Day 2

After a mostly wonderful night of sleep (we both woke up a few times) we headed to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. 

Wow. Seriously, I have never seen such a wide variety and such a large quantity of food. We helped ourselves to scrambled eggs, hash browns, veggie rice, sausage, pastries, and cheeses. 

Next, we began our adventure by taking the airport express train into downtown Hong Kong. There we caught the train to Guangzhou. Everything to that point had been very westernized... A lot of English and diversity. 

Guangzhou was a little different. There is definitely less English, but we still found out lunch at McDonalds. A guide met us at the Guangzhou East train station and after we dropped off another adopting family at their hotel, we were escorted to the Guangzhou South train station. 

Our guides, Jack and Dani, were great. Dani is a college student, and I think we were her first assignment. I think she was amused by my Mandarin phrase book but helped me with a few pronunciations. 

And I forgot to mention, Guangzhou is hot. No... Sweltering... It's like South Carolina on a humid day in July... But it is April. 

The Guangzhou South train station is huge and crowded. We quickly learned to forget about personal space. If you allow an inch between yourself and the person in front of you, ten people will push in front of you. 

Also, if someone seems confused and takes to long at a task, the Chinese way seems to be to scream at the person with a bullhorn. I'm not sure how that helps, but the flustered travelers did seem to pick up the pace. I told Todd that maybe we should scream at Ava in English. She might feel at home. 

We made it to Changsha. The bullet train was fun! But in true Ch:nese fashion, everyone tried to both leave the train and new passengers board at the same time. 

Todd wants me to mention smells. There are many odd smells and many good ones. Some of the food smells amazing, some smells different. The people who wear cologne have great taste and smell divine. Others have some serious b.o. But with the way I was sweating, so do I. 

Our guide here seems really nice. She helped us settle in at our hotel. The buffet at dinner would have sent PETA into a tizzy. Whole turtles, frog tongues, and goose wings, oh my! The fried rice was really good. 

Travel: Day 1.5

We began the first leg of our China journey by driving to Atlanta on April 16. After setting the alarm clock for 4:00 am, we were both awake and out of bed before 3. The nervous anticipation was eating away at us. 

The security check point was relatively painless and fast considering the length of the line. We breezed through, ate a leisurely breakfast and boarded our flight to San Francisco. 

The flight went well... Just a little boring and long. We flew over the Pacific coastline and were able to glimpse the Golden Gate Bridge through the mist. 

After landing, we grabbed lunch and a couple of magazines. The flight to Hong Kong was completely booked... So we were stuck with our two middle seats in separate rows. 

Fourteen hours is long time to sit on a plane. I have tried to keep my mind busy with books, magazines, and games on my phone. It wasn't so bad for the first three hours. The next seven to eight hours crawled by until I conked out from exhaustion. 

We stayed at a hotel connected to the airport. Everything was great until it was time to turn the lights off. The only light switch controlled the bathroom light. After trial and error, we discovered the card holder by the door. If we removed the card, the power shut off to the room. All the power. Then Todd found a control center alarm clock so we could turn off all the lights except for two. When life gives you lemons, just unscrew the lightbulbs. 

The card power controller thingy is on the left and the lone light switch (for the bathroom) is on the right. 

This is the clock command center. 

Seven Days

A lot can happen in the course of a week.

On Monday, we will stock up on groceries for the boys and do a little laundry. Tuesday is for packing and gathering documents and finalizing arrangements. Wednesday means more packing and cleaning and packing. Thursday is more packing and cleaning and saying goodbye to our boys for TWO weeks. Oh my, two weeks away from my precious boys. On Friday, we fly from Atlanta to San Francisco, and then we fly to Hong Kong arriving Saturday evening. Sunday, we travel by train to Changsha.

That is blowing my mind. Exactly a week from now, we will be sleeping (hopefully) in our hotel room in Changsha just hours away from meeting Ava and becoming a family of five. In just one week, our lives will be completely changed.

In a month from now, we will have been home for almost two weeks and will have celebrated Ava's third birthday and completed our first post-placement visit with our social worker.

In just four months, I will the mom of a six year old and two three year olds. Woo boy, my hands will be full, but my heart will be bursting at the seams.

In just nine months, Ava will celebrate her very first Christmas. Oh, how many firsts she will have! First plane ride, first boat ride, first beach trip, first visit to church, first wrestling match with her brothers, and her first words in English.

One more week as an orphan, and then forever a Speary.

One Less

There are an estimated 153 million orphans in the world. On April 20, there will be one less.

Ava will have lived in an orphanage for 1,069 days. On April 20, 2015, she will leave the orphanage and join her forever family, us.

We are so very happy, thankful, and nervous.

This last month has been particularly hard on me. I appreciate everyone who has listened, offered support, and given a shoulder for me to cry on. The countdown has gone from "6 more months... 6 more months" to about 2 weeks.

Patience... One last approval...

"Dear Adoptive Parent,

The Adopted Children's Immigrant Visa Unit (ACIVU) at U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou has finished processing your child's Article 5, and your file is returned to your adoption agency's facilitator. 

....

We look forward to meeting you and your new family member when you come to the Consulate for your visa appointment!

Sincerely yours,

 Adoptions Team

Immigrant Visa Unit

U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou"

_______________________________________________

This is it, y'all. We have one more approval before we can schedule our consulate appointment which will determine when we leave for China.

Today, March 17, 2015 our article 5 was issued and picked up from the US Consulate in Guangzhou and is headed to the Chinese Center of Children's Welfare and Adoption in Beijing. Our final wait in this process is for Travel Approval.  Travel Approval generally takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to receive. If we can receive our TA relatively quickly, we will be able to meet Ava on April 13. The longer our wait, the longer Ava waits.

We first signed our contract with our first agency on March 6, 2014. What a blessing it is to complete this adoption in just over a year when so many wait for much longer.

A wise friend of mine once said (coughJenniferHawkinscough), "Never pray for patience. I prayed for patience and God gave me Jax (her precocious 3 year old)." "Too late," I told her.... and then I got handed the task of bringing home a beautiful little girl half a world away. My patience has been tested continuously, my hairs are turning grey, and I'm pretty sure my pre pregnancy jeans will never fit again.

So, whatever you do, do NOT pray for patience. Because you will find yourself looking at a complicated and testing situation that just may make your life insanely better. ;)

Lessons learned

Like most things in life and about life, adoption is a journey and not a destination. I've learned a lot through our adoption process... we have learned about parenting a child who comes from a "hard place" and parenting a child of a different ethnicity. We have learned about orphan care, types of adoptions, and a tiny bit about the vast expanse of Chinese history.

The things I didn't really expect to learn are, however, the most important.

I have learned to surround myself with supportive and caring people. We need a strong foundation to be a strong family.

I have learned what it feels like to be the racial minority and what a comfort it is to "blend in". We will make every effort to spend time with a diverse group of friends for Ava so that she does not always stand out.

I have learned that I must be strong, out spoken, and compassionate. Ava is different. She was born with a giant congenital melanocytic nevus. She is Asian. She will encounter teasing at some point, but she will never face it alone. Her family must be her rock. We will not tolerate teasing, bullying, or racism. We will protect her, build her up, and make her strong for a cruel intolerant world.

This morning on the way to a haircut, my favorite radio show began ragging on China. "There is not one good thing in China. Why would anyone want to go there?," they said.

In a way they are right. There is not ONE good thing in China. There are BILLIONS of good things in China. Currently, Ava is my favorite thing in China. If it weren't for Ava, I would not know much about China. I would not have fallen in love with so many orphans who desperately need families and medical care. If it weren't Ava, I would not know that most of the children are abandoned because their families cannot afford their medical care. Imagine that.... feeling like your only option to save your child is to leave your child? I love that China allows Americans to adopt their precious children. America is not always so kind in return.

So remember that when you are complaining that your TV or your cell phone was *gasp* Made in China, that my Ava was also made in China. You don't have to like their political system. You don't have to like their food or their languages. But you can love their people.  They need jobs just like the rest of us. They need to support their families, buy food, and pay for medical care. Only, they survive on much a less a day than we do.

I have learned that I cannot care what some of you think. I cannot listen to the naysayers. There will always be someone who criticizes adoption. "I could never love a child who isn't mine." I cannot listen to those who ask, "Ugh, why adopt from CHINA?" I will pity those who sneer at adopting a child with special needs. "People need to stop bringing rejects from other countries into America." I will guard my heart from those who stare at Ava's nevus.

I will never stop learning and growing and doing what I feel is right for my family.

Wok and Roll

We made a little more progress this week. On Tuesday, we received our visas to enter China. Our visas are good for ten years, with a maximum stay of 90 days per trip. I'm sure we can squeeze in one more adoption and a couple of heritage trips in that time frame. ;)

Also, this week, our Article 5 was dropped off at the consulate in Guangzhou and will be picked up March 17. Once this step is complete, we will be rolling right along to Travel Approval and scheduling our appointment at the consulate.

I am still hopeful that we will travel around April 9, but it is possible that we will get pushed back a week. It all depends how quickly our approvals come through and how fast we can get an appointment at the consulate.

To stay busy, I have been practicing my chopstick skills (I can pick up chunky items) and my (sort of) authentic Chinese cooking. Tonight, I will attempt shrimp fried rice in my brand new wok.