The Day's End; Tomorrow's Beginning

Hi Everyone,
It has been a very long, happy, and exhausting day for all of us. Wim and I are happy to announce that Josephine Orangelee-FuDong Chase is comfortably sleeping in her crib with us.

There was not too much fuss from her this afternoon. I think this is partially because she has a cold and is on medication. She cried a bit this afternoon when we first had her, but fell asleep quickly in my arms before we left the government offices. Below are pictures of us heading for the bus to go, waiting at the government building, Josie and her nanny, me and Josie at the government office, and some pictures back in our room.

She's had two bottles, some Cheerios, a few bites of her first pizza, and more medicine. We also played a bit this evening with her toys. She seems pretty content with me, but is unsure about Wim. Most of the babies are not use to men. She will watch Wim as long as he doesn't look at her too long. She is a curious baby and wants to know about him but is still a little shy.

I think tomorrow will be a whole new experience.

We'll write more later-- now it is time for some rest.

Reena and Wim




Me getting on the bus to go from our Hotel to the CCAA office.







Wim on the bus getting ready to leave the hotel.

The adoption floor of the CCAA office. This is where Josie met us and us her for the very first time.

Me and Wim inside the waiting area at the CCAA. We had to wait about 30 minutes for paperwork to be checked and re-checked.

Meanwhile, our babies were in an adjacent room with only a curtain separating us.

Josie with her nanny just before being given to me. We were the first family to be called.

Me and Josie shortly after she was handed to me. She has a bit of a cold and you can her the congestion in her chest. It sounds as though it is breaking up and that she is well on her way to recovery.

Wim holding Josie back in our hotel room.

Josie playing with some of her toys in the hotel room. She really came to life about a half hour after we settled-in to our room.

Me and Josie in our hotel room. She is still not sure about Wim.

She likes to check him out a lot but so far, she prefers to be really close to me while she does it. She gives him a lot of side glances-- it is pretty darn cute.

Early Morning on the BIG Day

Hi Everyone,

Being the highstrung person I am, I am up --have been up since about 3:00 am. I did sleep well and got about 5 hours last night, probably 7 hours the night before that.

I figured, I would take some time to write a little more-- we'll try to post a few later today-- but we are quickly becoming very busy.

Wim and went for walk around Beijing yesterday before we had to pack-up for the airport. It is a very clean city-- not much litter at all. There are also a lot of bicycles and people use them for transportation. It is a little scary crossing streets because there doesn't appear to be any right of way for anyone-- you just kind of go with the flow and stay in the middle so if someone gets squished by a car or rammed by a bicycle-- it won't be you.

We came upon what we first thought was a children's park. Actually it is a fitness area used mostly by older adults. Wim and stopped to try out some of the machinery and an older man approached us and motioned for us how to do different exercises-- he was very friendly and we had to try each machine. Of course, being the doltz that we are, we did not take the camera with us on the walk.

We flew from Beijing to GZ in the afternoon and arrived safely to the White Swan. There was a slight confusion at the airport-- I had to open my luggage and show them my deodorant. The airport lady was trying to ask me or tell me something and our guide was with someone else-- I said to her (phonetically) "Waw boo ming bai, ni shaw shama." (I don't understand what you are saying).

Her and the airport guy chuckled and said I was ok. Then they helped me close the luggage.

White Swan is a pretty swanky place. The website doesn't do it justice! Although, I've had some difficulty with a few things like figuring out the lights. It seemed as though several of our lights were burned out-- the bulbs and we could not find the switches for several of them. I woke up around 3:00 am and could not sleep-- so I decided to read. I thought the light for my bed was burned out-- so I tried swapped the bulb in it with another bulb-- "squeak, squeak squeak" goes the bulb.

Guess who got upset? Since he was up, I turned on the big light and was trying to figure out what was wrong with all the other lights and why there are NO switches for them. How the heck can we care for a baby with this kind of light system.

Then . . .

I noticed that the knobs on the table-- the ones I thought were for a radio-- were actually for all the lights. Wim is having a hey-day with this.

Next-- I could not find a hair dryer in our room. Since we were up, I coerced Wim into go in search for one. The early, early morning staff don't really speak English and told him to come back later. He came back to the room and armed with his handy Mandarin/English dictionary went back out equipped with words for electrial appliance, wet hair, and dry.

He came back and told me there is a drawer in the bathroom with a hair dryer. The drawer looks like a towel rack!!!!

This is pretty much the extent of our Hotel exploration thus far-- Wim just laughs at me when he looks at me. I fail to see that it is all that humorous. I mean, I'm in labor!!!

We will leave at 3:00 today for the Civil Affairs office where we will meet and assume care of our daughter. I spent a few hours last night preparing our room for her.

Here are a few words from Wim:

On the way to the hotel, seeing the city of Guangzho it was weirdly nostalgic as I was reminded of some storybooks from my childhood that had sketches from China, probably from this city. There are a lot of art deco buildings, palm trees, and the air smells nice. It is warm too, 70's and maybe even 80's. It looks like life is less structured here than Beijing, and there is more wheeling and dealing and street life in the way Westerners think about it. I also noticed that some of the locals have obvious partial European ancestry which makes sense sue to our proximity to Hong Kong, only recently in British hands.

We are really enjoying the other families and i even met another social worker from Texas.
We have two pilots in the group too so I guess we are safer on the plane. Some families brought their kids which makes me miss Gabrielle and Xavier a lot. I think Reena will be in good company when I leave, and will get a lot of support from our new friends. I think she will mostly miss 'managing' me, but obviously she will have her hands full, so maybe she won't miss me after all!

We really like our guide, Veronica, and I am extremely impressed with her organization, composure, and kindness. When Reena is getting nervous I can always remember some reassurance or instruction that Veronica gave us and it helps.

Today is 'gotcha' day, as they call it, and we are obviously very excited and ready to stop thinking about being Josie's parents, and actually being her parents. I'll try not to look too scarey but I am the complete opposite phsyically of what she is used to all the way down to eye color.

They tell us to expect a lot of crying which they say tends to improve on the 3rd or 4th day.
It doesn't really matter, we'll be crying too we'll be so happy.


Reena and Wimt

Forbidden City and Great Wall

Hi Everyone,

We had a very full day today. We left the hotel at 8:30 am and did not return until ~6:30 pm. We are both pretty tired and we still have to pack-up our stuff to fly to Guangzhou tomorrow. So this post is going to be short.

Pictured below is our travel group at Tianamen Square and a picture of Wim and I in front of Mao’s picture. It is a pretty big place.

Next are some pictures of us at the Forbidden City. It is huge! We spent the better part of the morning touring it. It is massive, but from my Western eye, after you walk around for about an hour, it all pretty much looks the same. It is like a great big maze on the inside.

We had lunch at the Friendship Store located somewhat close to the Great Wall. We were able to tour a Cloisonné factory here. This was the same sort of factory as the Porcelain factory we visited yesterday; meaning mostly artisans crafting their goods, but more workers than where we visited yesterday. The vases were very pretty, but at this point, we don’t have luggage space for the flight tomorrow so we decided not to purchase any. Perhaps we will have another opportunity in GZ.

Lastly, we made it to the Great Wall of China. It was later in the day than what had been planned and we only had about 1 ½ hours to climb to the top. This is considered up to the 7th Tower. Good thing I’ve been working out on the stair climber at the gym! The Wall is an amazing sight! To be honest, I would have preferred to have had more time to explore, contemplate, and simply hang-out here than spent as much time as we did at the Forbidden City.

I have no idea why this happens to some of the pictures-- this is showing sideways. Is it posting like this to the blog? It looks fine on the computer, but then changes when I upload it here.

I had another photo of the GW loaded, but it seems to have disappeared. It takes awhile for these to load and I am pretty much done. I'll try to load some more next time.


On the LONG bus ride back to the hotel, our guide talked about our flights to GZ tomorrow afternoon and what will happen over the next couple days when we meet and assume care of our babies. We are very excited, but am now feeling tired when I am suppose to and could drop any moment.

I doubt that we will post tomorrow. We will try to post Monday (Beijing time) after we return to our room with Josie. This will likely be a short note and picture or two.

Love to all of you,
Reena and Wim

Hutong Tour and Temple of Heaven

Hi Everyone,

We had another very busy day today. It was a little rainy and cloudy today, but we didn’t let those kind of little details hold us back from seeing some sights.

After a quick breakfast in the hotel we met with our guide and were off for the Hutong Tour. I’ll do my best to give you details as best I can, but keep in mind I’m still adjusting to the time change. I am going to try and post the pictures in the order that I talk about them, but I have no way of checking and editing – I can only post to the blog. I cannot view it and edit it, but WE CAN read the comments that you write to the blog. It is a little weird.

Hutong means narrow street or alleyway and they were originally constructed wide enough for horses. Over the years, as Beijing has grown, the old Hutongs have been replaced with streets that are more modern. The government is now preserving the last little bit of these historic neighborhoods.

Wim and I rode in a rickshaw, which is basically a 3-wheel bicycle with a carriage on the back that seats 2 adults. A driver pedals the riders around. In case you are wondering, we didn't actually ride it sideways. I don't know what is going on with this picture! Our guide followed behind us on his bicycle and we rode around the Hutong. It was filled with little markets, shops, and many people busy going about their day.

During this tour, we were able to go inside a family compound. This is several living units with a common courtyard in the middle. I tried to post a picture of Wim with our guide standing in the courtyard next to a cistern (giant cement vase), which the family still uses to collect water when it rains for use in their daily life, but this picture would not post. I upload the pictures in the reverse order as you see them, so maybe my computer is as tired as I am and is getting fussy.

Next we visited the Drum Tower and were able to watch a short show of performers who drummed on large drums.

From outside the Drum Tower we were able to view Beijing. The picture shows a street, this is the Center Axis of Beijing and it runs north to south. The Drum Tower is at the southern end of the Center Axis and is also referred to as being on the Dragon’s Tail. The Forbidden City is at the Northern end and is referred to as being on the Dragon’s Head.

We next visited a small Porcelain factory. I use the word factory loosely because it doesn’t really fit our definition of a factory. We were able to watch one man using a pottery wheel to make a porcelain pot; another room had two women hand painting beautiful and elaborate pictures on the vases.

For lunch, we had Peking Duck, some kind of beef and pepper dish, and some kind of fried chicken everything was FANTASTIK!

This was all we had originally planned for today, but our guide mentioned that if we wanted, she could arrange for us to visit the Temple of Heaven and the cost was very reasonable. Oh, I should mention, the Tour today was just me and Wim and our own van with a driver and the guide. Really nice and personalized!

The Temple of Heaven is like a large park, filled with lots of trees, people dancing with colored streamers, and several buildings. There is a picture of Wim playing paddleball with one of the Vendors. It was a fun game, but we decided not to purchase the set. Lastly, there is a picture of Wim and I in front of one of the structures, Temple of Heaven.

This is a small sample of the 100+ pictures I took today! There is also so much more to say about the trip; everywhere we go, it is simply amazing. We will visit the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tianamen Square tomorrow.

We are having a great time and I think tomorrow we might be close to fully adapted to China time. There is so much about this trip that is amazing, not to mention meeting our daughter in just a few short days.

One overall feeling I have so far, this is an amazing world we live in, filled with so much beauty and culture, more than I had ever imagined. All at once, the world seems to be bigger and more full while at the same time seeming smaller and closer than it felt to me yesterday. I hope that makes sense.

Zai jian!
Reena and Wim.

Live From Beijing!

Everyone!

It's been quite the trip! Everything went very smoothly with our travel-- no bad weather- no delays. Just a really long flight from Chicago to Beijing-- 13 1/2 hours. We flew over Siberia and was able to see some of the landscape-- pretty cool.

Our agency guide was waiting for us in Beijing and everthing went very smoothly and amazingly quickly getting through the Visa checks and customs. The pictures posted are random pictures I took on the bus ride from the airport to the hotel. One each of Wim and I on the bus too excited about being in Beijing to feel how tired we truly are. We are pretty wiped! I didn't sleep Tuesday-night and only slept a couple hours today on the plane. Wim slept Tueday-night, but not enough.

We are all checked into our hotel, the Poly Plaza, in Beijing. Our guide took us and the other families who checked in today to a grocery store that is within walking distance to buy some bottled water etc., as it is much cheaper at the grocery store than in our hotel.After we unpacked from the grocery excursion, Wim and I decided to break off on our own and get dinner.

We ducked into a little restraunt down a couple blocks down from our hotel. It was pretty busy so we figured the food must be good-- and it was much better than good. Ordering the food was interesting because the folks there didn't speak English and our Mandarin isn't great-- but we managed to order some pretty yummy food.Although, we are not entirely sure what we ate.

One dish was made with some kind of small chicken pieces-- almost like left over chicken peices that we cut from larger pieces (bones and all). It wa spicy --- but not too much and very tasty. The second dish was fried very small shrimp (shells and eyes and all) with cilantro and celery (we think). This was also very good.

We forgot to take the camera with us when we went out this evening-- we also forgot our Mandarin dictionary etc. Like I said, dinner was an interesting experience.

Ok, folks, that's it for tonight. It is 8:00 pm Beijing time which is 7:00 am EST and I've basically been up since 5:00 am Tuesday, March 18th. It is time for a shower and then our beddy-bye-basket!

We'll post more tomorrow and I'll remember the camera for the Hutong Tour.

Travel Date!

Hi Everyone!

It has been one crazy week! The good news is we finally have our travel date-- we leave for China on March 19th!

Here is the quick rundown:

Monday received an email from our agency around 6:00 pm that said:

1. Our Consulate Appointment is set for April 7th,

2. We are to leaving for China no later than March 20th,

3. Delight Travel will be emailing you flight schedules and need to book you by tomorrow,
4 PM Pacific time.

4. The US Consulate in Guangzhou does not have a record that our fingerprints were updated and we need to contact our local immigration office to get this resolved.

Response to #1 YIPPEEE!!

Response to #2 Holy Crap! That means we are in China for 3 weeks!

Response to #3- OK

Response to #4-- WTH?! That is as clean as I can keep it-- sorry.

We received our paperwork that our fingerprints were all set and documented (for the second/third time around) on February 4th!

Needless to say, I spent some time Tuesday morning calling the National Visa Center, emailing USCIS, and then I discovered I could make an appointment with USCIS in Providence. So I did, and was able to talk to someone in person. We are pretty sure that everything is worked out now.

The three week trip-- Wim and I felt this was too long for him to be away-- between the kids and his job, we have decided that he will fly home after two weeks and Josie and I will return on the 9th as scheduled.

Wim will have been with Josie long enough so that the adoption will still be treated as both parents attending (basically-- less paperwork stuff to do when we return home).

Next Drama--Tuesday night-- our dog sitter decided that she wanted to charge us 25% more than we had originally agreed to--- months ago! After everything else we had to deal with, I am sure that those of you who know me well have a pretty good idea how I responded.

Never fear-- we found someone else for our pet sitting needs and the new dog sitter will be an even better fit for Phoebe. So, all is well that ends well.

We've booked our flights, secured our travel arrangements with our agency, and now all we have to do is pack. Flights in China are limited to one checked bag per person, 44 lbs max. I've started working on this and I think it is going well. I also think there are a few things that will get pulled from the pile.

This will likely be my last post from the US. We are taking my very old lap top with us and have discovered a few kinks-- but thanks to Uncle Earl it appears that the kinks are worked out.

I am using the laptop to post this blog, download the photos below from the camera and upload them to here. So, if you are reading this-- all has gone well. If you are not reading this, I am likely on my way to the liquor store to get a shot of whiskey! Just a little stress!!!!


It appears that this is as good as posting the pictures will get without a mouse, which we are not planning to bring. These are pictures of Josie's room and play area in the living room. The final picture, which was suppose to be first is of our stork-- the FedEx Delivery man who brought us our referral.

You should have seen the look on his face when I asked him how many babies had he delivered.

Next Post-- Beijing China!

WOOO-Hooo!

Waiting for Travel Approval

Just when we thought we were done waiting . . . here we are again, waiting for travel approval from China so we can actually fly there to complete the adoption.

In the meantime, we have been and are very busy and have had a very nice surprise this week. We used an organization called Blessed Kids to ship a care package to Josie. Nothing really big, a little panda snuggli that Wim and I have been sleeping with and a baby photo album with pictures of us in it.

This past week I received word from Blessed Kids that the Orphanage had received our care package and that they were able to get four more pictures of Josie! We were so surprised, not to mention thrilled that we were able to get a few more pictures of her. We don't have any more information and we don't know her age in these photos, but we think the first one was taken around the same time as the referral photos we already received and that the last three are more recent (she has slightly longer hair).

Wim and I cannot believe how incredibly lucky we are to be adopting such a beautiful little girl. She really seems to be very inquisitive based on the pictures we have gotten.

We are very anxious to get our travel approval and get the show on the road.

Once our adoption agency receives this, they can make appointments for us with the US Consulate and then we will know our travel dates. Our agency is still shooting for the week of March 16th, but we will see. That is right around the corner!

We've already started packing-- mostly stuff for Josie. China is more restrictive about baggage than the US so we really need to economize on the packing space.

We will keep you posted-- hopefully, we will have more definitive travel dates by the end of this week.