Allison Arrives at her new home...

Allison arrives to find her new pink bedroom...

They're Heeeeeere!

Hi folks,

Well, Joy and Allison have finally made it back to the states. Allison travelled like a trooper and Joy is ready for an extended nap. (I haven't had the heart to tell her that's probably a ways off yet.) Anyway, some of us went to greet them at the airport and I managed to get a little video. Then we took Allison home to her new house where I snuck a little more footage. Allison is awfully cute....

OUR TRIP TO GUANGZHOU

On Friday, our group boarded a plane for Guangzhou which is where the American Consulate is located. This is where we will complete our adoption paperwork before flying home. Guess who was a total charmer on the airplane! Allison delighted our seatmates by playing peek-a-boo and being generally cute. You would not recognize her as the same child from Monday. She is trying very hard to talk and babbled throughout the flight. Not a single tear was shed for the entire flight. There is actually hope that I can get her home without the other passengers on the plane wanting to stow us in the luggage compartment with the cats and dogs. We're staying at the Holiday Inn Shifu and it's really nice! If you're looking for a great place to stay in Guangzhou, stay here! The rooms are large and luxurious. Guangzhou is a real trip! After arriving at our hotel, Allison and I went out with our guide to order a quick bite to eat. The area surrounding the hotel looks like a cross between Times Square, a shopping mall, and a street fair. There are all sorts of tiny little mom-and-pop shops and restaurant sitting side by side with more modern stores and restaurants. Everything is all lit up and there is a huge TV screen in one area. Outside the hotel, there are all sorts of street peddlers who have set out their merchandise on the sidewalk. Everything is a juxtaposition between old and new. There are modern new buildings side-by-side with buildings and streets that appear to be very old. The place is packed with people enjoying the weekend. I'm looking forward to exploring this place more. Looks like Allison will have more rides in the stroller!

OUR TRIP TO POYANG

On Thursday, we made the three-hour drive to the town of Poyang to visit the orphanage where Allison is from. Much to my surprise, she handled the car ride fairly well. She was content to sit on my lap and play with toys and other suitable objects plucked from my bag. She is in a very tactile stage of development where she likes to feel different textures and shuffle objects between her hands before throwing them on the floor. One of her favorite "toys" was a crinkly wrapper that made noise when you scrunched it up. We got a lot of mileage out of that.

The trip to Poyang took us through the Jiangxi countryside. Before we knew it, we were driving past rice paddies where we saw farmers plowing fields with water buffalo pulling the plows. The area was dotted with similar looking three story multi-family brick houses that were located right on the rice paddy. They had garage-like doors on the bottom floor and, presumably, living quarters on the upper floors. There were all sorts of people riding motor scooters and bicycles, sometimes carrying amazingly large loads on these vehicles. It wasn't at all unusual to see the entire family on a single scooter. The drivers were a bit wild, passing anyone who was slow by driving down the middle of the road. There was a lot of honking and a lot of weaving from one lane to the other. Our group had a near death experience with a wayward cow that ran right in front of our van. Thanks to our skillful driver, we avoided a calamity.

The town of Poyang is much bigger than I thought it would be. It had several busy city streets with a wide variety of stores and restaurants. The orphanage is located in a complex of similar looking buildings that appear to have been built relatively recently. I'm not sure what the other buildings are used for. We didn't get to go inside the orphanage. We just saw the front porch area. There were several baskets and small beds with tiny, swaddled babies in them.

Shortly after arriving at the orphanage, the source of some of Allison's distress became clear. Upon hearing that we had come, her beloved nanny came running out to greet her. It was very obvious from their interaction that she was very strongly bonded with this woman. As the nanny showered her with hugs and kisses, Allison became a joyful child, smiling, laughing and babbling in the nanny's arms. The other nannies came out to dote on her too. It was very clear that she had been well loved in this place. No wonder she had cried so hard. The nanny brought Allison over to me and started patting me on the shoulder while saying to her, "Good mama, good mama." When it came time to leave, Allison became distressed again and cried very hard. The nanny cried too. It was very difficult to watch. I had had some reservations about bringing Allison back to the orphanage because I was afraid it would confuse her but meeting her nanny and seeing them interact so lovingly was priceless. I am incredibly grateful to this woman for all that she has given my daughter.

After visiting the orphanage, we went into town to a restaurant to have lunch with the orphanage staff. It was quite an extravagant meal served family style with dozens of dishes placed on a lazy Susan in the middle of the table. In China, it seems commonplace to leave the head of the animal on the dish so that you know what you're eating. We had an eel, a duck and a fish peering at us throughout the meal. Personally, I thought most of the dishes were delicious if you could manage to ignore the heads! There were also plenty of fruit, vegetable and noodle dishes for the faint of heart. There were several toasts offered to the adoptive parents by the orphanage staff and we, of course, responded in kind by offering toasts to them. During the lunch, Allison was still a bit out of sorts after seeing her nanny and was only content sitting on the lap of a Chinese woman. They were kind enough to indulge her, feeding her bits of watermelon as a treat.

After lunch, we went to see the finding places of our children. I was able to take some pictures of the small hospital where Allison was left. After that, we headed back to Nanchang. I was afraid that I might be back to square one with Allison after visiting the orphanage but she was fine in the van. She babbled and played all the way back to Nanchang and only got a bit fussy at the very end.

WE GOT THE BEAT!

Allison seems to be coming around. There wasn't nearly as much crying this morning and she was content to sit in her stroller while I ate breakfast at the buffet. After breakfast, our group went to the Nanchang People's Park. Allison loved being outside in the stroller again and happily played with her feet and cooed in the stroller. The park was really beautiful with a large trees and a goldfish pond. In one section there is an amusement park with rides. One of the rides had music playing over the loudspeaker with a strong beat. As soon as she heard it, Allison began to dance in her stroller, bouncing up and down and waving her arms to the beat. It was really cute! Seeing an opportunity, I decided to try to give her a bottle there and she took it without resistance. The hunger strike is slowly but surely beginning to wane. She also started to babble baby nonsense syllables (ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma, tsa-tsa-tsa, etc.)

WALK-A-BYE BABY!

Day two in Nanchang started out much the same as the first. Allison appeared startled when she woke up in unfamiliar surroundings and immediately started to cry. She continued to cry and scream for three hours solid and nothing seemed to calm her down. She would momentarily stop crying if I held her and walked around but the minute I stopped moving, she would scream and cry again. I don't think I've ever walked so much in my life! She continued her

'hunger strike" and refused to take a bottle. I put her in the stroller and took her down to the breakfast buffet to try to get a quick bit to eat for myself and she seemed momentarily distracted watching the waiters and waitresses. But the minute I got up to go get my food and was out of sight she screamed like crazy and she didn't calm down when I came back. I gulped my food as quickly as I could so we could get out of there.

About ten o'clock we went for a walking tour of a local temple with Allison in the stroller. Once we were outside, she turned into a different child. She loved watching all the people and was clearly entertained by the sites. She happily played with her feet in the stroller and would wave her arms and legs up and down when she got excited. One of the older children on the tour began playing peek-a-boo with her and entertaining her with silly faces and, lo and behold, she actually SMILED!!! When we got back to the hotel, she fell asleep in the stroller so I wheeled her down to the buffet to enjoy a peaceful lunch. Thankfully, she slept through the whole meal. When she woke up later on, she started in with the crying again so I took her back outside and we spent the afternoon strolling the streets of Nanchang. We managed to get off the beaten path onto the side streets and were able to get a taste of local life. Allison was as happy as can be in the stroller. We certainly attracted a lot of attention from the local population. Several people came up to the stroller to faun over her and expressed curiosity over a Caucasian woman strolling with a Chinese baby. Some of the local school children came running up to me to test some of their English.

After a couple of hours of walking around, I was too tired to go any further and took Allison back to the hotel. Before I left for China, I was lamenting having to give up my workout routine for two weeks as I had been quite diligent about it. HA!!! I'm on the Allison weight loss plan. I am so stiff from walking Allison all over town! Once back in the hotel room, Allison got fussy again and started crying. I think she hates our hotel room. Thankfully, her paperwork was right about one thing, she is a deep sleeper. This kid sleeps like a log. Once she's out, she's dead to the world and will easily sleep until 7:30 a.m. or later if I keep the blinds closed. She usually takes a really great nap too. Thank goodness!

ALLISON KAIRIES AND THE TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD DAY

Hi Everyone,

On Monday I arrived in Nanchang and received Allison. I wish I could say it was one of those idyllic Hallmark moments with angels parting the heavens and singing the praises of motherhood but I'm afraid it was the "gotcha day" from hell! Now, let me say from the outset that I had no expectations that today would be a bed of roses. I had read enough to know that gotcha day is often traumatic for children and that they may respond to this trauma in a variety of ways. But I was really taken aback by the sheer intensity and duration of my daughter's distress, which was compounded by our arriving late in Nanchang.

If you read my previous entry you know that the snowstorm in Beijing caused our Sunday evening flight to Nanchang to be cancelled so we had to catch the early bird flight the next day. Our wake up call was for 5:00 a.m. When we got to Nanchang, our new guide, Mary, told us that we would be getting our babies shortly after we got to the hotel, and she wasn't kidding. We were led to our rooms and literally had 15 minutes to get settled before going down to the lobby to get our children. I had no time to unpack my baby items, make up a bottle, or get ready for the child. We were told we'd be doing paperwork that afternoon at Civil Affairs so I had to use my precious 15 minutes to assemble gift bags for the officials. I was rushing as fast as I could and had not even gotten the gift bags together when I got a phone call asking me to come down to the lobby right away as the babies were waiting.

Well, as you can probably surmise from the title of this message, Allison was NOT a happy camper. She was crying really hard, and pretty much screamed and cried non-stop for the rest of the day. She was not at all happy about the sudden change in her life circumstances and wanted everyone to know it. This child has a set of lungs on her that would put any professional wind player to shame! I took her back to my hotel room to try to calm her down. I was holding this thrashing, hysterical child while trying to fish through my luggage one-handed to pull out bottles, formula, diapers, etc. It suddenly dawned on me that I had not read the instructions on how to prepare the formula so there I was with my crying child trying to figure out how many scoops to put in the bottle. It was just AWFUL! Sensing that I might be a bit overwhelmed, Mary followed me back to my room to help. After a lot of awkward fumbling around, I finally got the bottle ready but Allison was too upset to drink it. Mary decided to give it a try and rattled off a string of words to Allison in Chinese trying to coax her to take it but she just cried even more.

In the midst of this melee, Mary mentioned to me that the orphanage had noticed that Allison had a palpable lump under her chin. I felt it and thought that maybe it was a swollen gland from a recent infection but Mary told me that it had been there for two months. They didn't know what it was. Allison had not been examined by a doctor and, to the best of their knowledge, had not had any recent infections. Great. Not only was my child traumatized, she had an unknown medical issue. As I was standing there trying to figure out what to do about this unexpected development, Mary asked me if I wanted to have a Chinese pediatrician come to the hotel later that evening and examine Allison. I decided to do that and told her yes. Just before she left the hotel room, Mary told me that we would be doing our adoption paperwork at Civil Affairs and to be ready at 1:30 p.m. She told me to stop at the hotel restaurant and have lunch beforehand. Well, I wasn't about to take a hysterical, screaming child to a restaurant. What ambiance for the other restaurant patrons! Needless to say, there was no lunch. I didn't even have a chance to use the restroom.

When Mary left my room, I managed to get Allison to fall asleep briefly. She was completely exhausted. But I had to wake her up fifteen minutes later so we could leave for Civil Affairs. This certainly didn't help her mood. She screamed and cried the entire afternoon, through all of the appointments. When we had to take the family photo for her Chinese paperwork, some other adoptive parents had to stand behind the camera and make faces, sing songs and clap to try to get her to stop crying long enough to snap the picture. (Did I mention that the other babies at the Civil Affairs office acting like complete angels? Much to the delight of their new parents, they were being all cute and charming.) I had to write a statement on one of the forms saying why I wanted to adopt but I barely remember what I said. It's all a blur. During one interview I was asked if I was satisfied with my child. I numbly replied yes. The absurdity of this question only occurred to me later. There had not been adequate time to really assess my child. In her heightened state of distress it was impossible to ascertain her true physical and emotional health.

While I was being interviewed and paying my fees, some of the nannies from Allison's orphanage tried to play with her and get her to take a bottle. She cried and screamed even for them and still wouldn't eat anything. They later told our guide that Allison had cried for the entire three-hour trip from the orphanage to Nanchang. At one point, we were supposed to present our gifts for the various officials. In the confusion, I had brought the wrong number. We made do but it was embarrassing.

As we left the civil affairs office, the stress of the day overwhelmed me. I couldn't hold back the tears. I was totally exhausted from the early morning flight, starving, needed to use the restroom badly, and Allison was still screaming bloody murder. I was especially frustrated that we hadn't even had an hour to get settled in our hotel rooms before receiving the children. The other adoptive parents felt bad for me and tried to help. Once we got back to the hotel, one of the other adoptive moms came to my room to try to help. She quickly identified one possible source of Allison's extreme discomfort - teething. Her gums were red and swollen and you could feel several teeth coming in. We got out the Baby Orajel and the infant Tylenol and that seemed to help a little bit.

Later that night, the Chinese doctor came to my hotel room to examine the lump under Allison's chin. She was U.S. trained and worked in the pediatric intensive care unit at the local children's hospital. She said it was most likely a lymph node that became enlarged after an infection or a salivary gland blockage. She didn't think it was serious and thought that it was safe to wait until I got home to have her seen by a doctor in the U.S. Allison didn't have any fever or other signs of a current infection. While she was there the pediatrician did an examination of my daughter's level of development. She expressed skepticism at her given age, noting that her size and development was more consistent with that of a much younger child. She is quite tiny for a fourteen month old and is drowning in her 18 month-old clothing. One of the other babies from her orphanage, who is supposed to be three months younger, is actually bigger than Allison. Neither of these girls are sitting up by themselves, crawling or walking.

After the doctor left, I decided to put Allison in the stroller and walk the halls of the hotel to see if I could get her to sleep for the night. The motion of the stroller was about the only thing that seemed to sooth her. After about an hour of walking up and down, she finally crashed. I let her sleep in the stroller for the night. I wasn't about to try to move her. Thankfully, she slept through the night.