Safari Park

On Tuesday morning at 8:30 we have our Consulate appointment.  This is were you get approval from the US to bring him to the states and be an American citizen.  Several adopted families met there that morning.

That afternoon, we went to the famous Safari Park.  It is the biggest park in all of Asia.  People come from everywhere to see the animals. It is not like a zoo.  I am not a fan of zoos personally, but this was different.  It was 500+ acres of rainforest.  Millions if not Billions of dollars were spent to make each section as close to their natural habitat as possible.  Most of the animals are not in cages, but roaming freely.  Kinda crazy to get that close to lions and tigers with no walls.

 Yes, there was glass between them.

 We got to feed this hippo just walking through the park.

While we were walking, one of the workers asked if the girls wanted to help with the koalas.  The cleaned their cage, took them for a check-up and got to pet them.

Tomorrow, we are headed home.  We leave Wednesday night for HongKong.  We are staying a the Marriott next to the airport and leave around lunch.  Can't wait to be home.

Guangzhou

Sunday and Monday were non eventful.  We were on our own, so took advantage of staying on Shaiman Island.  It is an area that every adopted couple used to stay because it was next to the Consulate office.  The consulate has since moved and there are not as many adoptive families that stay at the Victory Hotel anymore, but the island is known for adoption and caters to American families.  Our favorite place was Lucy's.  A restaurant that served American food: hamburgers, sandwiches, grilled cheese for the kids, etc.  I think we ate there three times.  Another aspect of the island are the many statues. One in particular is a lady with kids in behind her.  Every one places their adopted child in line with the other "kids" to symbolize unity and finding their family.

Monday evening we went shopping in one of Guangzhou's famous shopping districts.  

Transfer Day

Our pick up time today was 2:00, so we slept in, ate breakfast and took a walk around their version of a Wal-mart.  Our coordinator was busy gathering paperwork and double checking to make sure it was all correct.  When he picked us up at 2, we all three doubled checked everything.  There was a small error so we had to go back to the notary’s office and get it changed. Then we stopped by the Civil Affairs office and picked up his passport and legal copies of the adoption.  Our train left Wuhan at 6:35 and we arrived in Guangzhou at 10:30. Our guide Kathy picked us up and took us to the Victory Hotel on Shamin Island.  

We had a couple of funny moments today.  First, the English translations of some Chinese words are so funny.  When Jeremy and our guide Eric was at the bank, one of the signs on the window said, “Love the window”.  Eric started laughing and said that it meant the widow was for special care people like the elderly, etc. He commented that they probably used google translate. One day when we were in the park, the sign on the lawn said, “Take your trash but leave your virtue on the lawn.”  We laughed forever. Today in the mall, we took a picture of a department store sign that said, “Formal suits, trousers, shoes, and famous shit.” I wish we had taken pictures of all the crazy signs we have seen. So funny.

Visiting the Past

Sorry it has taken me a couple of days to post.  First, we have been extremely busy and second, I wasn't sure how much of this I was willing to share. Part of me wants people to know and part of me wants it to be his story to tell.  You assume a certain amount of risk when you place things for others to read, so I will tell what I am conformable with for now. Today was a very emotional day. But in order to understand the magnitude of today, I will need to tell you a little about McLaren’s history.  This post will be long but I hope you will get a small taste of what a miracle his story is and how fortunate we feel to have him in our lives.  Most couples that adopt internationally, never have the opportunity to know their child’s history before they came to their new family.  We discovered many months ago that McLaren’s story was different. In China, there is no welfare system.  You can not receive medical care without paying for the cost. If you are poor and your child is born with a medical need, you are out of luck.  The child will more than likely die. It is also illegal to abandon your child. So couples really have no other option but to abandon their children anonymously and hope someone will find them that can care for them. I relate it to the faith of Moses’ mother.  There is no doubt that they love their children and are willing to risk it.  Many times, they will leave them on the corner of the street, in a bus station, someplace crowded and then go hide and watch to see if someone will take them.  The children are taken to an orphanage to live. This is when their history begins. There are 147 million orphans in the world.  About 1 million are in China with 3,000 being adopted each year. This is the story of just 1 of them.

April 15, 2009

It was a Wednesday. Either at 10:05 in the morning or 10:05 in the afternoon, a child was born somewhere in the middle of China.  Unlike most children, this child was born with a life threatening condition. Surgery is necessary and usually performed within the first 24 hours.  

May 13, 2009

28 days after birth, early in the morning, a duffle bag was placed out side of a wallpaper shop in downtown Gong’an.  The bag never moved or made a sound.  Between 3:30 and 4 pm, a cleaning lady became curious and unzipped the mysterious abandoned bag.  The owner of the store was notified and immediately called the police.  Inside was a baby boy.  He was black and his stomach looked like a basketball.  The pain was so intense that he couldn’t cry or move, but he was alive. Also inside the bag was a few pieces of children’s clothing and a note that read “April 15, 2009, 10:05”. Several people ran to buy milk, but the infant was already dying.

The police rushed to the scene and found the baby faint of breath and called the emergency number.  Within minutes the child arrived at the County People’s Hospital for treatment.

After examination, the doctor stated that having surgery within a few days of birth is critical. To see one still alive after 28 days is a miracle.  The infant was facing multiple organ failure.  The lungs were constricted and death would occur in only a few hours.

May 14, 2009

The next morning, Dr. Zhang addressed reporters, “This baby has survived 29 days and insists on survival.  It is simply a miracle of life.  Such tenacious vitality, and I have the confidence to operate on him. I believe he will survive.”

The first of three surgeries was performed that afternoon.  During the surgery, rescue shelter staff, pediatric health care workers, as well as the first to discover the abandoned baby, and others waited in the operating room watching the child’s situation. The surgery lasted about an hour. At 5:15, the surgery was over and it was a success. The baby boy was placed in an incubator in intensive care. The news spread quickly of the miraculous story. The fate of one little child had affected so many people.  The police came to visit the boy in the hospital. The Women’s Federation President, Suli Lan, also came to visit the child. She wanted to learn more about the child’s medical staff who were treating the boy and paid 1,000 yuan in his behalf. Word spread of “the boy who lived” and other people started bringing milk, clothes, and money to the hospital.  

June 8, 2009

After 20 days in the incubator, the infant was handed to Li Zuping, a 57 year old care worker.  She became known as Grandma Li.  For the next 5 months, she and her daughter Hu took extremely good care of the baby.  Hu cared for the child as her own.  

November 7, 2009

Time for surgery number two.   The surgery lasted two hours and was very successful.  Grandma Li stayed by his side.  She would pat him to sleep, and when he was thirsty, she would wet a cotton swab and gently rub his lips. He is almost 7 months old.

Thus far, the baby has been known as “Diudiu”, but Grandpa Li didn’t like the name and said that although he was abandoned he deserved a name of dignity.  So they named him Zhang MinHui. “Zhang” after his doctor who believed in his determination, “Min” after the many people who cared for him and sacrificed their time and money to save his life, and “Hui” which means bright future. 

January 28, 2010

The last surgery. Today is the first day that he is considered a healthy happy boy. 

April 12, 2011

MinHui is taken to the Jingzhou Orphanage.  

April 19th, 2013

It has been two long years, but the paperwork has been completed and signed allowing MinHui to be placed for adoption. The paperwork is then sent to the CCCWA (China Welfare Agency) for processing.  

June, 2013

MinHui has been assigned to Wasatch International Adoption Agency in Ogden, Utah. They named him “Keaton”. 

In January 2014, when Jeremy and I found “Keaton” on the internet, we had no idea that we had found a little Moses.  Having learned all this a few months ago, we planned a trip to his orphanage and “founding” place.  So today, we were picked up early and taken 3 hours to Jingzhou.  We had lunch with the orphanage director and his caregiver.  They gave us a gift.  An ox pendant made of pure jade.  Then we were taken to the orphanage.  It was small and extremely clean.  Only about 25 or so children.  Most of them were severely handicapped.  They explained that McLaren was the life of the orphanage. Having no mental or physical problems, he was the little helper and shared his joy of life with the other children.  They were sad to see him go.  We brought goodies to the other children.  They gave us a tour.  I was doing pretty well emotionally until they took me to the bedroom where all the children sleep and pointed to his bed and said, “it is empty now”. A flood of emotional came over me and tears started to fall.  I feel humble and honored to be his mother.

From there, we drove south to Gong’ an, about 30 minutes, to find the wallpaper store where he had been abandoned. We found it and took some pictures of him in the same location. 

I can’t imagine what all he has been through the last 5 years, but I have no doubt he was found for a reason, that I was chosen to be his mother, and that he has a special mission in life.

Saturday

I'm posting three posts today because I am so far behind.

We had to be in the lobby at 8:30 to drive to his medical appointment.  Each adopted child must go through a short medical exam and TB test before they can be clear to travel to the US.  We saw and met several other adoptive families there. It was nice to talk with them. We had been told and warned that the medical appt. was difficult and the place would be a nightmare, but it wasn’t.  It was clean and the doctors were nice. He was really cute during the eye exam.  Their eye chart is a bunch of pictures of a hand.  The hands are rotated in all directions and the child has to mimic with their hand what they see.  He was doing great, they kept going lower on the chart and he kept turning his hand left, right, upside down, until finally they came to the last line and he put up two fingers close together to indicate that the “hand” was too small.  

He is so funny.  He loves to smile and laugh.  Everything is funny to him.  Yesterday when the guide was with us and Jeremy and McLaren were playing, she started laughing.  When we asked her what McLaren said and she said that he called Jeremy a monster.  Jeremy responded by telling him he was a monkey.  McLaren responded back that he was the monkey king.  I wish we could understand everything he says to us.  He is learning that we communicate with him through our phone.  itranslate is a great app (google is not allowed in China).  Most of the time, it works, but one day, we found some toys in a grocery store and he was just talking up a storm at this one toy, so Jeremy got out his phone really quick and tried to record what he was saying.  In a few seconds, Siri said “Son of a bitch, I want to play with this toy”.  I didn’t know if we were going to get control of our laughter.  When we got back to Eric, we asked him about it and he started laughing, he said that there is no way that he said that.  It is not acceptable to speak that way in China especially for a 5 year old orphan child. We knew it was probably not what he said, but we still had a good laugh.  

Wednesday

Nothing too exciting happened today.  It was a free day--time for the family to bond and just be together.  It started raining on Tuesday and is predicted to rain all week.  So we were told about an indoor shopping center just down the street.  Most of the day was spent shopping an looking around.  It was huge, 2 to 3 times the size of City Creek in Salt Lake.  We didn't see half of it.

Getting home was not fun.  Because it was raining and there were 6 of us, none of the cabs wanted to take us to the hotel.  So we walked 2 miles back to the hotel in the pouring rain with no umbrellas.  We sang, "I will survive" as we walked.  Tired and cold, we arrived at the same restaurant and waved hi to our server from the evening before.

The Adoption is Final!

When we picked him up on Monday, we were given 24 hour guardianship.  They kinda give you 24 hours to make sure you still want the child and that all is well.  At first, you think Really?.  Someone would go through all this and pay that kind of money and then just say, no, I don't think he/she is going to work out.  But unfortunately, there are extreme situations where things just don't work out.  Luckily that was not the case for us.  Yes, the last 24 hours have been a challenge, but nothing that we can't handle.  So, the guide picked us up at 9:00 for our official adoption day.  We met with the officials to sign the paperwork.

Because in China they don't recognize our American signatures, you have to put your fingerprint on top of your signature. They took our picture as a family and placed in on our official adoption decree. Jeremy headed downstairs to exchange some money at the bank and I stayed up stairs with the kids. As his caregiver and orphanage director started to say their goodbyes he started crying.  A lot.  Then he started screaming.  It was extremely emotional.  My heart hurt for him.  I tried not to cry but the thought of what he must be feeling inside was hard to handle.  Imagine a child being taken from the only home, family and life he has ever known.  Jeremy came back upstairs just in time to see it all.  My mom came over with some chocolate and his iPad. He eventually calmed down but cried all the way back to the hotel room.   That afternoon we decided to take him swimming.  Knowing he probably had never done that before, we were prepared.  He was unsure at first and held on to me with a death grip.  After a few minutes he relaxed and started splashing.  Then it happened, English words.  He was holding on to dad and I had the girls.  The girls would count one, two, three and I would toss them in the air.  He watched for a moment and then looked at Jeremy and said, one, two, shree.  So Jeremy tossed him and the smile I love so much returned.
For dinner, we decided to walk down the street until we found something that looked edible.  Only a few buildings down, we saw a hot pot place.  In Japan that call it Shabu Shabu and there is one in Park City if you ever want to try it.  We love it!  We were so excited and ate til we were full.  The entire bill was only $30 for 6 people including tax and tip.  Sweet!  I believe we will eat there again.

Gotcha Day!!

I have just now had a minute to sit down and write.  Yesterday, was "Gotcha Day". It was crazy.  In fact, the last 24 hours have felt like I just went skydiving for the first time. It's the best way I know how to describe it.  I signed up, filled out the paperwork, took all the preparation classes, I voluntarily put the suit on and climbed in the plane.   They took us to 10, 000 feet, reminded us when to pull the red cord and then pushed us out.  The emotions are the same. Scared, nervous, and excited.

Our appoint wasn't until 1:45, so we slept in and had a late breakfast.  Then we went for a walk and picked up our laundry.  Our guide Eric picked us up at 1:45 and we headed for the Civil Affairs Office.  We filled out the 24 hour guardianship papers and then waited on the couch for them to walk through the door.

Just before 3pm we heard the elevator ding.  My mom started recording with the video camera.  And then there he was.  It was amazing.  I fought back the tears and he walked right up to us and said "Hello". He opened his photo album we had sent and started pointing at each one of us and calling us by name "Baba" (dad), "Mama" (mom), "Jie Jie" (older sisters) and "Way po" (grandmother).  He gave us a hug and the girls showed him some toys we had brought.  We couldn't believe it was going as smoothly as it was.  He was happy and content.  

We left the office and went to take his passport picture.  The lady told him to close his mouth for the picture and so he gave a frowny face. It was funny. On our way back to the car, our guide said he was calling us funny names.  He is quite the little jokester. However, the funniest part was dinner.  Our guide didn't give any recommendations, so we just picked the closest place.  We used an app to try and communicate with the server.  We did the best we could and decided we would just eat whatever he brought to the table. McLaren was laughing, trying to run away, and tickling Jade.  We had the entire restaurants attention.  I can only imagine what they were saying.  We decided after dinner that we had our hands full.  He is hyper and outgoing but he is also constantly smiling and laughing.  He is perfect and we fill so blessed.  

Wuhan Day 1

I should really title this post as "How to survive without a tour guide" but I don't know if we survived it.  Wuhan is considered a "small" city (10 million people) in the center of China.  I don't think they have ever seen an American and absolutely no one speaks English.  At least in Beijing, you would find someone that learned English in high school.  We ate breakfast in the hotel and ventured off to find a laundromat.  We were told you could find some and they were usually cheap.  Yeah well, there's a lot of things I was told that haven't actually been true.  We found one close to the hotel and walked there.  Have I mentioned that no speaks English and that we can't read Chinese.  (I'm regreting not taking a crash corse in Mandarin.) After quite an ordeal and $120 later, we have clean clothes.
Next, we decide to go see the sights.  Hmmm, not sure that was such a great idea.  We got a taxi and showed him a picture of where we wanted to go--East Lake.  We had no idea our destination was as large as it was.  We later learned that the East Lake is the largest lake in all of China.  It really was a beautiful area.  We even saw the sun (which was a first since we arrived in China).  After being dropped off, we thought we would grab a quick lunch and then do some activities.  We started looking for places to eat.  I had no idea that finding lunch was going to be that complicated.  First, you have to find a place that looks decent, then you have to see a menu.  The menu is the key.  If there are no pictures for you to point at, then you can't eat there. We walked for hours and stopped at several food places and never got lunch. I can't even begin to explain how frustrating the situation was. Even with several translation apps on our phone, we aren't being successful. Tired and starving, we saw a place with coke and chocolate.  Hallelujah!  It will at least tied us over till we can find a place.  We are so far from our hotel, that we decide to catch a boat back to the other side of the lake.  Nope, the last boat has already left. We are too late.  We walk all the way back to the main highway and hail a cab.  We are done!    I show him the business card from our hotel and off we go.  We ended up having the restaurant in our hotel cook us a hamburger.  I don't know about everyone else in my party, but I'm ready to be home.  My nerves are shot. The girls are being real troopers and I am grateful.  I felt bad for them today.  I know tomorrow will be better.  We will have our driver and guide back, but most of all, it is gotcha day.  We get our son tomorrow (Monday) at 2:30!  

Transfer Day

On Saturday, we were picked up by our guide at 11am and taken to the train station.  When we filled out our itinerary, we were given the option of riding the bullet train or flying. We couldn't pass up the train.  200 mph, but it didn't feel like it.  You knew you were moving along, but you thought it might be more like 100 or 120, not 200.  The girls loved it and I decided it was better than flying.

The pollution in Beijing is so bad that by the 4th day, we all had headaches and were ready to leave the city.  We thought it would clear after only a few minutes on the train but it didn't.  Only after arriving in Wuhan which is about 1000 miles from Beijing did we begin to see the tops of buildings. We arrived in Wuhan at 6pm and were picked up by our driver and translator.  We were taken to our hotel and dropped off.  We were told we would not see a translator or driver until Monday at 1:45.  Great!  It's late and we are exhuasted and hungry so we decided to eat in the hotel at $40 per person.  Ouch.  The price we pay for convenience.