Nanjing Day 3 Made it official

The official notary.

The two orphanage nanny directors that came with Rachel (below)

Giving official thumbprints (me, James, and Rachel), obviously Rachel didn't like this part.

She knew what to do with the phone.

This morning we went back to the civil affairs office, so even though yesterday was 'gotcha day', today was the official adoption day. Rachel is still sick so we went to the hospital after the civil affairs office. That was an experience especially for someone who works in a hospital. We ended up seeing a 'pediatric expert' who listened, took temp and did chest x-ray and said it was bronchitis, not pneumonia. She sounds so rattly, you do not need a stethoscope to here it. She had not had a fever since last night at 9pm but that came back at 2pm today and it was high at about 103. We gave Tylenol at 2pm and now it is 4:30 and it was 100 at 4pm. I am trying to decide when to give Advil. I guess I'll google that. I am hoping that the amoxicillin will work, it is only a 5 day script, so any advice on that would be good. I have a script for Taylor too and could use it if we needed to go longer but his was for his weight not hers, so I don't know.

Today she has said baba (daddy in Chinese), and woof woof when watching Teletubbies.

Well obviously with lil sis being sick we are just hanging at the room today. So not much else to add right now. Please continue to pray we are making the right decisions to help her get well soon. The 'pediatric expert' kept trying to get us to swap to the traditional Chinese medicines, but I told them that since we already started the antibiotic that we would finish it unless she got worse.

Papa Johns, btw, was really good last night. We had Burger King for lunch, just for convenience and it was OK. Odd things about the hospital....one was people smoke in the hospital buildings and I even saw some people in lab coats were walking around smoking. Also, you first go into registration and tell them what specialty you want and pay a registration fee. Then you take your receipt to your specialty department, then they say you need an x-ray, so you go back to registration and pay for your x-ray. Then you take the receipt to the x-ray dept (2 buildings over), then x-ray says it will take an hour to have, then you go back to the doctor (2 buildings over) and tell the doctor it will take an hour can he call to speed it up, then he calls, then you go back to get the actual x-ray and bring it back to the doctor who then has a 10-12 minute conversation with your interpreter but then they turn to you and say it is bronchitis, not pneumonia. Not to mention you are looked at intently by every person that sees you, white woman with little Chinese baby, some even stop and stare right in front of you. I really thought I would put no merit in the 'pediatric expert', but actually I really liked him and he seemed knowledgeable....I just hope I don't have to see him again:))

OK, so while typing this Rachel has been watching teletubbies with Taylor and Taylor went to get up and go to the bathroom and she waved at him, said 'by-bye' and blew a kiss. So she probably has more words than we thought. Too sweet!

More pics

More pics from last night before bedtime.

I swapped the stacking cups for the cucumber!!

They were all intently watching some silly movie that was in English.

It was funny how she was into it.It's only 5:30am here so a new day is now beginning. Will try to post more during nap time or this evening. She did sleep, somewhat restlessly all night in her crib. She moved alot and her fever did not come back during the night so we'll just see how today goes. BTW, those are 18 month pj's...she is tiny.

Nanjing Day 2-We have Rachel!!

So today was the big day!! We didn't leave to go to the civil affairs office until 1:30pm so we had all morning to hang out. When we got there we found a scared Miss Rachel who doesn't like being approached by strangers, not even other kids she doesn't know. We also found out she is a sick little girl. She had a fever there and she is very congested. Poor thing, it's no telling what her fever was and they had her under 2 very thick layers of clothes for tops and bottoms, and the high was in the 60's today and sunny. If we went close she cried so we just let the nanny mainly comfort her until it was time for them to go. She cried until we got in the van and really very little since.

In our last update, we were told she wasn't walking yet but she is now.

Sick baby with a fever....waiting for the Tylenol to kick in.

Feeling better, feeding mama nila wafers and my first kind of grin at daddy. Oh and now for a bigger grin. She likes playing with daddy! From the time we got her until probably 7 or 7:30 I couldn't put her down. Then she went to James and she didn't want me anymore. Poor Taylor has tried really hard to play with her and do different things and she has wanted no part of it. Hopefully that will get better in the next few days. He was asleep when we got to see her playing and starting to laugh, then after he woke up she started with the temp again. We have given, Tylenol twice, started the antibiotic and mucinex. She is a sick little girl. The first medicine we tried to give she literally looked up at me and spit it in my face. I would say she is a fighter!! She was like who is this white woman coming at me with this syringe full of yuck....poor thing!

Actually getting some hoarse little laughs right here.

The nannies laughed when I asked to describe her personality. Some of the words they used were spicy, independent, very smart, spoiled, strong willed, knows what she wants, doesn't ever want to share, has some of the other kids afraid of her and they won't try to take her stuff. So it's sounds like in Taylor we got our little James, and I am afraid with Rachel we got our little Jennifer.....let's hope James can handle two of us!!! James' mom always talks about what a good boy James was when he was little and of course still is and my family seemed to say I was spoiled being the little sis and I through tantrums when I didn't get my way and yes stubborn too.

Also, we have tried congee, water, rice cereal, formula and cereal mixed, all things they said she normally would eat and we tried at her scheduled times and she wanted none of it. She did eat cheerios and nila wafers. When we walked into civil affairs she had half a cucumber in her hand and carried it around until I finally took it after 8pm. OK everyone just got to sleep and I am heading that way. Please keep Rachel in your prayers that she improves and gets well.

Nanjing Day 1 Continued

We finally found Taylor a place to play. There is a grocery store that has the cutest play area and we have now been twice.

Yesterday when I wrote that the boys were napping while I was posting....welllll....after I posted I layed down too, so they laid down at about 1:30 and then me around 3:30 and we all woke up at 7:00pm. This time change will get you!! So we had to make ourselves get up and go out for awhile so we wouldn't wake up during the middle of the night again. So as you can see from above we found a cool play area and then we went on a little boat cruise as seen in these two pics. It was a boat of about 12-15 people and I had a couple people sneaking my picture at first and then they wanted pictures made with me and then they started taking pictures of all of us. In a sea of black heads of hair, I guess blonde hair is a rare thing to see. Kind of weird for me though!!

Nanjing Day 1

I may have finally figured out how to get on my blog but can't get it to post pics yet. So for same post with pics, go to http://www.journeytome.com/, adoption stories, and look for Rachel Lian.



So we finally made it to Rachel's province. The boys are down for a nap and I finally was able to get the computer set up. Let me backtrack. Thursday at about 5:30pm we left Pulaski and headed to Nashville to spend the night since we had to be at the airport at about 4:30am. Traci and Trey took us to Nashville. The hotel seemed convenient and clean but the walls were like paper and I literally slept like 1.5 hours the entire night!! No kidding. James might have slept 3 and Taylor was restless all night and then woke up for good at 2:30am!! He never does that. He was sooooo excited. Our first flight Friday left at 6am to Chicago and it was a great flight. Then we left Chicago for Shanghai at 10am. That flight was 14 hours. I had a terrible time this time. My butt started hurting immediately and for me the flight was miserable long. I also sat next to a man that came in reaking of alcohol and drank the entire flight!! Entire!! When he would sleep (pass out) he then would talk, humn, moan, in his sleep! Oh yeah and then his arm would fall down on my leg! YUCK!! Don't laugh cause I am telling you it wasn't funny!!!! Taylor only slept twice, the first time for 2 hours and then again the last hour of the flight. I couldn't believe he stayed awake, especially after getting up at 2:30 am. James got a couple hours and I slept probably 4 hours. Taylor has been such a trooper! He has truly amazed me. OK so back on track, we flew into Shanghai and stayed at the Jian Jiang Towers Hotel. Very nice hotel. We got to our room in the afternoon walked around a little, then had a not so good overpriced dinner , we just picked the wrong place. I think Shanghai, is just a more expensive city. Very modern, very pretty, lots of expensive shopping areas, etc. They did have a great hotel buffet this morning. So we called it a night at 7pm. We were all exhausted. At 2am Taylor woke us up thinking it was time to get up. We all watched a little tv, had a poptart and went back to sleep until about 5:30. So hopefully now we will be swapped over to this time zone. This morning we left Shanghai and took a train to Nanjing. It took 2 hours and it was a very nice, new train. We are now at the Mandarin Garden Hotel in Nanjing Province, it is Sunday 3 pm here so it is Sunday morning 2am at home. We are 13 hours ahead. We will get Rachel tomorrow (Monday) at 2pm. Our guide talked with her orphanage today and said she is still having some bottles. Yikes!! I have never done bottles. Taylor was already off them. They also have a baby bed in our room for sis!! I cannot believe we are about to have a daughter!! I am telling you even though I am in China I am somewhat in denial or I just don't know what to expect with having two, so I am just not letting my brain go there or something. I am sorry this is soooo long, I didn't mean to babble so much. For those of you who check our blog, I am not able to log into blogger, so I don't know if I will be posting there or not.
OK, that is it for now, please pray!! Pray for Rachel, for peace in her heart, for her to know she is safe and loved and for her transition. Please pray for all of our transition as we become a family of 4!!

With all that has been going on I forgot to post any snow pics so here are a couple. Taylor was so excited about the snow!!
Today started with Miss Rachel's room looking like this......and the bad thing is this was only her stuff and most of Taylor's laying there, none of mine or James'. I literally worked all day on pulling out things we need, packing, weighing, repacking, and packing some more. I worked probably 9 hours on packing. Unbelievable!!

Taylor was just making sure I did everything right!!
You can't see it all here, but in the end it looks like we'll have 3 checked bags, 2 carry-ons, 2 backpacks, 1 rather large stroller, and me, James, and Taylor. I am not so worried about the airports seeing we are checking 3 bags, but I am not so sure how we will manage a train and train station in China. It's not going to be pretty!!

Is this my mommy?

Taylor does the cutest thing when I call, to home, from work, he will say "hello" and then I will say "hi Taylor" and he says, "is this my mommy?" and I say "yes it is" and then he'll say "hi mommy". It's so cute and he asks every time, "is this my mommy?".

On a different note, I just re-read my last post and it really sounded like I was struggling and I guess I was having anxiety, but it has really passed.....for now. I really have to continue to pray and turn it over but it is working!!

I have one more workday, tomorrow, then I am officially off. So I will have 3 full days to pack and finish up all the stuff I need to finish.

One week from tomorrow (Monday) and Miss Rachel will be with us!!!!! We are officially on the countdown!