Day two hundred million.

Because it feels like we have been here forever. Amen. 

Oh ok, fine Day 5

Today was fairly good. Any hour surrounding sleep as in going to sleep, waking up, nap, then waking up, then going to sleep is heart sobbing. But she wants held. So that's a good thing.  She has a lots of scratches around her neck and shoulders and lower back. We think it's her self soothing trait. When she crys, she will start to scratch herself in those areas and her head. We have been cutting tags out of clothes just in case its that. 

We had nothing planned today so we tried to eat breakfast at the buffet. They made Josie and I's noodles right into front of you. It was sweet. Josie ate them as fast as she could scoop them up. It was so funny to watch her slurp them up.  She is so Asian. Lol. And we are so white. Ha. 

She loves playing with Gary. But she allows me to carry her in a carrier. She doesn't like to look at me for long, but I catch her looking up at me. 

Since we had no appointments, we decided to walk to a "park" down the street 15mins that our guide told us about. Park was in quotes...because it they had grass but fence around it. Duh. It was paved sidewalks in where you could walk and didn't have to play chicken with the vehicles. There were a fair amount of kids there and we were wondering if seeing more children if Josie would cry for missing her friends. She did but she would turn her head until they were out of sight. She looks at everything but didn't seem afraid of the traffic noise and horns. And there is a horn blowing hmmmm every 5 seconds. 

There was a little fenced in low area where you could buy seeds to feed the pigeons. One bird got too close to Josie and she backed up right into Gary's legs and arms. 

Josie has to eat on her idea so we eat some and set it down and she will decide maybe she wants some. So far it's noddles, yogurt, bananas, crackers, and apple juice. She will not touch congee or rice which was surprising to me. 

We are in the room for lunch and got her to sleep a hour for a nap. She woke up very sad. After getting her somewhat calmed down, G played with her (because she wouldn't look at me) and then I talked her into a bath. She maybe kinda likes it (at less she wasn't crying). 

We headed out for for another walk since she loves to push the elevator buttons and the outside. We went to bakery and she was pointing and saying all kinds of things. She would slap G's arm and point and talk. We got ice cream for g and I and some little cupcakes for her. 

Then we went back into this little restaurant that our guide took us to on Sunday and G had used his translator app to get the word naan and tea in Chinese. We managed to get it and it was spicy. Josie didn't seem mind but drinker more water. 

If we leave the door open and curtains open, she is more ok about being in our room. I'm sure the people walking pass the door are wondering what in the world is going on. 

She likes the toys but wouldn't use crayons or writing stuff. But today I scribbled wildly on a paper and she got it. I'm guessing she is a lefty. She had 4 crayons and she would always put all the points one direction. 

One time today as she was playing, she started to sing. My little heart sang inside with her. 

Nighttime again is hard. She sobs her little heart out. She has us so wrapped around her. We can't stop looking at her gorgeousness. She is so perfect. I want to kiss her all up, but she is still very cautious of us (mostly me).  I try not to take it personally because she thinks I'm replacing her nanny and that's not cool. I get that. I thank God for Gary every single minute. He is so good with her and it melts my heart. 

Day 4.

After yesterday of grief and tears and pain, I didn't want today to start. Josie slept over ten hrs, praise God, but between G and I think we heard every wiggle and breath. 

We woke up with screaming and tried so hard to get her to drink or eat. The breakfast people would not let me bring anything to the room so down we went. She ended up eating some banana, yogurt, and she loved apple juice. 

We got up 2 1/2 hrs early but we still barely made it to the lobby by 8. We headed directly to the Civil affairs office. We both got real nervous when we walked in and it looked like court house. In my mind, I was afraid if Josie started to cry uncontrollably, they could decide we weren't fit to be parents. We were told just the orphanage director would be there, but the one nanny showed up. G and I wanted to spit nails, because J immediately tried to throw herself out of my arms and became like a stiff board trying to go to her. Lucky for us, she stayed away mostly and I was able to hide behind the gift that we needed to bring and keep J facing away from her. G even got giggles out of her. We stamped our fingerprints on the documents and had a short interview that we promise to love her unconditionally. And more paperwork and it was official!!! 

We are Josie's parents!!  Woohoo! 

The to the police station.. For what, I don't know, but we follow directions well. :). They checked our passports, took our pictures, and Melody gave them so papers. 

We got done by 11:00 and Melody dropped us off at the hotel. We played with Josie for awhile and decided to venture out to the baby store and super market. We wanted apple juice and more tissues for we are going through a million a minute. She just stared at everyone walking by. And everyone else stared back at us walking by .. White people with Asian baby. Lol. 

We had a hard time getting J to eat. We finally got her to eat noodles and apple juice. 

We tried twice for naps because she was so tired, but just hollering. So we just dragged it out till bedtime. That would be at 6 ;). Yes we put her down early. We don't have anything planned for tomorrow so I figured it didn't matter if she wakes up early. 

G was amazing. Josie prefers him especially while playing. She will go to either of us to hold her though. :)

She is making us proud with her hand and eye coordination. A smoke stack came out of a tiny play tractor and she was able to put it back in. 

She loves her toys. At first it was her teddy bear and fire truck and now she has added tricky dogs to that. 

She saw me drawing water in my washing my clothes in the little baby tub and she came over and tried to take her clothes off. I stopped her and showed her what I was doing. After washing them, I drew more water and asked her if she wanted to take a bath. That was a serious hit. She loved and was using the washcloth to wash with and was even trying to wash her hair. She is little miss independent. After getting her dressed again, we were out in the room and she saw her dirty clothes were laying there. She balled them all up and even got her socks and marched in the bathroom and threw the clothes in the little tub and said wash (in her language (translate app). 

She is was very attached to her clothes and shoes. She has allowed me to change her clothes now, but refuses to take off her shoes. She needs them to sleep apparently. I snuck them off last night while walking her and then at 3am this morning she woke up crying and somehow managed to see her shoes in the dark and it was a must to put them on!  

We were sitting and eating and I had a piece of trash and she headed to the trash can and was struggling to pick it up and carry it to me. So instead she got the trash and put it in for me. 

Her first English word to know was blow. Lol. Because we were blowing her nose so often from crying. 

We were at the elevator and she wants to put the buttons. There are four doors and we were standing there waiting and hadn't seen the one behind us open. She   started pointing behind us. Sure enough one was open. 

She is starting to talk more and we wish so much we could know what she is saying. 

We had a yogurt that has a straw in (their's is runny). She couldn't get anymore out of it and I threw it away. She went and got it and started pulling at the top so I opened it. She grabbed it and tipped it up and started drinking it. She knew it wasn't empty. Apparently she had these before. 

We never fully knew how exhausting parenting is, but we are quickly finding out! 

God bless you and please continue to pray for us!!! And pray for the rest of our families here. It is NOT easy and two of the families have older children and both of their husbands were not able to come. I know that I could NOT have done this without Gary. 

Gotcha day ~ day 3 ~ Mother's Day

We met in the hotel lobby at 5:30 to check out, say goodbye, and head to the airport. Our second guide, Amy, checked us in at the airport and we all separated.

Before we all separated into our flights, each family wished me a happy Mother's Day. I choked up every time. They are the best group of friends that we could have. I miss them already. We will meet up again on Saturday and I can't wait!!! We will all have our children. 

After our 2 1/2 hr flight, our new guide Melody found us as we were the only whites on the plane :). She took us directly to the hotel to drop our luggage and then out to a local restaurant. She ordered for us because no pictures or English. She did a excellent job, it was great. If you want to take home your leftovers, they put them in a plastic bag.. Weird. 

We were on a tight schedule so she showed us the local market and a baby store (ps, in the grocery store if you had a big purse, you had to put it a locked box, so you didn't fill it with stolen food).  We hurried back to meet the personal money exchanger in our hotel room at 2:00, because baby comes at 2:30. Apparently the banks are very busy on Sunday's and he gave us a better exchange rate. Lol, how would we know :). He was such a cute smiling old guy. 

Never can you fully prepare to meet your child for the first time. She is beautiful. Completely perfect. But the grief knocks you off of your feet. She was afraid to walk into the room. I picked her up and tried to distract her. The guide and nannys were able to get her to smile and was trying to explain to her that we are mama and papa. They did stay a short time and answered questions. 

But it all started as they started to walk out the door. The crying. G and mine hearts are completely broken. 

She wanted her shoes back on and kept trying to open the door. She wanted out. We could get her to stop sobbing for a while with walks. I think she thought maybe she would get to go back home. Melody said we were going outside to take pictures for the passport and documents. We thought just outside. I took Josie and I thought it was weird that Melody grabbed a bottle and snacks. We ended up heading out in a vehicle to a studio.  She laughed at us later about not knowing what was going on. She said that she told us, but we had baby on our minds I guess :). 

Josie did great at the picture place, which was important because for the pictures no crying is allowed. She left me hold her and she loved our cheese puff snacks (so thankful that she had grabbed the snacks and bottle) (she is worth her weight in gold). 

Again the crying returned as soon as she saw our hotel room again. It's seems like a bad set up for the director and nannys coming here because now our hotel room is the place where she remembers being left behind. She has hives I think on her back from the stress. Heartbreaking. I wonder if her clothes are making her itch. They were all brand new. But she refused to let me take any of them off, not even her shoes. And I didn't have the heart to care.

We tried to do paperwork, while G walked Josie and then reversed.  Melody took G to the store to get a extra bottle, formula and kid snacks. And then she left. 

I was ready for her to go, because I knew that it was going to get harder without her. And it did. G and I took turns walking Josie, while the other one cried. 

Totally heartbreaking!  

No words can describe the pain. None. 

G was finally able to walk her to sleep. She hasn't sleep soundly, but yet still sleeping. 

Please continue to pray... As when she wakes up, she will again remember. It's the hardest thing that we have ever done. To be involved in this grief. 

Day two of bringing Josie Home

So the jet lag just hit me. I slept very little last night. I tried my coworkers method of falling asleep. Picture a entire white house. Every white, ceiling, floor and walls. And then all the furniture and decor white. Now try to rearrange everything to look  So tired during the day, but wide awake at night. 

I do want to bounce out of bed though. The thought of only one more day until I see my sweetheart baby girl. And the thought of being able to try more cultural foods. Hey, I love Josie and I love food, that's not a news flash, people.

This mornings new food was porridge, Chinese pancake, and a pickled duck egg. 

It's supposed to be cooler today in the high 60's. 

We meet in the lobby at 9 to head to the Great Wall of China. It was calling for rain.. But it just misted and was cool and thank God. 

Wow oh wow.  I could hardly believe that I was standing on it. Older than dirt and you can't even imagine how it was built.  It was gorgeous but a total work out. My legs were like jello in a earthquake. 

Loved seeing and hearing a melting pot of nationalities and languages. 

I'm again so thankful for our group!  We are having little panic attacks and meltdowns at different times and are able to hold each other up. 

We walked along The Bird's Nest (the Olympics 2008) and checked out the sweet design. 

We took a rest at Dr Tea and tasted 5 different teas. After high pressure sales, we still declined. But I will admit, two of them were amazing. Best tea ever. A one of them, did taste like sticks :)

One of our families have two adopted kids ages 2-4 which are along to go adopt another 2yr old. We grilled them with questions, just hoping for answers. Anything to calm our hearts. 

The thing is that here in China, they only give us about a hour of information at a time. They can't give any info about gotcha day because after we fly to her provience, we will have a different guide. Instead of one day at a time, it's one hour at a hour, sweet Jesus. 

Tomorrow is the day. I hope I will give you a update but my mind and heart will be directed toward Josie. 

Please pray for all three of us. All of it will be overwhelming.

Day one of bringing Josie home

I slept great with just a tiny awake at one. Tylenol pm is my friend. G only did ok. 

We had the hotel Americanized Chinese breakfast buffet. We both enjoyed eggs, rice, noodles, fruit, and some unidentifiable items. We met in the lobby with our group at 9 and headed out in our own bus.  We had no idea how much walking was going to happen. NO idea. 

First we went to see the Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City. We wanted history of China. The city was huge with decor of red and gold. I believe everything was designed with the belief that it creates longevity and wealth and unity. This includes the colors, the height, the length of stairs. 

The buildings were amazing and the architect indescribable.  But you can only appreciate them for so long. We saw the first one and went "aww". After we saw what felt like the five billionth one...I was picturing myself falling over a cliff. With being hungry and jetlag, you are making up other reasons why they are called forbidden. 

Long story short.. Makes me happy to believe in Jesus. I don't have have my yin and yang right, I don't have to have a certain amount of stairs, I don't have to burn incense, and I don't have to touch gold bumps on the wall for good luck. 

I don't... Because I have Jesus. 

We rented rickshaws to go to the old Beijing city and also ate authentic Chinese food for lunch. Afterwards we were to get on the same rickshaw and return to our bus. Well... That worked well. Not. Our main guide had left and most of the group but G and I, and Kathy and her son's rickshaw never came back. Our temporary guide tryed to get us a ride, but to no avail. I was NOT pleased to be separated from our group at all. Victor decided we needed to walk back which was fine, I'm not afraid to walk. But he barely would keep in sight and we were walking fast, but you can't run over cars. Pthhh. I was happy to see our group. 

I love being in China and being surrounded with the natives. I wished I could have sat down and just watched people.

The fashions.. Love the high heel shoes, the dresses, the colors 

The selfie sticks...Apparently they are all that... Everywhere. 

The children.. are gorgeous (our guide informed us that they think our white babies are cuter. Lol) (nope, they are wrong)

The smiles. They are universal. Accepted everywhere. 

There are a few things in America that we take for granted. 

I'm not a quitter.   So even after I smelled the smell, I didn't back away. The gorgeous women going into the bathroom didn't show any expressions on their faces of the million rotten pigs smell. Nope. They just calmly picked a stall and went in. 

So did I. 

I may have seen the grossest thing ever. Squatty potty aren't terrible as of themselves but wow. They don't flush any paper. The trash was overflowing to point of not seeing the trash can and you can only imagine what the trash looked like. Then cover the entire floor with pee. 

Bless America. Amen. 

We visited the Summer Palace in the afternoon. Again beautiful...

So very tired... Some slept on the bus on the drives, but I was being a "foreigner" taking pictures and talking to our new friends. Our group is all so different, but yet... We have a bond. Adoption and Jesus. One of my favorite moments are our shared meals, we bow our heads together and hold hands around the table and thank our Lord for the food, for our group, and mostly for our children. I know that God has hand picked, not only our children, but every family to be here at this time. They are becoming our people. Our supporters.  Our listeners. Our answers. Our friends. 

Jetting

We started out with a 11/2 hr drive to the airport. We were to be there 2hrs before our 5hr flight. Then a 2hr layover in CA before our 12hr flight to Beijing. Then immigration, baggage claim, customs, finding AWAA, waiting for other families, and then finally to our hotel. 

No audio on inflight movies, even no wifi. Nothing but people touching you and falling asleep in the most uncomfortable positions and smelly breath.  I was trying so hard not to whine because it will be 100% harder on the way home.  This length of traveling is beyond hard for a adult let alone a child. Then also a child that doesn't know, trust, or love us yet. 

My memories are flashing back. 

I remember the smells of China (food) (especially the smell of people).

I remember the sounds of China (slurping of food) (the language) (the traffic). 

I remember how annoying it is to be touched, bumped, jiggled constantly by people. People that I don't know. Or better yet, full body mushing of people trying to pass each other in the aisles of a packed plane. 

I remember that Chinese are not a very patient people in the immigration line (picture cattle) (would give our Walmart a run for their money on Black Friday)

I'm again reminded of the changes coming for Josie. I'm guessing we will smell different too. We will sound and look funny and will be confusing. And those parent people that are strangers want to touch and hold her. 

New identity

I am so excited about my daughter. About being a mom. About watching my best friend/husband becoming a dad. 

So excited...

That I didn't know that it was going to be be so hard. So hard to walk away. To lay down those five keys. 

I sobbed. like a baby. 

I worked there for 10 years and ended as the assistant manager. As I walked away, down deep inside I felt like I lost a part of my identity. 

I felt heartbroken with all those very real relationships although complicated, will never be the same.  Those relationships that took years to strengthen.  Those will never be the same. Surprised at the pain that sliced my heart when a friend teased me about being unemployed.  I was unaware that my job made me feel like I was a part of the puzzle and that it gave me importance. 

My new earthly identity will be "mom". 

Only one more week. A dream that I have been dreaming since high school. One I truly never believed would come true. 

I will never forget that day that my husband said "we are going to have a Chinese daughter". 

God has given the dream and is leading is beyond our expectations. 

I knew but forgot....

As a Christian, things can't give me importance. By myself, I am nothing. 

I need to lay it all down. 

Falling at His feet. 

Only through, Jesus' saving grace, we ARE important. 

He tells us we are HEIRS of His. We are princesses and kings. We have our new identity. 

Only what is done for Christ will last.