Day 5

What a day... An emotional day. 

During the night, Ava slept fitfully and squirmed and rocked most of the night. She awoke a little standoffish, but quickly cheered up at breakfast. Her favorite food seems to be hard boiled eggs (minus the yolk). She ate three eggs and a yogurt and became our chatty, smiley girl again. 

Side note: the yogurt here is amazingly good. It is very smooth and more runny than back home. It is lightly sweet and lacks the "sour" flavor of American yogurt. 

After breakfast, Todd left to visit Ava's orphanage and Ava and I played in our room. The decision to not take Ava for this visit was an extremely difficult decision to make. On one hand, she could say one last goodbye to her friends and caregivers. On the other, it could cause Ava a lot of heart break in leaving her orphanage family behind for a second time. 

I don't know if we made the right decision, and I may never know. I do feel sad that I was unable to visit and hug the women who have loved Ava for the past three years. I will think of them and will pray for them for the rest of my life.

Todd described the visit as overwhelming and very emotional...but not in a bad way. Ava was dearly loved by her nannies and the orphanage director. In fact, she loved her bath time there...so maybe we saw less fear and more deep grief last night. 

As for her shoes, the children are not required to wear shoes but the nanny told Todd that these are her favorite shoes.  Again, there may be grief involved with removing her shoes. When we take them off to change clothes, I hand them to her so she knows we are not taking them away. 

She opened up to me today... Letting me hold her and giving me spontaneous hugs and smiles. She also showed me her naughty side. I had to break out my Chinese to scold her for hitting. 

At dinner, I learned Ava is an incredibly smart girl who plays us like a violin. Our guide had her scarfing down broccoli and noodles. It is hard to know when to insist Ava do something and when to let things go. The language barrier makes this much more difficult. Ava has a large vocabulary but in Chinese. 

I do not know how anyone could make it through this process without a lot of prayer, love, and support. I can feel everyone's strength holding me up. 

China, at least Changsha, is very different from what I expected. The city is very large like New York City. And while the people hustle and bustle and cut in front of each other, no one gets angry. We do get stares, but we have yet to see any other Caucasian people with a Chinese baby. So that's understandable. 

The people here are very conscious of their resources and are careful not to be wasteful. The signs in the hotel room encourage conservation. There are also people working non stop to keep the city beautiful. You do not see litter and the park's plants were carefully groomed. It is obvious the people here have pride in their work. 

Below is Ava's favorite nanny:

Ava's bed

A playroom

Out for a walk

Dinner: bacon noodles, broccoli, spicy tofu, and pork pies. All was very very good. 

Todd has been hit with tummy troubles. He informed me that dinner was not nearly as good on the way back up. Yikes. 

Day 4

Today started off with a bang. Ava rocks herself in her sleep, and she rocked herself right off the bed. She never woke up even as we carefully picked her up and put her back. 

Todd and I aren't sure if the rocking is to self comfort or if she is having nightmares. When Todd touches her, she relaxes. 

Ava, (we are calling her Pan Yi), enjoyed breakfast very much. She smiled constantly at her daddy and excitedly watched a young boy. She also kept the other patrons entertained by shouting "mama!" at Todd. 

We soon met our guide for a trip to the park. Sylia is a college student studying English. When she graduates, she wants to become a tour guide for Chinese people who travel abroad. 

The park is HUGE. We compare it to Central Park, maybe? At the entrance, retirees were taking their morning exercises: dancing, tai chi, and a sword "dance" similar to tai chi. On tables, groups played cards and mah jong. 

We stopped at a pond to feed the fish. Ava loved it, and we attracted a lot of attention. A woman with a young girl sat next to us and spoke to Ava. Ava looked at her with a bit of confusion, but happily accepted a bag of treats. So Ava continued feeding the fish and herself as people milled around us. 

We continued through the park.. Beautiful flowers, bridges, and buildings. They have an amusement park with a roller coaster, Ferris wheel and other rides and games. 

Ava laughed as I skipped around and walked backwards. She daintily alighted from the stone walkway to the grass to the dirt and would look to us for approval. Our guide said she thinks the children in the orphanage only go outside a few times a year. 

After the park, we visited an embroidery shop for a couple of items to frame for our house. 

Next, we went to a shopping mall (very western!) we passed an Apple Store and Samsung (Samsung is very popular here). We stopped at Pizza Hut and enjoyed cold glasses of peach tea with chunks of real peaches! It was delicious! As we waited for our food it became clear that Ava was exhausted. Our guide had our order packed up and guided us back to the hotel. 

After a quick lunch and a nap, we got back to bonding. We saw our first tantrum: she REALLY doesn't like taking off her shoes. We aren't going to fight that battle since she has not had control of anything else, she can control her shoes. She is sleeping in them now. 

We hung out in our room and played. She started opening up to me.. Giving me her big grin and even some hugs and kisses. 

We decided to give her a bath and all was well until we started to fill the tub with water. Ava went into full blown panic mode. Luckily, our training kicked in and recognized that she had retreated inside herself. There just aren't words for how heart breaking it is to see a child that scared. After about an hour of attempting to comfort her, she lay on the floor gazing  into nothing, I started to brush her hair. 

Slowly, her spark came back. She smiled again. She knocked over her stacking cups and giggled. The best part was after changing her diaper, she grabbed a doll and pretended to change the doll's diaper. She looked to me with a nervous grin and I cheered for her excellent mama skills. 

Day 3

This was it. After 13 months of interviews, training, reading books, background checks and paperwork, we were finally meeting our little girl. 

Maybe that's why we were awake at 3 am. 

We had planned to leave the hotel at 9, but our meeting was delayed so we headed to the civil affairs office at 9:30. Our guide was in contact with the orphanage director who was taking Ava for a passport photo. Ava was crying and very upset. The orphanage director advised us not to bring her back when we visited the orphanage. 

I was scared. Real scared. For the first time, I had many doubts. But when we heard Ava's cries from the rising elevator, I prepared to meet my daughter. 

Ava was absolutely terrified. The look in her eyes was of sheer terror. Her color was almost purple from screaming so hard. 

I rocked her, cradled her, and walked her around. Occasionally she would reach out to hit me with the lightest touch, but she would then recoil as if she expected me to hit her back. 

I hugged and kissed her as much as I could. Eventually her screams turned into silent sobs. I could feel her heart beating wildly even though she appeared almost calm. 

We left with her to begin our "24 hour harmonious period" which turned out to be only about four hours since our paperwork was processed so quickly. 

At the hotel, we gave Ava a snack and toys. She soon got an odd look on her face which could mean only one thing: poop. After changing her diaper, she hopped up, gave Todd a hug and a big cheesy grin. She has been daddy's girl ever since. 

When we returned to the Civil Affairs office to sign the paperwork and to pay our fees, Ava beamed and cuddled with her daddy. She would occasionally meet my eyes and scowl, but in the adoption attachment world, that was good. She was looking me in the eye. We can do this. 

We stopped by the supermarket on the drive home to pick snacks, drinks, and diapers. 

We were all completely exhausted at this point and were happy to return to the hotel for room service and rest. 

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.