Pictures from our first week home with Rachel
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Regarding AudreyandRachel.com website
Due to the fact that I'm mainly using our blog now to post pictures and info updates, I've decided to cancel our family website (audreyandrachel.com). It costs me 12.00/mo and I just feel it's a waste of money no more than I post to it recently. Please bookmark this blog because I'll continue to update it and I'm going to put videos/slide shows on my multiply site which is at http://sahmto2fromchina.multiply.com . I already have some videos on that site but I'm going to add the rest this coming week. I will also post new pictures there occassionally. I will post a link to the multiply site on this blog in the links column as well.
Due to the fact that I'm mainly using our blog now to post pictures and info updates, I've decided to cancel our family website (audreyandrachel.com). It costs me 12.00/mo and I just feel it's a waste of money no more than I post to it recently. Please bookmark this blog because I'll continue to update it and I'm going to put videos/slide shows on my multiply site which is at http://sahmto2fromchina.multiply.com . I already have some videos on that site but I'm going to add the rest this coming week. I will also post new pictures there occassionally. I will post a link to the multiply site on this blog in the links column as well.
The Details ..................
Ok, Ok, Ok, so you want details ;-) We left Louisville KY on July 7th (Friday) at 9:58 am. nothing exciting there. We left Chicago Ohare at 12:10pm right on time and the interesting point I will share here is that Audrey and I had to sit by ourselves in the center aisle between two men (one Chinese American and one Caucasian American), while Alex sat across the aisle in between two men that he did not know. My In-laws, Patsy and Scott sat in front of Alex. All I have to say is nice job "Delight Travel" sigh lol. Anyway, Audrey was high maintenance the first 6 hours of the trip but the gentlemen sitting next to us on both sides were super nice and extremely understanding so it wasn't too bad. After about 7.5 hours of wiggling squirming complaining and pushing her limits Audrey finally melted down and said quite loudly and in tears " I don't want to go to Beijing ! I want to go home, I want my blankie" (yes, we left the almighty blankie in the van *cringe*). Eventually Audrey passed out on me and slept the remainder of the trip. Needless to say I slept very little the entire flight except maybe a couple of 15-20 min catnaps where I passed out from exhaustion. We finally arrived in Beijing at approximately 2:10 pm their time and even a little ahead of schedule. We arrived at the Qian Men Jian Guo hotel and checked in and we weren't far from Tianamen Square so we took a taxi down there to walk around at approximately 5:30pm. We all slept fairly well except Audrey who vehemently refused to adapt to China time. From about 2:00 am to 5:10 am we would hear her say "Is it 5:30"? We told her she couldn't get up until 5:30am lol. On Sunday, our first full day in China we ate breakfast and headed for "The Great Wall". I didn't believe that the weather there could have been worse than it was when we visited it in 2004 but it was haha (minus the fact that it wasn't as cold). It was very foggy and rained our entire visit but we still enjoyed it and collected a few pictures, some video and souveneirs. We also all had some calf and thigh cramps to show for it as well. After the Great wall, we visited the Friendship store and ate lunch. We then rushed to the Beijing Airport to catch our 4:40pm flight to Chongqing. We stayed at the Chongqing Marriot in Chongqing and it was wonderful just like it was in 2004. The next morning (Gotcha Day), we didn't have to leave for the Civil affairs bureau until 2:00 pm but we double checked paperwork with our guides that morning. Our orphanage donation was actually wired from a Chinese Bank in Chongqing instead of us having to give the money in person so this was a pleasant suprise. Our (Gotcha Day) was about as perfect as it could have been, other than the fact that Audrey slept through the entire thing and then there was the somewhat worrisome fact that Rachel was like holding jello when we first received her and could barely hold her head up by herself. Her tongue seemed completely out of her control for the most part too. I will say though that Rachel gave us some glimpses of her charming personality even from the beginning. She grinned and smiled at us within just a few minutes of us holding her and seemed completely at ease with us. Her caregivers seemed very loving and even posed for some pictures and video with her. We also received back the camera that we sent with her care package so we were thrilled to have that back. I will post some of those pics once I have them back. As far as the rest of our stay together in Chongqing, the overriding memory I will always have of this time is that they don't call it "The furnace" for nothin ;-) Not only did we experience 100+ temps almost everyday we were there, but the humidity was insane. Despite the lovely weather, we still did quite a bit of site seeing and survived to tell about it. We visited the Chongqing Zoo (see picture of Alex, Rachel and Hippo Butt hehe), Eling park that had some breathtaking views, and we visited Chao Tian Men where we viewed the work of local artists. We had Audrey and Rachels names done with Calligraphy and we also purchased several Banyan leave paintings which are beautiful. Banyan trees are the city tree of Chongqing and make a great keepsake. We also visited the Walmart in Chongqing where we were able to purchase Chinese huggies, rice cereal, and a replacement blankie for Audrey until we could get home !. The Wal-mart was wild and was on 3 or 4 floors and they had ramp escalators that took you between floors. Lastly, we were able to experience the Sichuan Hot Pot dinner while in Chongqing and it was pretty tasty minus the fish and a couple other funky items they provided to dip in the tasty broth.
We left for Guangzhou on Friday July 14th and were wondering what the heat there would be like. The bad news is it rained our entire time there, the good news is that it was much cooler than Chongqing so we didn't mind the rain one bit ! This right after the remainder of the typhoon had passed so the high temps were in the low- mid 80s, amazing for Guangzhou in July I'm sure.
Ok, more about Rachel while we were in China. She was an angel and almost too good ! She hardly ever cried or got upset unless she was really hungry or tired so this made things alot easier. Audrey was a sweetheart too and really had very few instances where she was upset about Rachel or us paying attention to her. Audrey had a cold the first week we were in China and I had bronchitis starting 2 days after Gotcha Day. Rachel also had the bronchitis so I went ahead and gave her amoxicillin which knocked it out pretty quick. Rachel also had a rash on her feet which was obviously itchy to her and concerned us . Finally while we were in Chongqing, Allison offered to take me to childrens hospital in Chongqing to have the rash looked at because I was paranoid it could be scabies. The visit to the childrens hospital was one I won't soon forget and really made me appreciate our hospitals and doctors here in the US. The hospital there had no air conditioning except in the rooms where the doctors saw the patient and it was very hot and humid. You really just had to see it to believe it. Long story short is that Rachel ended up seeing some resident doctors and the only thing that wasn't lost in translation was the word "dermatitis" (inflamation of the skin). I was like doh lol, so what is causing it. Allison told me that she thought they said that it wasn't scabies but I still wasn't sure and continued to worry. They gave me a prescription for this funky brown cream that stunk and told me to cream her down from neck to toes which also worried me. Allison and I had taken a taxi to the hospital bu t when we tried to get one to go back to the hotel, it wasn't easy. We actually had one taxi driver make us get out of the taxi once we were in because the ride wasn't worth his time (wasn't far enough). I really couldn't believe that ! Anyway, we just went ahead and treated her with elimite all over, then we put cortisone on her feet and an antifungal and her feet slowly improved. When I saw her pediatrician yesterday she said that it just appeared to be an unusual case of a different type of eczema and told me to continue to apply cortisone to her feet, no scabies at all.
At Rachels medical exam in Guangzhou she was 29.25 inches long and 21.5 pounds so definitely a big girl but not quite as big as our update had led us to believe. Since we've been home with Rachel, we've seen great improvements in her developmentally almost on a daily basis. She can now sit by herself fairly well, has much more control of her tongue and she is taking stage 2 baby foods (she was only taking food from a bottle when we received her and in China). She is also in the beginning stages of crawling and she can pull herself all over the place using her arms and upper body. I'm guessing she will be crawling great in the next 2-3 weeks. She has been babbling and experimenting with sounds alot now like you would expect a 10 month old to do so we are really happy with her progress all around. The only downside to all of this is that she is now alot more high maintenance than she was in China. From the time we hit US soil she decided that she would scream and cry if you sat her down by herself. She also doesn't like to be put in her crib and fall asleep on her own so she usually just passes out downstairs and then we put her in the crib. She's now sleeping through the night about every other night so I think she is just working through the jet lag. She is an awesome sleeper when she sleeps.
As far as Audrey and her relationship, that has been kind of humorous. Initially it was Rachel who seemed jealous of Audrey and didn't like her while we were in China. Everytime Audrey would get too close, Rachel would scream and cry which was not at all what we had expected. Now that we are home, Rachel seems to like Audrey alot more and Audrey is probably the more jealous one. Overall though, I'm amazed at how well they are tolerating each other and adjusting to all the changes in their lives. Although this adoption and adjustment hasn't been easy, I know in my heart that we have done the right thing by adopting again and I am already seeing the blessings from it.
Lastly, I will leave you with one good laugh. On our return trip home from China we had about a 4.5 hour layover in Chicago which was delayed by almost 2 hours. When we finally boarded the plane at 10:30pm est, the pilot came on and informed us that they were experiencing major runway congestion and they didn't know how long it would be before we took off. About this time, Rachel decided to have a nasty blowout and so there we were, 27 hours into our trip home, me with a stinky baby and a wet poopy feeling on my leg. I told Alex and my inlaws, I didn't care what the pilot or flight atttendant said, I was going to the restroom to change this baby so Alex told me he would hold Rachel instead. Needless to say, I had no problem handing her over lol. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep for the short flight to Louisville and Rachel actually didn't smell that bad when we arrived in Louisville ;-)
I will try to post some current pics of Audrey and Rachel tomorrow ...
Ok, Ok, Ok, so you want details ;-) We left Louisville KY on July 7th (Friday) at 9:58 am. nothing exciting there. We left Chicago Ohare at 12:10pm right on time and the interesting point I will share here is that Audrey and I had to sit by ourselves in the center aisle between two men (one Chinese American and one Caucasian American), while Alex sat across the aisle in between two men that he did not know. My In-laws, Patsy and Scott sat in front of Alex. All I have to say is nice job "Delight Travel" sigh lol. Anyway, Audrey was high maintenance the first 6 hours of the trip but the gentlemen sitting next to us on both sides were super nice and extremely understanding so it wasn't too bad. After about 7.5 hours of wiggling squirming complaining and pushing her limits Audrey finally melted down and said quite loudly and in tears " I don't want to go to Beijing ! I want to go home, I want my blankie" (yes, we left the almighty blankie in the van *cringe*). Eventually Audrey passed out on me and slept the remainder of the trip. Needless to say I slept very little the entire flight except maybe a couple of 15-20 min catnaps where I passed out from exhaustion. We finally arrived in Beijing at approximately 2:10 pm their time and even a little ahead of schedule. We arrived at the Qian Men Jian Guo hotel and checked in and we weren't far from Tianamen Square so we took a taxi down there to walk around at approximately 5:30pm. We all slept fairly well except Audrey who vehemently refused to adapt to China time. From about 2:00 am to 5:10 am we would hear her say "Is it 5:30"? We told her she couldn't get up until 5:30am lol. On Sunday, our first full day in China we ate breakfast and headed for "The Great Wall". I didn't believe that the weather there could have been worse than it was when we visited it in 2004 but it was haha (minus the fact that it wasn't as cold). It was very foggy and rained our entire visit but we still enjoyed it and collected a few pictures, some video and souveneirs. We also all had some calf and thigh cramps to show for it as well. After the Great wall, we visited the Friendship store and ate lunch. We then rushed to the Beijing Airport to catch our 4:40pm flight to Chongqing. We stayed at the Chongqing Marriot in Chongqing and it was wonderful just like it was in 2004. The next morning (Gotcha Day), we didn't have to leave for the Civil affairs bureau until 2:00 pm but we double checked paperwork with our guides that morning. Our orphanage donation was actually wired from a Chinese Bank in Chongqing instead of us having to give the money in person so this was a pleasant suprise. Our (Gotcha Day) was about as perfect as it could have been, other than the fact that Audrey slept through the entire thing and then there was the somewhat worrisome fact that Rachel was like holding jello when we first received her and could barely hold her head up by herself. Her tongue seemed completely out of her control for the most part too. I will say though that Rachel gave us some glimpses of her charming personality even from the beginning. She grinned and smiled at us within just a few minutes of us holding her and seemed completely at ease with us. Her caregivers seemed very loving and even posed for some pictures and video with her. We also received back the camera that we sent with her care package so we were thrilled to have that back. I will post some of those pics once I have them back. As far as the rest of our stay together in Chongqing, the overriding memory I will always have of this time is that they don't call it "The furnace" for nothin ;-) Not only did we experience 100+ temps almost everyday we were there, but the humidity was insane. Despite the lovely weather, we still did quite a bit of site seeing and survived to tell about it. We visited the Chongqing Zoo (see picture of Alex, Rachel and Hippo Butt hehe), Eling park that had some breathtaking views, and we visited Chao Tian Men where we viewed the work of local artists. We had Audrey and Rachels names done with Calligraphy and we also purchased several Banyan leave paintings which are beautiful. Banyan trees are the city tree of Chongqing and make a great keepsake. We also visited the Walmart in Chongqing where we were able to purchase Chinese huggies, rice cereal, and a replacement blankie for Audrey until we could get home !. The Wal-mart was wild and was on 3 or 4 floors and they had ramp escalators that took you between floors. Lastly, we were able to experience the Sichuan Hot Pot dinner while in Chongqing and it was pretty tasty minus the fish and a couple other funky items they provided to dip in the tasty broth.
We left for Guangzhou on Friday July 14th and were wondering what the heat there would be like. The bad news is it rained our entire time there, the good news is that it was much cooler than Chongqing so we didn't mind the rain one bit ! This right after the remainder of the typhoon had passed so the high temps were in the low- mid 80s, amazing for Guangzhou in July I'm sure.
Ok, more about Rachel while we were in China. She was an angel and almost too good ! She hardly ever cried or got upset unless she was really hungry or tired so this made things alot easier. Audrey was a sweetheart too and really had very few instances where she was upset about Rachel or us paying attention to her. Audrey had a cold the first week we were in China and I had bronchitis starting 2 days after Gotcha Day. Rachel also had the bronchitis so I went ahead and gave her amoxicillin which knocked it out pretty quick. Rachel also had a rash on her feet which was obviously itchy to her and concerned us . Finally while we were in Chongqing, Allison offered to take me to childrens hospital in Chongqing to have the rash looked at because I was paranoid it could be scabies. The visit to the childrens hospital was one I won't soon forget and really made me appreciate our hospitals and doctors here in the US. The hospital there had no air conditioning except in the rooms where the doctors saw the patient and it was very hot and humid. You really just had to see it to believe it. Long story short is that Rachel ended up seeing some resident doctors and the only thing that wasn't lost in translation was the word "dermatitis" (inflamation of the skin). I was like doh lol, so what is causing it. Allison told me that she thought they said that it wasn't scabies but I still wasn't sure and continued to worry. They gave me a prescription for this funky brown cream that stunk and told me to cream her down from neck to toes which also worried me. Allison and I had taken a taxi to the hospital bu t when we tried to get one to go back to the hotel, it wasn't easy. We actually had one taxi driver make us get out of the taxi once we were in because the ride wasn't worth his time (wasn't far enough). I really couldn't believe that ! Anyway, we just went ahead and treated her with elimite all over, then we put cortisone on her feet and an antifungal and her feet slowly improved. When I saw her pediatrician yesterday she said that it just appeared to be an unusual case of a different type of eczema and told me to continue to apply cortisone to her feet, no scabies at all.
At Rachels medical exam in Guangzhou she was 29.25 inches long and 21.5 pounds so definitely a big girl but not quite as big as our update had led us to believe. Since we've been home with Rachel, we've seen great improvements in her developmentally almost on a daily basis. She can now sit by herself fairly well, has much more control of her tongue and she is taking stage 2 baby foods (she was only taking food from a bottle when we received her and in China). She is also in the beginning stages of crawling and she can pull herself all over the place using her arms and upper body. I'm guessing she will be crawling great in the next 2-3 weeks. She has been babbling and experimenting with sounds alot now like you would expect a 10 month old to do so we are really happy with her progress all around. The only downside to all of this is that she is now alot more high maintenance than she was in China. From the time we hit US soil she decided that she would scream and cry if you sat her down by herself. She also doesn't like to be put in her crib and fall asleep on her own so she usually just passes out downstairs and then we put her in the crib. She's now sleeping through the night about every other night so I think she is just working through the jet lag. She is an awesome sleeper when she sleeps.
As far as Audrey and her relationship, that has been kind of humorous. Initially it was Rachel who seemed jealous of Audrey and didn't like her while we were in China. Everytime Audrey would get too close, Rachel would scream and cry which was not at all what we had expected. Now that we are home, Rachel seems to like Audrey alot more and Audrey is probably the more jealous one. Overall though, I'm amazed at how well they are tolerating each other and adjusting to all the changes in their lives. Although this adoption and adjustment hasn't been easy, I know in my heart that we have done the right thing by adopting again and I am already seeing the blessings from it.
Lastly, I will leave you with one good laugh. On our return trip home from China we had about a 4.5 hour layover in Chicago which was delayed by almost 2 hours. When we finally boarded the plane at 10:30pm est, the pilot came on and informed us that they were experiencing major runway congestion and they didn't know how long it would be before we took off. About this time, Rachel decided to have a nasty blowout and so there we were, 27 hours into our trip home, me with a stinky baby and a wet poopy feeling on my leg. I told Alex and my inlaws, I didn't care what the pilot or flight atttendant said, I was going to the restroom to change this baby so Alex told me he would hold Rachel instead. Needless to say, I had no problem handing her over lol. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep for the short flight to Louisville and Rachel actually didn't smell that bad when we arrived in Louisville ;-)
I will try to post some current pics of Audrey and Rachel tomorrow ...
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Pictures from China
I regret that we haven't had more time to post since we received Rachel but as you can imagine the jet lag was murder and we also stayed 2 extra days in KY with Alex's parents so we could visit both our families before we returned to Chattanooga/Ooltewah. I will try to post some of the better pictures from our trip here now.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
We've got our Girl !
We received Rachel Victoria Xiu Hanna just as scheduled at approximately 2:35 PM Monday 7/10/06. Rachel was so calm and happy about our first meeting and she just grinned and smiled the whole time. She is very easygoing and eventempered just like her update stated. She came right to me, Alex and Nai Nai and Papa too. She just seemed intrigued with all of us and very curious as opposed to being afraid in any way. It is obvious to all of us that she has been well taken care of and given alot of love. Rachel is also just as big as her update stated. She is definitely a very cute and chubby baby ! ;-)
In the evening Rachel had a tougher time and was a little fussy with a few crying bouts. She has since come down with an upper respiratory infection which we are about to start treating with amoxicillin. Big sister Audrey slept through the entire Gotcha Day process and then was cross with us when she woke up and said "You went and got baby Rachel without me !" lol. The first day we had Rachel, Audrey did really well and even the next morning but since then there have been some akward moments and Audrey is definitely a little distressed about the attention Mommy and daddy are giving Rachel vs. her.
We are all doing amazingly well and Audrey and Rachel are now sleeping through the night. (the first 2 nights before Rachel came, Audrey was waking up at 2 and 3am and we were having trouble getting her on China time). Audrey is also sick with a cold but she's being a trooper about it. As soon as we know more I will try to post, but for now we will just leave you with a few pictures.
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