No place like home

Ahh, sweet relief. We are home. Claire is doing so well as a big sister. She has such patience and love for "Baby Hope", we are all doing great. We are still trying to adjust to the time change, and it's a challenge, but we'll give it some time. We were greeted by the best welcoming committee at the airport, and even more suprises at home. My sister, Marie, Mom and Claire had decorated the outside of the house with balloons and "It's a Girl" signs, made dinner, set up Hope's room, even had clean sheets on our bed! They, and the whole family took such great care of Claire, we could never try to begin to express our gratitude. There is nothing like the feeling knowing that your children are loved and safe. Thank you all, from the bottom of our hearts. Marie also commented our our awesome, wonderful friends here in Colorado and how kind they all were to offer to help with Claire, and even take them to the airport when we were too sleep exhausted to do so on Sunday (Dan you are the best, truly.)

Claire is still her sweet self, shouting I love you's 50 -100 times a day, asking for hugs every 5 minutes, and despite my crazy fears, she seems unscathed by the seperation and change. Hope is loving watching and mimicking her big sister, she's really a happy baby. I've been saying she's also the most polite baby I know. She's got an easy calm to herself, and quietly reaches out a hand when she wants to be held, loves to eat and makes silly faces. Our friend Wenguo came over and talked with her in Chinese and she seemed to understand completely. She asked her if she knew who her Daddy was and she looked at David, and then again at me when promted who her Mommy is. When she was asked if she's beautiful, she nodded! My girls have no problems with modesty, I see.
We are taking it easy this week, just settling in to our new family, and loving every minute of it.

4am, DENVER COLORADO TIME!!!!!!!!!!

It's 4 am, and I'm sitting on my couch, in my house, eating homemade chocolate chip cookies and milk with Hope and watching Baby Einstein. To say this is a little slice of heaven right now would not even come close to saying how we feel to be home. Safe, sound and together. We arrived in Denver at 4:20 PM and was greeted by a warm welcoming comittee of my Claire Bear, my Sister Marie, Mom, Mary Talmadge, Matt and Dan, balloons waving and tears flying I finally got the moment I had been dreaming of for the past two weeks. Claire hugged her mommy and daddy and then we introduced her to Hope. She went right up to her, rubbed her little arm and gave her kiss. It was another Gotcha moment forever preserved on our brains.



For those of you who have not heard through the grapevine, my health deteriorated even more when we left for Guanghzhou! (Ha! as if!) We had gone to the Counsulate and swore Hope in as an American, and we rushed to the train station to catch the train to Hong Kong. It was about 150 degrees in the station, but I had chicken skin, I had chills. I asked our friends, aka my drug dealers at this point, if they had any more Tylenol or Advil, but sadly, no, I think I had tapped them out. It's the things like this that were just driving us crazy in China!! You are out of Tylenol, or baby food, or God forbid toliet paper, and you just can't go buy it! Any way, to cut to the exciting part of the story, all along the train ride it seemed as we rode each track my temp spiked. I thought I was going to pass out, but I just tried not to move. When we arrived at the station and survived the massive shoving off the train - for this is the way any person in China knows how to depart any public transportation - by shoving -I walked up the plank, and my deepest darkest fears came screaming out of my head. There in the background was a little white curtained partion - the ones you saw in MASH all the time - and a doctor, holding a thermometer. You guessed it. It was like in the movies all time and sounds stopped as he pointed his finger right at me and with his black beady eyes and short, curt words, he summoned ME. He shoves the thermometer in my ear, yells something in Chinese and demands my passport. I try to look all healthy and bewieldered as to why on earth he pulled this sadly disheveled, pasty white American girl aside for a temp check! Why, I felt fine!! He took down my passport number, name, everything and said I have high fever 102.5! STAY HERE. I was certain he meant the exact spot I was standing in, so I froze like a statue. A pregnant woman dressed in black with a white jacket came over and asked me if I had been ill, vomiting, etc... No! I've been great! I lied through my teeth. At that point one of the women from our group, Rebecca, who is a gynocologist in Miami, was standing next to me and she "vouched" for me. The doctor seemed to like that she said that, and then warned me about the dangers of the Bird Flu, and it's very contagious and wouldn't it be just awful if I had it and gave it to these billions of people? A little alarm went off in my head. OMIGOD> I'm going to die in China from the damn Bird Flu!!!!!!!!! She let us go, thank the sweet lord, and we hurried into our customs line. I held it together enough to get us through customs and then collapsed in tears in the cab and went to the hotel. With a lot of prayers to every saint and dead person I know, and some Chinese Advil which David had to go out into the Hong Kong night to scrounge up, and a lot of blankets, the fever broke around 3 am and I was fine for the trip home. Even my back was better. Huh.

Although a good point was brought up by my sister, Marie, that she was thinking about it, and maybe, just maybe I had passed a kidney stone! In China, without morphine. Top that labor story. I dare you.


OK, Hope just faded into her cookie oblivion, and I'm going to try and catch some sleep (it's 5:22 am). Tomorrow I will update you on the BEST homecoming we could have ever, ever, imagined or hoped for. Thank God for sisters and Moms. Also we'll add some new pics from the trip.


Oh, and by the way, Hope was 100% an angel on all of the flights, and it dawned on me as we all crawled into bed earlier this evening, and it hit me it was all finally over, and we were all fine. Hope's been telling me this all along. The only words she speaks at all in Chinese are: "Ha Ma", translated it's a soothing phrase meaning "It's OK, everything's fine. Yes, Hope it is, it's all OK, everthing will be fine.

in the Home Stretch!!

Hi All,
Sorry we've been delinquent in our posts, but Mommy is not able to sit for very long and Daddy's had both is hands full with us. I won't bore you with the details, lets just say, I truly believe that child labor could not be any worse than this back. Enough said.

We've been really enjoying our time here in Guangzhou, the island is really beautiful, and although the weather is still very hot, it's not that bad, or we are getting used to it. My hair and nails have never been healthier!!

Most of our past days have been spent shopping in the tons of cute baby shops, going to dinner with our group, and even sharing some rice wine with the locals! (The owner was trying to loosen David up to get him to buy a jade bracelet I had my eye on. Didn't work, but no worries, it's David who truly deserves presents, he's had two toddlers to lug around!) He's been such a saint. The worst part is I can't carry Hope at all. I can barely walk. We also visited a Buddhist Temple, went to the House of Cheng - which is where Jackie Chan's family originated. It was amazing. So beautiful and unbelievable architecture.

Hope is who you really want to hear about and we have to say, she's a GEM. Such a happy quiet baby, easy with the smiles, cuddly, more than we ever dreamt of. God is so good to us. Although she refuses to walk, and half the time won't sit up, she plays happily on the bed and even signed her first word today "More!" She loves to eat too, and she does have a temper when she isn't fed. She's got quite a wardrobe going here, even though I swore we wouldn't over do it, but her Daddy is king of bargaining. We've really go the whole "good cop/bad cop" thing down.


We just got back from a river cruise along the Pearl river and it was very nice. From the river, it looks just like any metropolitan city, you'd never believe what's happening on the streets!

We still have one more night here, then one more night in Hong Kong, and then the long long flight back. How I'll survive it, I have no idea, but we do have a doctor in the group and as luck would have it, she lives in Denver and will be going all the way home with us! You better believe I'm sticking close to her!!

Thanks again for all the sweet notes and wishes of health, it really, really means alot! We are so very homesick and now just the mention of my Claire Bear's name makes me ball!! We're coming!!!!!!!!!!!

Guangzhou-The Final Leg

What a difference an hour flight makes. After a trip that took most of the day to complete we finally arrived in familiar surroundings at the White Swan hotel in Guangzhou. The hotel resides on Shamian Island nestled next to the Pearl river. We have a spectacular view of the main thoroughfare that has river cruises and shipping barges running day and night. We've also met up with the Waldo family from Washington DC who we hung out with in HK and got to finally meet their precious little girl Ruby. Last night we saw a laser light show with spotlights and music blaring from one of the shores. I swear, it almost looks like a mini Vegas around here (aside from the gambling), we joke with other couples, "we'll see you on the strip".
Julie had a bad fall of fortune as she pulled all her lower back muscles and has been in excruciating pain today. She even went to vist the Chinese acupuncturist and had "authentic Chinese medicine applied". Wine and Advil have helped also. She's determined to not let this stop us, so we just carry on. (as I carry both of them!)

Hope is still our little happy, quiet girl, just taking it all in, so happy to eat and smiling more and more each day. She's still cutting those teeth, so about every six hours she has meltdown, then her Motrin kicks in and all is well with the world.

Tomorrow is the physical and the Visa picture for Hope then more bargining with the local shops here for the baby clothes, shoes, and Chinese trinkets. I swear, it's Walmart on steroids when it comes to souvenier
shops, but it's fun -and something to do!

Happy Days!

Oh, Happy Days are here again. We've landed on the island and are having a great time. We met up with some really great couples, had a yummy "Western" dinner at Lucy's and got out of our cages! Hope was just terrific today. She had her first flight which she gladly ate her snack and dozed for the hour flight, and then at dinner, when she was feed mashed potatoes, it was if if she was fed manna from heaven. She did a little jig in her highchair and was baby talking, she was happy. Later we did a little shopping, and much to my relief she's totally on board with that process. In fact, throughout the stores she was cuddly and laughing and singing songs... she's really starting to break out of "orphanage" shock and tumble into herself. She even toddled around with only the help of one hand, and kept head butting me, an orphan's way of saying, I like you -maybe even love? Let's hope, because we are way there.


Tomorrow we are going on a temple tour, a couple of art museums and then free time for shopping or laying at the outdoor pool. It's still very humid and hot here, but the breezes do help.



I have to give another big thank you out to all of you who have been so kind to send us encouraging notes and support, especially my "ultra" wonderful family who are caring for Claire and so engaged in this process. Isn't Skype the best? It made this so much easier. I know that Claire is so happy and loved, we are so, so, so blessed, we know it and we thank you and God for it!

Whine Wine?

Ok, I promised I'd stop whining about Changsha, so this post is going to be short. All I can say is "Hooray hooray, tomorrow's the day!" We are leaving at 10:00AM to go to Guangzhou. How I wish and pray that plane would take us home, but it won't. We did get Hope's passport tonight, so she can leave this country, but we need to get her Visa, hence the week wait at our next stop.

Today was hard for all of us. Poor Hope was up a lot of the night with some very "interesting" diapers(we pity the housekeeper) and then she was very cranky all day due to the arrival of some nasty looking molars coming in. Once again, we did not leave the hotel, so we'll just say our patience is at everyone's limit and leave it at that. Plus the guy at the liquor store is making out on Tsingtso sales this week.

Our group did rally around 4pm and one of the friends of one of the moms organized pizza and bowling for us. If you recall, on one of our earlier blogs, there is a bowling alley right here in this gilded cage! It was very nice, but I have to say, my heart just wasn't in it, neither was my game as I won the worst bowler award, but it's OK, I'm used to it!

I am thankful however, that this city, as challenging as it was for us, gave us our precious, sweet, little Hope. They say it takes a village, and in her case, it's literal. Goodbye Hunan (it was not really that spicy!) hello Guangszhou!!!

Touring Changsha

Well, today we got out of our cells, er, hotel room, and got to see the exciting sights of Changsha. We were taken to the Martyr's Park and The Embroidery Factory tour. The Park was beautiful and kind of surreal. Once we were in the park, our guide, Kathy, took us up a footpath into the woods. In the thick brush of green Kinko trees (yeah, they copy), there were about 50 Chinese people literally hanging in the trees on hammocks - kind of like sloths! I guess when it's this damn hot, why not? There were also a group of women doing Tai Chi and then a few others playing cards and chess. If you didn't know to look here, you'd walk right by and never know this whole world was going on within the woods. Crazy.
After being sufficiently drenched in our own sweat we tumbled back into our bus and went to the factory. When I tell you it's amazing how they make these crafts, I mean it's really amazing. There are about 15 women all bent over silk cloths sewing very elaborate, vibrant, seamless pictures into silk from free hand. We donated our American funds for a few pieces and back to our cell we went. The afternoon was spent napping, reading, and taking Hope for her first swim. She was very tentative at first but was soon trying to dunk her head in and splash all over. I was entertained by a nice young man, "John, who is from Shanghai, China, a very large city". He said it just like this, several times. He also thought I'd be good prey for him to practice his English on. Soon I found myself correcting his verbs, and he was singing American love songs to me. It was very funny!
Speaking of water we only have one more day in "inland China" and we get to pick up our bags and go to Guangzhou on Saturday. It's still hot and humid, but there is supposed to be an ocean breeze to keep us sane. There is also a few "Americanized" restaurants that we can't wait to taste.

Hope was great today, very cuddly and smiled so, so sweetly when I kissed her. She's starting to really like us! She should, after all, we just pretty much sit around and stare at her, feed her, and spoil her. We can't get enough. Our hearts are really aching though for our Claire Bear and the day I can scoop her up in my arms and hug her so tight I'll never let her go. There are way too many China girls in this place that remind us of her!! ha ha.

Wednesday, July 16th

Well, it was a pretty boring day today, which actually turned out good. Hope had kind of had a hard morning. She woke up at 6am wanting her diaper changed, but then wanted only to go back to sleep which she did until 10:30 AM. When she woke up, she was very crabby and kept looking around for familiar surroundings and when she didn't see any but us, she cried a lot. Nothing terrible, but it's so hard to see a baby this small grieving. I can only imagine being plucked out of the only life you know, thrust into the arms of strangers and know nothing, not even the smells or air temperature is the same. Scary! However, after long nap with daddy, she mellowed out and was her happy self. We did manage to venture out of the hotel to get Hope a pair of shoes, and it was awful. One of the members of our group said it best when she said, "I tend not to go out on days you can SEE the air". Poor David just sweats buckets when his foot his pavement around here. It's hot and it's not the heat, it's the humidity that gets ya. I think Hope kind of liked it though, after all, it's what she knows.

She did continue to show us more and more smiles and now she really loves the millions of kisses she is getting everyday. She's keeping us busy walking the halls with our fingers and is starting to try and get her way, which is good. She is trusting us.

Thank you all for all the sweet words and notes we've been getting, this Blog and our communication is the only outside link we have. Thank God for the internet - and Skype too! It's so cool, if anyone has it and wants to Skype let us know!

Tomorrow we get to go on a city tour and a tour of the embroidery factory which should be pretty neat. It's also our 15th Wedding Anniversary. One we will never forget.

Officially and Forever Ours

Wow, what a difference 24 hours makes. Literally, and without trying to sound too poetic, Hope's personality just unfolded like a flower today, hour by hour. She woke up, in this very foreign, airconditioned place, (thank god!) with people she didn't know, and quietly checked us out and then graciously, thankfully, gave us a slow, but wide smile.

This morning we finished the "official" paperwork with the government that basically was a money exhange and a few words about never abandoning her - as if. Throughout the morning, Hope's smiles came more freely, and after lunchtime nap, she was melting in our arms. Yesterday I was worried she had spaghetti for legs, but this afternoon she willfully took our fingers and marched us all over the hallway in our hotel. Yesterday, when I kissed her she cried! When David kissed her picture, she cried! Today, she smiled and snuggled. It's just amazing how far and deep love can go, instantly, if we allow it.

Tomorrow we have nothing to do at all. Boring! From here until we get to Guangzhou we pretty much are just wasting time waiting for the government to file their end of the paperwork, waiting and watching how far we let Hope manipulate us into jumping at the sound of her voice. I can see now how the pattern starts, and it's one of many lessons learned being an second time parent. This doesn't mean we change our ways, or course. Now we just know better and know we will pay for it later. But really, who can resisit a baby who spent the first 3 days of her life God knows where, 2 months in a Chinese hospital by herself and the rest in an orphanage? If Hope wants a hug or cookie, I'm sorry, but Hope is going to get it.

Oh What a Relief it is...

She is in our arms. Safe and sound and as good as we could have hoped for. After the longest 3 hours we've ever tried to waste (without drinks), we went to the Social Affairs Office at 3pm to pick up the babies. We walked into the building rode the elevator up a level and when it opened there was a room of waiting caregivers and babies. All the adoptive parents looked like deers in headlights as we tried to guess if those babies were ours or not. We were ushered into a meeting room and as we went by I saw our Hope sitting on an older woman's lap looking around. Our guide, Kathy kind of pushed us into the meeting room because after all, there was a "protocol" (yeah, right!), and we had to wait for our names to be called. Once again, just like when we got Claire, Hope was first! This time I tried not to rip the baby out of the caregivers arms, and I was very careful to look them in the eyes and as sincere as I could thank them for caring for this beautiful, innocent baby for the last 17 months. The caregiver gave me a smile and a tear as she walked away.

All in all, Hope's been such a great baby. She cried a little, ate a little, laughed a little, and is now sleeping peacefully in her crib. She can sit up, but she can't walk and she's about 16 - 18 lbs, has gorgeous eyes, and is quick with a laugh - to light up your heart.

We'll post more but for now, we are still taking it all in. Although this has been exhilirating, part of our hearts are so, so, SO sad Claire is not here to meet her. Many blessings to her and all of you - Very Proud Parents,
Julie & David

Hooray for Hunan!

One more flight down, 24 hours to go to Gotcha Day! We arrived safe and sound in Changsha today, and "nested" in our hotel, The Dolton. This place is pretty amazing - it's a combination of The Dearborn Inn and The Broadmoor - it's huge - there is bowling alley in the hotel for crying out loud! The scenery around here reminds us a little of Nanning, but on a much, much larger scale. We just walked to the grocery store - (the name of it was the Whacko Market) to get supplies and we caught quite few stares from the people on the street, especially David. A little girl walked by and pointed at him and said "oh my God" - or the equivlant in Chinese. Probably because he looked like a giant melting snowman dressed in red.

Again, much to my disappointment, we will not get our baby until 4pm tomorrow - so Mom & Dad, check your phone around 6 am your time!!!
We are excited, nervous, and anxious, but just happy to finally be here. We think Hope is the oldest of the group, and since no one around here speaks any English, we are banking on her to translate.

Good bye until Gotcha Day!!!!!

Julie & David

29 Hours Later...

Whew. We made it. 3 flights, 4 inflight movies (including the never Oscar award winning spoof, "Drillbit Taylor"), at about 12:30 AM we walked out of the airport into a wall of steamy heat, threw our bags in a cab and finally acheived sweet sleep in our rock hard bed around 1:20AM. We did manage to get a good nights rest and explored Hong Kong all day. I must say, David has an inate sense of direction. If you are ever dropped in the middle of an unknown world and left to figure things out, you would want him by your side. Today, we took the public BUS to the Stanley market, hiked in a jungle, left some nuts in a temple for some kind of gods, ate Dim Sum in a very hidden, suprisingly swanky restaurant, and walked through some very back alleys gazing on some extermely smelly and wierdly dried seafood - buckets of them - everywhere. ? What they do with these, I doubt I want to know.

Hong Kong is so very metropolitan and upscale. It is very, very clean, and the people all dress so nicely. No stupid T-shirts with offensive sayings were anywhere, and the women especially were all dressed to the nines. Everyone was very nice too, and at one point we were looking at the map and "white" guy stopped to ask if we needed help. After some chit chat, would you believe that his best "mate" (he was Australian) had just moved here from Detroit, Bloomfield Hills -to be exact. Really. We are literally around the world and we run into a guy who knows a guy. It kills me.

The only downside of today was when we called home to talk to Claire and she was just hysterical missing us. I, of course, collasped in sobs on this side of the world and wondered how either of us will make it 15 more days apart from each other, but if we said once, we will say it a million times, she would be more miserable here, being lugged around and her patience tested -and ours.

Tomorrow we meet up with our group and have more sightseeing ahead until Sunday when we fly to Hunan!

Flights - check, hotels-check, nerves - check!

Yeah~ we finally got our flights and hotels booked. We will be arriving in Hong Kong on the 10th at 10:00PM, flying to Changsha Hunan on the 13th and Gotcha day is the 14th! We can't come home though until the 26th, which stinks, but it is what it is.
A Claire update: I swear, she is a little Sage. While I am so anxious and completely distraught about leaving her for 3 weeks, she just calmly says today that I have to go and get our sister. She says she will miss me, but I have to go! She is also very excited about going to Michigan and Myrtle Beach with her cousins and then says today that when she is in South Carolina she will get us some shells. David and I both swear, we've never told her that Myrtle Beach is IN South Carolina! She then adds that there is a North Carolina, but that's not where she's going. (remind you, she's 4.) (for those of you lost, my family has the one and only entire family vacation we've ever taken the same week we are in China. Really, what are the odds of that?!)
So, the wheels are in motion, now they just need to lift off!!

False labor?

Ugh! This what it must feel like to rush to the hospital only to be told to "Go home and wait it out". We still have no homecomming date, meaning we still can't book our tickets. We know we are still leaving next Tuesday, but China has not given us the final Counsulate date in which Hope gets sworn in as a US citizen. Kind of a big deal!
Hopefully tomorrow we will get word when we can return. In the meantime, we'll just have to take a second mortgage out to pay for our flights...
Thanks to everyone for their comments, support and calls. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and as we all know, "This too shall pass"!