Girls home alone...

So next week Michael will have his first business trip since we got our girl.  He travels a fair bit but has been trying to curb it while we are still in "cocoon" mode.  

It will be fine.  I just won't get my little evening break after dinner when Michael plays with Chu Chu and I go and read, watch tv or just sit and breath ;-) for like an hour before the bedtime routine.  And this mama appreciates that time because I am pretty exhausted these days because this is really making me tired. 

Spaghetti sauce is making me tired you ask?  No...as the container states we are prego...aka pregnant. ;-). I think most people know by now.  We have been telling our friends and fam over time but I am sure there are some peeps on the fringes who may not know.  

This is no joke.  ;-). 12 pregnancy tests later told us that. ;-).  Without going into it to much, this was not a planned pregnancy.  For those of you who know me well,  you know pregnancy was never on my bucket list.  I am a pain avoider.  I will pop a pill to stop pain faster than anyone.  Once we decided to have kids we really thought God just wanted us to adopt all our kids, but He obviously had a different plan.  We were pretty freaked out, we'll more me than Michael, in the beginning.  When your not trying to have a baby. You aren't doing anything to prepare your body.  And I am no sping chicken and figured I was too old to be having a baby.  But by God's grace our baby, from all reports, is perfectly healthy.  So after the initial shock we are super happy about our baby on the way.  I am just not so happy and rather scared about getting our girl out.  So prayers are appreciated. 

And yes you heard it right.  Another girl!  So Michael is going to be surrounded by girls...me, Chu Chu, baby girl #2, our dog Coco and our cat Baozi....all girls!!!  He loves it though.  

So in a few weeks...yes a few weeks.  We are due in like a month we will have another child.  2 kids in about 2 months.  No one is more shocked than us!  

Sorry We waited so long to make a public announcement but we wanted to keep our focus on Chu Chu.  And honestly we probably wouldn't have made a public announcement at all except we know our friends and family that we don't communicate with regularly would want and deserve to know.  Michael and I both do not like attention.  So making a grandiose announcement just is not us.  We would have been fine to just show up with 2 kids next time we are home ;-) but that would probably have been a bit crazy.  

So that is what is new here in Nanjing.  And just FYI ...on the blog for privacy reasons we will refer to our new girl as Mei Mei (little sister in mandarin) and Chu Chu will still be Chu Chu or Jie Jie ( big sister in mandarin).  Because we are not sharing their English names online and in China siblings call each other by their title...big sister, little sister, big brother, little brother....not by name.  So we will do the same in our household.  

Hopefully we didn't put any one into shock. ;-). Because God definitely shocked us, but in the best way possible...by giving us 2 precious lives to care for on this earth. 

Bath time ....

Sorry most of the recent pics are subpar.  I've just been using iPhone pics because it's quick and easy.  Our girl loves the bath now.  In the last pic you can see how Baozi our cat just sits on the edge of the tub and watches Chu Chu the whole time.  She is fascinated.  

What's new

Our girl is still doing great.  Had a long night last night.  She was up 4 times which is not like her, so must have just been one of those nights.  She does always wake up once but never 4 times...maybe some bad dreams or something.  

She is doing good though.  She adapts really quickly.  When we first got her she would cry and cry in the bath ...but less than 3 weeks later and she is fine.  She just doesn't like water in her face.  

The first time she saw Coco she was really scared and would not let us put her down.  But it took just a week and now she kisses her and tries to hug her.  Coco is not so fond of the hugs. ;-) 

She is even doing "chores" already.  She loves giving Coco her food.

Finally here are some pics of a cute panda. ;-) 

Some firsts...

First time having pudding

First time on the scooter.  Chu Chu and I have went out to the store and local "mall" 3 times this week and we took the scooter. When in China! 

First time in a shopping cart

Home Sweet Home....

After 2 weeks of living in hotels, we finally made it home.  It feels good.  Although living in a hotel room for 2 weeks was great bonding time, it was nice and exciting to get Chu Chu home so she can start to get used to her new surroundings.  

We got home Saturday, so it's just been a couple days.  We are fortunate our girl adapts quickly.  She was not fond of Coco when she saw her, but just 2 days later and they can be in the same room now. She still gets nervous especially if she is tired...but I would save overall she will be fine with Coco....eventually.  ;-)

I was going to write more but it has taken me a couple days to just write this much.  We are doing good but there is definitely still some adjusting going on to this new parent thing.  Just trying to figure out time management and making sure our girl feels safe and secure.  She is loving her baba but definitely a mama's girl right now, so in my present state and trying to make sure Chu Chu is ok I am definitely feeling exhausted. I know babies come with their own challenges...but going straight to a two year old that is mobile and has a lot of wiggles and a lot of energy on top of the 4 flights of stairs in our house and her wanting to be carried most of the time, makes for a tired mama.  

So I'll end this post now so I can go relax while my baby girl is napping. ;-)

I'll leave you with some pics!  

We are family....

We took some group pics of all the families that adopted.  It has been great seeing how God weaves together people from all walks of life to make a family.  

One couple have 2 older sons in their late 20s.  They were empty nesters.  Now they are the proud parents of a little toddler with downs syndrome.  Their daughter is so stinking cute.  Michael and I just kept commenting on how cute she is.  She is teeny tiny.  She is 4 but wears 6-9 mths clothes. She is a real doll. What an inspiration they are.  Because in the process of the adoption the husband lost his job.  But they did not give up.  And things worked out with God's help.  People like this are real Heros. Giving a child a home who most likely would never have gotten a home.  

That is just one story out of the many adoption stories out there.  People adopting kids with special needs.  Not 100% knowing what the future will hold.  Many of these people had to do a lot of fundraising in order to pay for the adoption costs.  This is not including any future health costs there may be.  But most of these people do it because they feel God called them to do it and it has been really cool to see and experience. 

This experience has weaved us all together.  Because just like any situation in life, you cannot know what it is like unless you experience for yourself.  It was a long couple weeks for some of the families.  Their kids were sad and traumatized, throwing crazy fits, not sleeping, not eating, not being able to be comforted.  Some people receiving their kids and their health was a bit worse than expected.  So it was nice to have each other here to support one another.  

And even with all the hard stuff, we were all amazed at the strides many of the kids made in just 2 weeks.  Many kids that were extremely little gained weight.  Kids that didn't want to be touched are asking for hugs.  Kids who did not smile for days are laughing and giggling.  It is really amazing what love and affection can do for a soul.  

I included 2 pics of the kids who were adopted because in one pic one kiddo was turned around and in the other another kid was turned around.

6 days with our girl....

We are on day 6 of being a family of 5. (that is including Coco and Baozi ;-)  

We are in Guangzhou now.  The airplane ride went great.  She did really well. Nothing eventful.  

It is Tomb Sweeping holiday here so we had a couple free days. This is a holiday where loved ones go and visit loved ones who've passed and burn offerings and such at there grave sites.  It's funny because they used to bring fruit and burn paper money for the after life.  But these days you can buy paper everything.  So families will burn paper iPhones, IPads, credit cards, louis Vuitton bags ....it's funny how even the things the dearly departed need have gotten fancier. 

Our girl is still doing great.  We are learning more about her everyday.  She is attaching well and we are thankful for that. 

The agency is taking us on a dinner cruise on the Pearl river tonight.  

Tomorrow we go to the U.S. consulate to get her physical and visa picture taken that will allow us to enter the U.S. with her when we come home next. 

I'll leave you with some pics.

Ready for breakfast...

Our girl is a great eater.

Sometimes Eating "issues" are common for  kids that come from orphanages.  Because they don't know when they will get there next meal a lot of families say they find that there kids may hoard food many will find it under their beds and such.  And Because the flavors are so different it takes time to figure out what your child likes.  Some of the families we are with were having a hard time figuring out what their kids like.

We had an advantage because I was able to go and visit Chu Chu so I saw how she eats and what she eats.  We have mainly been giving her food just like she had at Alenah's house.  A bowl of rice mixed with things like fruit, eggs, some veggies.  It was all very bland and very very rarely any meat.  They ate a lot of eggs for protein so she loves eggs.  

She has a few of her own little food issues but over all she is doing great in that category. 

Here she is is morning ready for breakfast. 

Officially Official!

As I mentioned before....when we received Chu Chu on Gotcha day, we were just "legal guardians" for 24 hours.  We did not realize this was the process.  Michael and I just kind of jumped feet first into this world of international adoption and did not do any research.  We have just been learning along the way.

Anyway, after the 24 hour trial period you go back to the Civil affairs office and officially become a family.

Here we are....A FAMILY!  Chu Chu had just woken up from sleeping on me in the ergo baby, so she was a bit groggy.

It was really cool seeing all the other families receive their certificates of adoption as well.  They did like a very informal ceremony where they called our names and we went up and received our adoption decree.  Lots of people were emotional as you can imagine.  I surprisingly have have not been having any tears.  I think I must have used them up the 2 weeks prior to coming here! ;o)  I did tear up a bit when I saw the dads cry.   Seeing guys cry always gets me.  It is funny how you automatically go into mom mode.  I am so worried about making sure Chu Chu is not upset, that I don't want to cry in front of her....not like me at all because I can cry at the drop of a pin normally.  It was a really special day for us and a lot of of families.  We will never forget it.

The next day we went to Chu Chu's home town where she was abandoned.  In China you can only obtain a passport from the city you were born it.  Needless to say it makes for a long day.  We had to drive a little over 2 hours one way and drive back that same day.  Chu Chu was fine on the way there because she fell asleep but on the way back she was bouncing off the walls.  Our girl is full of energy!

Our Happy girl!  Doing paperwork before we head off to her hometown to apply for her passport.

The city office where we went to apply for her Chinese passport.  We will be able to apply for a U.S. passport when we come home next. 

They took us to the place where Chu Chu was found.

She was found right here at the entrance to the local orphanage.  Pretty emotional this picture is.  We could barely stand it seeing her stand there all alone....we took the pics fast and went right back and snatched her up quickly!  We never want her to feel this alone again!

First stroller ride!  She loves it!  Micheal, ever the engineer, checking out squeaks and rattles as only an engineer can do.  

We try and get her out so she can walk and stretch her legs but she will have none of it.  Hey who can blame her?  Why walk when someone will push you around!

Our angel sleeping peacefully!

Gotcha, Gotcha, Gotcha...

Ni Hao Everyone! We know this is the post that everyone has been waiting for!  We would be too if the shoe was on the other foot.  Sorry it has taken a few days.  Reason being, we now have a 2 year old to take care of! ;o)  And we are happily exhausted adjusting to our girl and her schedule.  She is a bundle of energy as most 2 year olds are and she is keeping us busy for sure! Also we were having probs downloading the pics so sorry about the delay.

There is really so much to say.  You can imagine the flood of emotions that we have going on right now, but I will try and keep it as brief as possible.

First we want to thank all our friends and family who have been praying for us and supporting us during this time.  We truly could not have done this without you.  We received many texts, emails and messages on Gotcha day letting us know that you were thinking about us and praying for us.  I am pretty sure we did not respond to any of them, but we did receive them and we really appreciated all the good vibes being sent our way.  It meant A LOT to know that so many people were thinking about us on our special day.

Well, let's get to the good stuff! ;o)  We got our girl!  She is with us and she is doing GREAT!  We both went into Gotcha Day with a lot of nerves....much more than we expected.  But really as soon as we saw her and she called us Mama and Baba....our nerves melted away.  Yes! She is already call us Mama and Baba...obviously what that means to her in her 2 year old mind we are not sure.  But we are thankful to Alenah's house because they really worked with her to get her in the mindset of calling us that.  We had sent a book of pictures ahead of time with us, Coco and Baozi and they went over the book with her every night. They would say ni de mama, ni de baba, etc...which mean your mama, your baba, so the first thing she did when she saw us was call us mama and baba!  It was an AMAZING feeling.  She did not cry...she is so strong!  The strongest person we know!  She likes to carry the book around and look at it.  She "reads" it too us and says, "wo de mama, wo de baba" and points to us, meaning MY mama, MY baba and hugs the book!  Cutest thing ever, brings me to tears!

The day started with us going to the Civil affairs office and doing paper work and that is where we picked up Chu Chu.  We spent a couple hours there just hanging out while all of the other families that are in our group got their kids too.  Luckily Chu Chu was waiting there with Teddy, the worker from Alenah's house, who brought her to us.  So we did not have to wait!  The kids all come at different times depending on how far away their orphanage is and other things.  So we got to spend a good couple hours just playing with her and giving her treats and loving on her.

At this point in the process we were just "legal guardians."  We signed paperwork stating such, and families then get 24 hours minimum and more if requested to spend time with their child and see how the relationship is working out I guess.  And also some kids "special needs" end up being not what was described to them  in their file and maybe they have a lot more "issues" than the family thinks they can handle, so this gives them time to evaluate all of that before making the final decision to adopt.  I think I will write another post about this later.

So once we did that, we went back to the hotel and just spent the rest of the day bonding and doing more paperwork to get ready for the next day.  After the 24 hours is up, you go back to the civil affairs office and make it official!  You get your adoption decree and as they tell us there is no turning back after that point.  And we would not want to!  Our girl is an ANGEL!  She is truly amazing.  We had many many prayers for our daughter, knowing that children who come from institutionalized settings can have really any issue you can think of.  We prayed daily that God would giver her an inner peace that could only come from Him.  We prayed that He would comfort her during this transition in only a way that He can.  And that she would have an inner joy and happiness that can only come from Him.  Because you can only communicate so much with a 2 year old.  We can really only reassure her by our actions not by our words that we love her and that we are not going anywhere.  We are here to stay!  

There is so much to share!  So I will continue to make more posts...telling you more about our girl and her personality and everything that we love about her!  But for now here are more pics from Gotcha Day!  Sorry we don't have a lot because we were so distracted just trying to bond with our girl.  I will post more from our time together as we go through these next 2 weeks.

First family selfie!

This is the picture book we sent her with our pics so she could get familiar with our faces...she loves to carry it around still and hug it and say MY mama, MY baba and points to the pictures, then to us!  ADORABLE!

Official first family pic that will be on our adoption decree

Our sweet Angel!  So full of joy she is, even though she has been through more in her short 2 years that some people go through in a lifetime.  She is so brave and strong!  She is our hero.  So full of strength and happiness and love already!