be paying at the rate of $10 per half hour. The woman at the desk logged on for me, then walked away. As I opened Netscape to type my message, an incoming message popped up on the screen that was for me! I'd given the White Swan's e-mail address to friends and family and got several messages during the week, which was nice -- it made me feel like I wasn't quite so far away. The hotel was pretty good about delivering them, usually in an envelope slipped under the door. It really was a nice service, since it cost nothing to receive e-mails.
That afternoon, we donned our bathing suits and White Swan bathrobes and walked down to the pool. I put a swim diaper and t-shirt on Zoe and took her in for her first swim. The pool was delightful, and Zoe seemed to enjoy it until she dunked her face in looking at her reflection. Fortunately, I was able to take a few pictures before we learned that one of the pool rules is no photos.
But the big event for the day was that Zoe had her first bowel movement since she'd been with me , three days after I'd gotten her! I was getting worried and had tried feeding her some baby food prunes that I'd brought, which she hated, then got her to eat some raisins that I'd chopped up very fine in cereal. It didn't seem like she'd eaten enough raisins to make a difference, so I don't know if they helped or three days was her limit, but she finally pooped. She continued to have trouble with constipation for the first few weeks at home, until I could get her to eat more food. I resorted to mixing prune juice in her bottle at home -- anyone traveling in the future may want to take a small can along (they sell small cans in 6-packs at the grocery store).
Friday, June 13
I decided to take advantage of my last morning in China by taking a morning walk with Zoe to the park adjacent to the White Swan. I found the entrance and noticed a woman sitting on a stool at the gate who seemed like she might checking people as she entered, but I watched a number of people enter without showing or handing her anything, so I walked on in. She stopped me as I passed her though and started speaking to me in Chinese. I figured that she was telling me that I needed to pay to enter, but I'd walked out of the hotel only carrying Zoe, so had absolutely no money with me. I held up my empty hands, and turned around and walked back out and decided to head over to the street where we'd seen the group of women exercising the day before. I had just crossed the street when I realized that someone was yelling "hello." I turned to see a woman reaching her hand toward me, offering the two yuan I needed to get into the park , I was touched and so grateful, like I'd been kept out of somewhere I didn't belong and this woman was offering me a way in. I shook my head no at first, feeling like I really shouldn't take her money, but she was insistent, so I accepted it and told her "xie xie."
When I entered the park, I found groups of people exercising everywhere , some doing tai chi, some doing graceful movements with swords, and a group sitting on the ground meditating. I found a bench and sat down so I could take it all in, but no sooner had I settled in, when two women walked over to me and started pointing to Zoe and talking to me, asking questions I couldn't understand, all in Chinese. They kept touching her hair, so I knew they were commenting on her curls. I somehow communicated to them that she was my daughter. When they realized they weren't going to be able to talk to me, they started talking to each other, with Zoe and I still sitting there and having no idea what they were saying (well maybe Zoe understood some of it!) They finally went back to their exercises, but a few minutes later another group of women converged on us, and the same scene kept repeating. After about 15 minutes, I'd had enough of being the center of attention, so decided to head back to the hotel.
That afternoon, it started storming badly, so Lisa (another facilitator who started helping us halfway through the week) walked over to the consulate for us to pick up our babies' passports and immigration packets. We bought Zoe's plane ticket at the China Southern Airline office on the ground floor of the White Swan and paid our departure tax. When I tried to get boarding passes later that evening though, I couldn't , the ticket agent said that they weren't sure if the plane was going to take off because of all the rain! That possibility hadn't even occurred to me and gave me something else to worry about that night.
Mrs. Wang treated us to our last dinner at a nearby restaurant. She and Sam ordered a delicious meal for us, but most of us were busy trying to keep our babies happy so we could eat. I'd looked at other families' pictures of meals in China, with all the parents and babies sitting around the table together, enjoying their meal, but once I got Zoe, I realized that everyone was at the table only for the picture! Once you have the baby, you can't sit down for a whole meal without walking her around or passing her off to someone else to walk around while you wolf down your food. I knew this from experience with other babies, but somehow didn't comprehend it until I was there.
At the end of the meal, we presented our presents to Sam and Mrs. Wang -- I had another Penn State t-shirt for Sam, along with a bag of Hershey candies and a pair of earrings for Mrs. Wang. I also gave them each $50 in cash in an envelope. It was still raining steadily when we left the restaurant.
A spectacular thunderstorm woke me up in the middle of the night, and I prayed that it would blow itself out before morning.
Part 4
Saturday, June 14
We had our luggage outside our doors at 5:45, then we all met at 6 to ride our bus one last time to the airport. It was cloudy, but it had stopped raining, so it looked like our flight was going to take off. We said our goodbyes to Sam at the curb, then were on our own in the airport. There was a long line to get through customs, and after we'd all been standing there a while, one of the officials motioned that those of us with babies could move to the front of the line.
Dad and I checked our luggage all the way through to Harrisburg, which turned out to be the best choice -- it saved us having to collect it in Hong Kong, and it made it with no problem. By the time we got upstairs, they were already boarding the plane, so we went right on and found our seats. I'd planned to give Zoe a bottle as we were taking off in case she had any problems with her ears, but I didn't time it right. She finished before we actually left the ground, but fell asleep, so it was okay. I cried a little for her as I watched China pass beneath us, for taking her so far from her home at a time when she'll have no recollection of it.
We had a three-hour wait in Hong Kong, which went fairly quickly. Since we'd checked our luggage all the way through, we were able to go right to the United counter upstairs and get our boarding passes for the rest of our flights. We found a bunch of empty seats near the restaurant , enough for our group , and spread our stuff out, got toys out and fed the babies bottles and cheerios.
The return flight to San Francisco seemed much better than the flight over. It was shorter for one thing -- 11 hours instead of 14 -- and since Zoe didn't sleep for very much of it, I was up walking her around the plane more and ended up meeting and talking to more people than I had on the way over.
One of the more memorable parts of the trip happened when I met up with one of the other single moms in my group on one of my laps with Zoe. Her daughter was very fussy; and Patty couldn't get her to sleep at all and in fact needed to be bouncing her most of the time. I told Patty that my pediatrician had given me some Benadryl to use if the baby was inconsolable on the flight and said that when she got to the point where she thought she needed it, I'd go get it. She answered with a little desparation, "I'm at that point!" So I retrieved it from my day pack, and we both squeezed into the bathroom, babies in our arms. I pulled the Benadryl and a medicine syringe out of a ziploc bag, and we squirted some into Olivia's mouth, all the while feeling like we were involved in some clandestine drug deal! Olivia was tough though, and when I saw Patty later, she said it hadn't knocked her out, but had calmed her down.
Immigration in San Francisco was a little unorganized. We had to retrieve our luggage, which took a while, then figure out which line to stand in -- citizens, which we were, or new immigrants, which Zoe was? Of course, we stood in the citizens line first, then found out we needed to be in the other line. We were the first ones through and lost sight of the rest of our group after that point, since when we got out, we found my father's sister and her daughter and granddaughter waiting for us! They had a nice welcome present for Zoe and walked with us to our next gate and held Zoe and played with her on the floor while we made bathroom stops and tried to freshen up some.
Our flight to Chicago was packed; we started with an empty seat next to us, but at the last moment, an off-duty United pilot took it. Fortunately, he had a new baby at home and seemed somewhat sympathetic, since Zoe picked the middle of the flight (while we were flying over the Rockies and strapped in because of reports of bad turbulance) to have her first real screaming fit on a plane.
We had another long layover in Chicago (Zoe loved the neon light show in the underground walkway , she lay in the sling mesmerized as we passed under it).
Twenty-nine and a half hours after we left our hotel room in Guangzhou, we landed in Harrisburg. As I rounded the corner of the jetway, I could see balloons and friends and family waiting with cameras. It was a very emotional homecoming, and I've never been so glad to be home!
A few notes:
Everyone wore shorts and sandals in Guangzhou, so I was glad that I'd ignored my agency's advice not to pack any. I packed lightly for myself, but had laundry done twice at the White Swan, since I couldn't wear most clothes more than one day because of the heat and humidity.
I'm so glad I took the video camera along -- the tape we have of getting Zoe at the orphanage is priceless. I only wish we'd filmed more!
A steel thermos is indispensable.
I'd brought some Cheerios, which turned out to be one of the few foods Zoe started eating while in China.
I took three cans of formula -- one burst open on the flight from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, and I had just enough with the two remaining cans. I also wasted some initially trying to figure out how much Zoe would drink at one sitting.
Finally... Zoe was healthy and nearly on-target developmentally when I got her. I think she got a lot of attention at the orphanage (it was a combination orphanage and old folks home), but didn't have much freedom to move around. She couldn't crawl, but she could pick up a Cheerios with her finger and thumb. She figured out how to crawl within about two weeks, and she's now climbing steps and walking for short bursts. She learned to wave and say bye bye the first week I had her, and she now tries to say some other words, but repeats more the intonation than the pronunciation. I took her to the pediatrician my second day home, and he was thrilled with her health and development.
She really is a wonder, and I feel so lucky to have her in my life!
dtc: 8/16/96
referral: 4/18/97 of Guo Jian Ling, now Zoe Ling Roane Hopkins,
b. 7/9/96 in Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province,
non sn
gotcha day: 6/9/97