Adoption....

Finally, two years later, I have a video for our precious Elliana and Isaiah...Feeling so blessed and honored to be their Mommy.

Catch Up Post: Adoption, China, Adjustment, Life

Our VPN wasn't working most of the time in China, therefore it was impossible to blog while there. AND I was so busy with little people it probably wouldn't have been much anyway.

We came home on June 8th, after 30 hours of travel time. Can I just say I really, really dislike that long airplane ride? The babies hated it and we held them while they fussed, cried, tossed in their 30 minute catnaps and Isaiah even got air sick the last hour for the long flight. We went to 4 airports, 3 flights.

I will post a bunch of photos and write captions to give a glimpse of our 18 days traveling to China and home. It really was a wonderful adoption trip. We had a tiny spout of stomach sickness with my teens and Jay, which lasted about 24 hours. I had sinus issues I think from the pollution, since it has mostly cleared the last 48 hours. I had a very bad stomach ache the night before we left and I was worried to get on the plane. After praying a lot through the night it cleared up. The babies were not sick at all, slept great. Ellie is quite attached to Mama and Isaiah to Daddy. They both are accepting of the other parent more and more each day.

Ellie's personality is a go-getter, strong, determined, feisty and sweet all in one very tiny package. She weighed a little under 19 lbs at Gotcha Day and today at the doctor was 20 lbs exactly. she fits pretty well into size 12 months except for her waist needs more like a 6 month. She LOVES food and loves to move. She loves clothes and odd things to look and play with. She is all baby. She doesn't talk at all, sometimes baby babble. She grunts a lot, cries loudly, and is learning to sign. She can not walk on her own, but loves to be walked around holding tight onto your hands. She "crawls" with a bent leg in criss-cross position and pulls herself forward. She is very delayed, but very smart. We suspect intestinal parasites which she is getting tested for right now. She loves to snuggle in the Ergo and be walked around. She smiles all the time and can get a sweet little giggle when being tossed into the air. We are suspecting her delays are more than just institutional, maybe Cerebral Palsy. We are not concerned though and the doctor wants to get her into PT, OT and ST as soon as we can before we go the neurological route and see how she improves. He said treatment is the same either way. She is teething molars and I think it has been making it a little crabby the last few days. She loves to investigate her new home. In spite of the fact that she has not the full capability to control her hands and arms, she can give a good right hook when she is mad. She has been sleeping better the last few nights. The first 3 nights we were home she screamed half the the night. We have put back in her little crib with a weighted blanket and added some essential oils to see if that helps, along with Ibuprofen for teething. All of the above seem to help her sleep "most" of the night. She has been waking lately for a midnight bottle, which I am gladly giving her. She is always wanting to eat, I am just thinking for 3 years she was hungry and she has a lot of catching up to do. I think she is going to have no problems gaining weight. What a sweet blessing she is.

Isaiah's personality is a lot different than hers. He is quiet, whiny, withdrawn and serious, with a bit of silly grin he is hiding under it all. He will not speak to us or sign very much at all. We have made small steps in getting him to sign "more" or "please" when he wants something. And I have heard him say "Dadda" and "Mama" on occasion. He only weights 22 lbs, is long and very lean. He doesn't smile often, but when he does his whole face lights up. He loves his belly kissed and we can get a huge belly laugh from that experience. He barely eats at all, but will take about 4oz of milk from a bottle several times a day and he likes to drink water from a Camelbak. He loves Daddy, since Jay had him from Gotcha day and 5 days without me. He wanted nothing to do with me the first couple days I was with him. Our first step in getting him to let me feed him was Jay holding him while I held the bottle. It was a step and just a day or so later he let me hold him with the bottle alone. He barely walks and when he does it was with straight legs. We "think" he was held a lot in his orphanage and in the crib. His nannies all loved him. When Jay took him for an orphanage visit one nanny said a blessing over him. Isaiah cried with delight to see his best friend in her crib (very bad hydrocephalus) and then he cried tears of anguish to leave her. Jay said it was heart wrenching to make them part. Isaiah seems to be deeply grieving. But he is slowly, being healed and opening up his heart to us. He has a very large pigeon chest from his last heart surgery, which we weren't aware of. He seems to not be bothered by it, but he doesn't lie on it very heavily. It will be interesting to hear what the heart surgeon thinks of it and if they will do anything to repair it. I think they have to rebreak the sternum to fix it.  He is a champion sleeper which has saved me with Ellie not sleeping so good, always. He does fuss in his sleep quite a bit, snore and seem short of a breath with some coughing while he sleeps. The doctor does not believe is due to his heart, maybe asthma, reflux or a residual from recent illness he might have had. We will see the heart surgeon in 10 days. When he needs me by fussing at night (his crib is next to our bed) I just hold his hand and he likes that.

So life at home is going well. Amazingly, laundry and cleaning are pretty great, due to my awesome older and younger helpers. We won't look in my bedroom though okay? Jay went back to work one day last week. I did not feel overwhelmed, but I was tired. I sat on the ground with the littles a lot. I am going to need to get more adventurous with them sooner or later. But for the first few weeks we are just getting to know each other and let them experience their siblings and new home. It has been a huge blessing to have a few meals come for the first few weeks. I know prayers are being said daily for us, I feel them. The older children love their new siblings. I am finding a bit hard to find the balance between working on bonding with new kiddos and keeping relationships with other children. I so appreciate all the grace, mercy and understanding my other children have given me through this transition. I think the fog has lifted from jet-lag, but my emotions feel a bit all over the place sometimes. Not quite as bad as post-partum hormones but maybe about 25 percent of that.

Here are the photos:

May 27, 2013 Elliana Kate Jun "Gotcha Day" Her Nanny (not this lady in the photo) gave her to me and from the get go Ellie was screaming and scared. She cried the entire 90 minutes we spent waiting for paperwork to be finalized for all the families in this room. Once we left the building and went to Walmart and she willingly took food from me she calmed down. We had a hard, whiny and crying day with her. By the following day she was better and each day after became more and more attached to me.

May 27, 2013 Isaiah Calvert Tao (Tao Tao) Gotcha Day. He was whimpering and scared. But quickly warmed up to Daddy.

May 28, 2013 Isaiah is officially our son."Adoption Day"!

May 28, 2013 Ellie is officially our daughter "Adoption Day" for her as well. She is starting to really love the Ergo as well.

Sweet, serious and somber little Isaiah. But in the photo by the baby (that is his friend) he was very gentle and loving toward her. We can see beautiful glimpses of a  little lover child. These photos were his visit to the orphanage.

Just a little comparison of Ellie from the first week to the second week we had her. The first photo we had her for just one day. She was curious but not wanting to smile much. The photos in the stroller were the second week. You can see a little brighter bounce in her eyes and of the course her smile is precious.

Our first day back together, after a short night's sleep. This was us waiting at the Medical Check up for the littles. So happy to be reunited.

These photos were at the Chen Ancestral Hall in Guangzhou (including the one of Jacob posing with the statues) and the Pearl Market. I bought some pearls for Ellie, Isaiah's future wife and Makenna for a graduation gift and some earings for myself and Eliza. They had bags and bags of colored pearls. You pick what strand you want and they make it into a necklace for you. This is where they tie each pearl individually. I think it took them about 5 minutes for each necklace. They were fast. I paid 60 American dollars for each necklace. They are simple and elegant.

A man, painting the names of the children inside a pretty handpainted blown glass jar I picked out for them. I think shopping was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I brought home many gifts for the children to give them on birthdays for the coming 2 decades I think.

Shopping on Shaiman Island.

Asher posing with a statue on Shaiman Island. Cute boy!

Lunch at Lucy's on Shaiman Island. I had just walked through a huge thunder storm to meet them for lunch after shopping at an amazing store owned by the agency that helps kids needing adoption. A Gift of Love is the name of the store.

(not the greatest photo of us) but I wanted you to see our first attempts at having Isaiah let me feed him. This was our 3 day together and he still would not snuggle me or take a bottle or food from me. So Daddy held him, while I held the bottle and it worked. Accept that Ellie was jealous and Asher wanted to be a part of the action too. Oh well..progress was made.

More times with me feeding my two "little birdies" noodles. They kids love noodles and they sat on each side of me and opened mouths wide while I put them in. They were very excited and happy with this game. And the bonding was moving along...

One of the daily highlights for Asher was the Koi Fish pond at our hotel by the breakfast room. He took bread every day and fed the fish. Isaiah liked it too.

One of the fun things we got to do with the other families from our agency was the Pearl River Dinner Cruise. These photos were from that evening. The one building that I got a good picture of was my favorite. It changed colors that spiraled up to the top of the building, including "rainbow".

June 5, 2013 our Ellie turned 3. We shared that evening with another family I will post next and their Reece who turned 3 as well that day and was from Ellie's province. She LOVED the cheesecake.

Wes, Heather and Reece from Alabama.

Adam, Jessica and Samuel. This little boy is the one we prayed about at the same time whether to adopt as we looked at Isaiah's file. We obviously God led us to choose Isaiah, but this little guy was precious too and we were double blessed to be there the same time he was getting adopted and meet his sweet family.

Robin, Andrew and Levi. Levi was a precious boy which Asher became fast friends with.

 We are so glad we brought Jacob and Eliza, they were instrumental and we couldn't have managed without them. I think they had a lot of fun too.

New parents....we are so blessed...

1st Days to China

I am sorry I took so long to post anything about our trip. But it has been a L.O.N.G trip to get here, and I was in such a fog getting here that I just couldn't manage it. However, after a somewhat decent night's rest, a shower and another nap I am now able to tell our journey so far.

We left our house at 10 AM on the morning of Wednesday, May 22nd. After 3 flights to LA, Seoul Korea, and then finally Hong Kong, which included 13 hours of layovers, we had traveled 39 hours! Asher did really well on the flights. Although, during our "bedtime flight", he wasn't able to go to sleep until our 2AM and he then slept for only about 5 hours, quite restlessly and on my lap most of the time, so therefore I didn't really sleep. It is a painful thing at that moment. But I must say Korean Air is amazing. They flew beautifully, got us there an hour early, their service was awesome and very attentive and their seats were much more comfortable than other airlines for only economy. The bathrooms were even bigger and way more clean. If ever doing this flight in the future we will only fly them if we can. So great!
 
We were able to get a shuttle that works with our hotel from the airport, paying less than a taxi and much more comfortable. We got to our hotel about 2 PM on Friday, May 24th. We were wondering what happened to Thursday, May 23rd? It is neat experience to actually go forward in time! It is a very nice hotel, in one of the business parts of Hong Kong. Speaking of Hong Kong-WOW! what a beautiful and amazing city. Hong Kong, means, "fragrant Harbour". I am not sure how fragrant it is, as the smells aren't always so pleasant. If you were to take away the pollution, crime and Godlessness here you can see the beauty that God created and man built. It is the city with the MOST sky-rise buildings.. I could not properly describe it you would just have to see it. 

Our hotel room was not ready, they were packed! So we went to Subway. The restaurants around were very American style and very expensive as well. We ended payed $16 for 2- 12 inch "Subway" sandwiches, avoiding the fresh vegetables in order to not get sick. Jay also bought us one of the most delicious fruit I have had called Dragon Fruit. I will post a picture of it too.

Back to the hotel: Again rooms not ready, but they did find us some on the top floor (15th!) with a gorgeous view of the Harbour and City Skyline. I tried to take pictures from our window, that I will post, but not very clear unfortunately.

We received our luggage and then went to straight to take a 2 hour nap. Our plan was to walk around some more and eat dinner afterward. However, Jacob and Asher would not move 4 hours into the nap so Jay and talked, deciding we would all go back to sleep (we were actually very thankful for that as well.) Asher slept 12 hour straight and woke up at 3 AM. At that point he was up and playful and while I did encourage him to stay in bed for another hour, he did not go back to sleep until our next nap at 10 that morning, when we all slept again for 3 hours.

At 6 AM we all got up and headed to breakfast. It was a nice spread of American and Chinese choices. Following breakfast we desired to go shopping to the Famous Ladies Market. The concierge told us that none of the shopping places would be open until noon though. So that inspired us to walk around a bit and take an earlier nap. (mentioned above) After nap we rode the taxi to the Ladies Market. It had been raining with thunder for a few hours so we weren't sure we wanted to go, but the hotel concierge encouraged us letting us borrow umbrellas and saying "we get good deals because of the rain". 

What a shopping adventure that was and the rain had mostly stopped when we got there, so we were glad we chose to go. It was probably a mile or maybe even 2 of street vendors on both sides. I was able to find several things I was looking for with decent bargaining. The vendors are toughs sometimes, but I am pretty good at bargaining. I really based my amount on what I knew I would pay in the states and for the quality. Unfortunately, they do rip you off a lot of the times, and much of their stuff is fake, copy cats, or just bad quality, even if it is nice looking. If I wanted something and walked away in the end, they always called me back and accepted my price. Well, besides one, which was way over priced and the vendor insisted it was leather,which it was not. ( I worked at a leather store for 3 years in my youth.) She wanted 3 times what I would pay, so I offered her very low and since she would not take it, I left. That was okay, it probably would have broke anyway as it was cheaply made. 

We had some delicious frozen yogurt and a freshly made donut just for fun. Growing up Jay and I both loved Johnny's donuts, which I "think" I remember was owned by a Chinese family. So we tried one and it was so good. I do think Chinese are some of the best bakers, believe it or not!

We came back to our hotel and rested a bit before going to dinner. Jacob chose an Italian Pizzaria. We shared a New York Style pizza, which happened to be quite delicious. We payed way too much for it, especially for the little toppings which were on top (It was $30 USD for one large). I think our hotel is in a district where people are fine with paying those prices. The tourists coming in our hotel are obviously visiting Hong Kong from all over the world. We have seen many Indians, other Asians, Africans, Australians and Americans in our hotel lobby, which is always packed.

Our next plan tomorrow is to leave about 9 AM Sunday, May 26th, on a taxi to the train station. We are going to try to get on the 10:52 AM train to Guangzhou. I remember the train ride from Guangzhou to Hong Kong with Asher, and it was very beautiful, through the country side, comfortable and relaxing. Arriving in Guangzhou we will then find transportation to the Guangzhou airport, which I read is about 30 miles away or so. After getting there, our  2 hour flights leave to our separate provinces at approximately 5 and 7 PM. Our guides will greet us and help us with our luggage, taking us then to our hotels. Jay and Jacob's guide should be Michael in Chongqing and Eliza, Asher and myself have Celine in Zengzhou. The next morning or so we will be meeting our babies this whole journey began for!! I am so excited..I will post pictures and show you them as soon as I can. Jay will not have a computer, so it might take longer for me to post Isaiah. But I will show you Elliana Kate Jun as soon as I am able.

 This was our first flight to LA on Frontier. Flight was okay, a bit shaky on take off and landing, calling me for Dramamine, but we got there, obviously fine. Eliza and Jacob smiling, ready for their adventure.

Jay, Asher and me on other side of the row. 

Asher watching the flight crew on one of our layovers.

Here is one of our Korean Air planes, I think this was the one that took us from Korea to Hong Kong.

Toby, Jacob knew you would like to see what was in front of us on the back of the seats. It was a TV screen, fully equipped with interactive maps of the flight, the world, movies, video games and the news. It helped the travel day go a bit faster.

A small sampling of the huge Hong Kong harbor and all the boat freight that was being shipped out. It was spectacular. It had these huge crane type lifts that picked up the cargo and moved them around.

Not looking so great here, we hadn't slept or showered in almost 2 days, but we were waiting for our hotel rooms. We ate some Subway and delicious Dragon Fruit. A MUST try in China.

Dragon Fruit!!!

Our window views from hotel room of the harbor. Sorry the quality is not so great.

An ancient Chinese sail boat, called a "Junk".

The world famous "Ladies Market" and location of our shopping excursion.

After pizza, we walked along the peaceful harbor and attempted to see the buildings light up with a laser show, which they do every evening at 8. We saw a little bit, but it was cloudy and we weren't in the best location. It was neat what we did see.

Back to hotel and to bed.. Goodnight.