Tuesday, March 18
Hello, very patient blog readers!! Again, I'm sorry so much time has passed since my last update. We were able to borrow our friends' computer again this afternoon to check email and send a blog update, so here goes...
We had an uneventful flight to Guangzhou. Mei slept on the 1.5 hour van ride to the airport on Lanzhou, so she was wide awake on the plane. I think the weirdest part of the flight was going through security...the Chinese don't have you remove shoes, belts, etc through airport security, but they do pat everyone down and run a wand over you. They had me take Mei out of the front pack, and a lady took her from me. It's so strange to see your baby being patted down by airport security - they even ran the wand all over her. I guess they wouldn't have to do that if they didn't think someone would actually try hiding something on their baby...which is reality in the current state of the world, unfortunately. Then they had me stand on a platform, did the same to me, and finally gave her back to me. The rest of the flight was a breeze.
Our hotel in Guangzhou is SO nice! I will definitely share photos later, but it's opulent. Very ritzy. We totally don't fit in with most of the other patrons - primarily Chinese business men, wealthy Chinese families, and other wealthy foreigners. The adopting families stick out like a sore thumb in our jeans, shorts, and t-shirts... with little kids making noise and doing things like changing blowout diapers in inconspicuous places. ;) (That hasn't been our family, thankfully.) But you do what you gotta do! The price is very average for a hotel in the states, but it's one of the nicest hotels in the city of Guangzhou, a city of 9 million people. Our room is a suite, there is the biggest (and fanciest) free breakfast buffet I've ever seen,a hotel pool, and the hotel has an enclosed garden outside with a huge waterfall, koi ponds, bridges, paths, pagodas, statues, flowers, and beautifully trimmed bushes and hedges. Wow!
The day after we arrived, we had the babies' medical appointments. They went pretty well, and our little girl SCREAMED when they took her from Daddy's arms to weigh her. While it was, of course, very sad, we are taking it as a good sign that she's attaching to us! So there were three parts to the medical exam. In the first room, they took weight and height. The second room was ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat), where they tested her hearing - using sqeaky toys, and she looked! - and looked in her ears, and mouth. The third room was a general exam, where a doctor who spoke English pretty well asked us questions about what she can do, took her head circumference, and squeezed and probed all over her the way doctors do to babies (checking glands, joints, organs, etc.).
Then, because Mei is over two, she had to have a tuberculosis test, which is a blood test. We've known about this for a long time, but it still wasn't pleasant. We knew they wouldn't let us go into the room with her, but I was surprised how mad it made me - in the states, doctors and nurses don't get to "tell" you that you "can't" come with your child when they have blood drawn. So of course she screamed again when they took her from us, and then she cried in that room for what seemed like forever. Even our guide/translator, Helen, mentioned that it was taking a long time - twice. Twice she said, "Maybe they use a thin tube to draw the blood." (?) I was NOT a happy mama when I finally got my baby back, especially to find out later that they had actually poked both of her arms and failed to tell us about it. (She had on long sleeves, so we didn't know it immediately. One of her sleeves was rolled up and had a band-aid over the spot and they kept emphasizing to put pressure on it, which of course we did. But the other arm had an identical poke in it and no one bothered to tell us about it! The opposite arm also had some kind of lacerations between her elbow and shoulder, where her skin was reddish-purple, like she had been squeezed very hard, because the blood vessels were broken. It is just now fading, three days later. Grrr.) So I'm thinking she's a tough one to draw blood from, like me. They're certainly used to drawing blood from tiny little people every day.
And happy news, we found out yesterday that her TB test is NEGATIVE! Woo hoo!!
But anyway, on Saturday afternoon (after the medical), I started to feel sick. Another member of our group had felt sick and been throwing up the day before (when we arrived in Guangzhou), and I felt worse and worse. I ended up throwing up for hours that night and found out the next day that another group member did the same. I now have broken blood vessels in one of my eyes, so it looks like I have pink eye - nice. As if we weren't getting enough weird looks! ;) So anyway, on Sunday, I was in no condition to go anywhere, or really to take care of Mei so Adam could go on the planned sightseeing day either, so we just stayed in all day on Sunday. Yesterday (Monday), I was feeling about 95% in the morning, so we went ahead and joined the group to go to the pearl market and Shamian Island. (Lots of shopping - I wasn't really feeling like shopping, but on the advice of MANY, bit the bullet. It's not something we can just go back and do again, and we've been advised that we will treasure every little souvenir we bring home from our girl's homeland.)
By the time we got back to the hotel a little after three, both Adam and I were feeling crummy. I ended up getting progressively worse, while he got gradually better. I had a fever most of the evening and into the night. It dawned on me that I was following exactly the same pattern as the other member of our travel group who had been sick, but one day behind her. Throwing up one day, seeming to improve, then getting a fever two days after throwing up. Right on schedule, which made it suddenly occur to me that this is probably a virus, not food poisoning. Other members of our group have been having similar things happen, but I was most aware of the timing of this one other case. Once I realized that it was probably a virus, I decided to take Tylenol (I usually don't like to medicate fevers unless they get too high, because I figure God gave us fevers to burn off the bad stuff), but I started thinking that Adam or Mei (or both) could come down with the throwing up part at any time, and I'd need to be functioning at a higher level than I was in order to be able to take care of them.
So I took Tylenol and slept very well, and thank God, no one else got sick. We all had a good night's sleep. I feel pretty good today, and I'm actually hungry for the first time in about three days. I've only had a few light things to eat since I've been sick, but I'm finally getting hungry, so I think we'll have a real dinner tonight. I think Mei will appreciate the familiar foods! She likes our "hotel room foods" okay, but I'm sure she enjoy some Chinese food again. :)
Today was our US Consulate appointment, and our girl is all set to become a US citizen! Adam and I swore an oath on her behalf, turned in the paperwork to apply for her US visa, and they took Adam's fingerprints to match them against the USCIS fingerprints we had done in Helena last spring/summer when we were applying for our I-800A. Wow, that seems like forever ago!
Tomorrow afternoon, the plan is that we and one other family will meet our guide at the train station, where she will bring us Mei's passport and visa, and then we'll take the train to Hong Kong, stay overnight in a hotel there, and catch our flight back to the US! Please pray for our health, that I will stay well, and that Adam and Mei will not get sick. If they come down with what I had, it could make travel very difficult or impossible, and could delay our return...and just be generally very unpleasant!! So we ask for your prayers for strong bodies and safe travels. We are ended up ditching almost all our plans here in Guangzhou in order to focus on recovering/staying well, and at this point, we want nothing more than to arrive safely on US soil, where Mei will become a US citizen!
This is likely the last blog update until we return. I would like to recommend a blog to you (I should have done this a long time ago but didn't remember) of another member of our travel group. (This is actually the family who has been so kind to lend us their computer.) It'swww.bunkbedsfortheburrors.blogspot.com . Lindsey has done a fabulous job documenting the trip, and you will get a better idea of some of the things we have done and seen while in China, until I'm able to post more pictures myself. I think you will recognize some of the pictures, as we nabbed some of them off her blog to share with you - the ones that included Mei. :) We have made some lifelong friends on this adventure, and we think it's a great privilege that we got to know two other families who have adopted Mei's orphanage-mates. I know these relationships will be invaluable to the girls as they grow up, too.
