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It's Official!

Our official business finally concluded today with a "Swearing In" ceremony at the Chinese Consulate. After wielding passports, yielding cell phones to airport-level security, and waiting our turn in a DMV-deja vu, sitting room full of other adoptive families and their children, (all of whom apparently had the same 3PM "appointment"), we listened intently as our children's Chinese names were announced one by one. To most of us, these all sounded pretty similar, and we each feared we would miss our call. We finally heard "Tang Yang Zhi 21" and went up to window 21 to sign our DS230 form and receive an entry instruction sheet and photocopy of her Chinese passport.  Once all names had been called, a cheerful official addressed the entire room, welcoming & thanking us, giving us statistics like how 3000 of the 30,000 immigration visas granted each year are for adopted children to the US, and how these have increased from 47 to 67% special needs children in the last 3 years, then congratulating us on the completion of the long and arduous process. She made special note that none of the delay was due to any appointment back-log in their office, and wanted to be sure that we spread the word. So here it is: there is no back log of apptmts at the Chinese Consulate in Guangzhou!?!?  After acknowledging birthday children and families who have previously adopted, she asked us all to stand, raise our right hands, and repeat a string of promises, guaranteeing that all the information we have given is true and correct to the best of our knowledge and ability etc,etc. The oath was simple, but the exultation afterward was enormous. We clapped and cheered and enveloped Kaylee in a big group hug. We can now say that we are DONE... we have only to get her home, and we are most ready! At 3PM tomorrow our guide, Amy, will pick up the original passports containing US entry Visas for our group of kids, while we check out of our hotel. Once she returns, we will bid a fond farewell to Guangzhou, our home for the past 2 weeks, then board, with overstuffed valises, a 3 1/2 hour, south bound bus for the Hong Kong Airport, Regal Hotel, where we will spend our final night. It will be a short one, as our plane departs at 8AM, which makes check in about 6, alarm clock 4:45! Now that is a prayer request we would really appreciate!

 For those of you who have asked and/or would like to greet us and welcome Kaylee, our Delta flight 2284  from Salt Lake City is due to arrive in Nashville at 9:12PM this Thursday, Sept 30. All are welcome! Thank you again, so much for your love, encouragement and prayers throughout the past year and a half. We are so grateful and anxious to see you all again!

Monday, Sept 27: Final Farewell for Kaylee

Prayers were answered, doors were opened, and we were indeed granted
permission to visit Kaylee's previous and only home since birth: the
Qingyuan Social Welfare Institute, i.e. her orphanage. Our guide, Amy,
arranged for a driver and another guide, a sweet and knowledgeable
young girl named Becky from a competing agency, to escort us on the
hour and a half trip to Qingyuan City, which proved to be a very dry,
industrial setting vs. the beautiful countryside which exists in parts
of Qingyuan, that we had hoped to see. We stuffed our bountiful,
breakfast buffet into 4 to go boxes and departed early, about 8:30 AM
via mini-van. After we finished eating, I pulled Kaylee onto my lap and
sang to her for the rest of the trip, songs like "You are my sunshine",
ABC's, "Jesus Loves Me" and "Mommy loves Kaylee" hoping to soothe and
prepare her for any anxiety she may feel once we arrived. Normally a
sqirmy, 7 yr old who lately prefers Dave's back to my lap, she snuggled
in and seemed to soak up the affection I was giving her, while Dave was
snuggling Mattie, who was empathetically patting her little sister's
back and offering words of comfort. I was just praying that Kaylee
would feel secure enough with us that she would not be traumatized by
returning, then separating again from her old friends and caretakers.
After stopping for directions several times, we finally approached the
pagoda style, roofed entrance gate we recognized from pictures. When
Kaylee saw it her face lit up and she smiled and pointed like "I know
where I am now, this is familiar", but once parked inside, she seemed
apprehensive and confused. Becky explained to her in Cantonese that we
were just going to take a quick look to show Mommy & Daddy where she
grew up, get some pictures, then leave, and she reluctantly nodded her
head up and down. I asked her if she wanted to take pictures and she
nodded again and took the little green digital camera from my hand, as
she has become quite adept in its' operation, and hopped out of the
van. (I'm amazed at how well she understands us, without speaking
English. She is picking it up very quickly!) We were greeted by a
female administrator whom we recognized as Kaylee's escort on Gotcha
Day, and taken to a nice conference room where we met with a very
amiable, smiling gentleman whom we also recognized from that day. We
soon found out( to our loss of face,) that he was the Orphanage
Director, Mr. Cheung, as we had brought a feminine gift of Strawberry
Bon Bons and Floral-scented Bath and Body Works lotions on Gotcha Day,
addressed to Mrs. Cheung, thinking the director was a woman. We had
Becky explain and he laughed and shrugged it off with a hand gesture,
saying "No problem, no worries", a popular Chinese expression when
speaking to us Lai Bao (white, foreigner tourists as my nephew Andy
told me) He proceeded to show us the beautiful artist's renderings of
the new, 5 building complex currently under construction (2 are
complete!) which will be the future home to the SWI: the orphanage, a
home for indigent elderly, apartments for resident foster parents, an
office building, canteen and "playhouse" which I assume is some type of
gymnasium. Future plans included extensive landscaped grounds and a
motel as well. He then took us outside to the edge of the parking area
between the admin building and the classroom building to show us a
glimpse of the completed portion of the project. It is indeed very nice
and looks somewhat like an upscale, Florida Resort. The current
buildings are nice, but aged, and have a certain old and tired look
about them, (picture 1970-80[s Hojo or Holiday Inn with white,
mini-tiled exterior), but definitely not in any way a house of horrors.
The playground equipment is happy and colorful, but rusting and in need
of repair, and the current play yard is pretty small, though the
landscaping of the grounds is very nice. I imagine the children and
other residents will be overjoyed once they move into their new
facilities.

We asked to meet the children, and Mr. Cheung shook his head and told
us through the translator that it was OK, but not too long because
their morning class period was just about over and they would be having
lunch soon. We proceeded up an exterior staircase whose walls were
decorated with once vibrant, cartoon and animal cut-outs, and Kaylee
ran ahead of us with camera in tow and put her face right up to her old
classroom window. The teachers smiled and greeted her "Yang Zhi!" and
opened the door, and the doorway immediately became abuzz, jammed with
curious, laughing faces, Kaylee's former friends and classmates. She
was older than they by several years and there were none her age or
older present, as we were told they had all ridden a bus to school, but
this had been her classroom last year. She held my hand and said "Mama"
almost as if she were introducing me, then she took several pictures,
gave a few hugs, posed for several pictures and ran to the next
classroom, which held about a dozen younger children, maybe 2-3 years
old, but she recognized them and they her. She barged into that
classroom unbidden and took several photos, many of the kids making
their "peace" sign which to them means "V for Victory". One boy,
slightly younger than Kaylee followed us and kept grabbing the camera
and we let him take several pictures, and another little girl escaped
from the second classroom and ran up to me and lifted her arms to be
picked up. I gave her a squeeze and set her back down, then she ran to
Mr. Cheung and did the same thing. He did not look very comfortable,
but he did pick her up for a brief second then pointed her back to her
class. She was really yearning for someone to hold her and I hated
putting her down. We continued down the concrete exterior corridor,
rounded the corner and were led into a room of about a dozen identical
silver metal cribs/toddler beds and Kaylee stopped in the center of the
row and pointed to the bed which had been hers just a few short days
ago, and my heart contracted in my chest. This was where she slept,
dressed, showered, used the bathroom, went to class and ate all her
meals in the same classroom, lived all of her life in the same few
rooms in the same building, and small playground outside, with the same
teachers who were also the nannies. Riding the bus to school for 1st
grade the first few weeks of Sept must have been a real thrill for her.

At the end of that small room were 2 large glass picture windows
flanking the door into the baby room, which held about 20-30 crawling,
sitting, sleeping, playing, laughing, crying infants under age 2 at
various stages of development and activity. To my disappointment, we
were not allowed in, as it was very close to feeding time, then naps,
and the nannies had to keep them on schedule without disruption. We
leaned that there are approved workers from a charitable foundation
called "Half Sky" who come just to hold and cuddle the children and
give them some personal attention and affection to help them thrive,
while their busy nannies can not, and I was so glad to hear of that. On
our way down the steps, we ran into 2 kitchen workers pushing a cart
with a very large bowl of rice laced with a little green and meat. They
greeted and had their picture made with Kaylee, then proceeded up to
the classrooms with lunch. Mr. Cheung seemed to be growing a little
impatient with us about then, took a cell phone call and motioned us
back to the admin building across the parking lot where we began. We
took some photos in the nice outdoor park in the center of that
complex, Kaylee picked a few starfruit from a tree, then, at the
nudging of our guide, we presented Mr. Cheung with a gift, a small bag
of clothes and toys for the children, as we had passed on most of what
we brought on Gotcha Day. This signified the end of the visit and Mr.
Cheung said goodbye and quickly disappeared. He is a busy man and was
very kind to allow us to come. He could have said no. When we told
Kaylee it was time for us to go, she held our hand and skipped back to
the van and climbed aboard, like it was nothing, and we were so
relieved and thankful. She knew she had come for a visit, and she
showed no inclination to stay! She has clung to us and we are awed and
blessed. Thank you Jesus! She and Mattie played during the ride back
and we joined up with our group to finish the day with some souvenir
shopping on Shamian Island, and then a group dinner at a "scenery"
restaurant, of which you will see many interesting pictures! Mattie
tried a little of everything, including crocodile belly, but the
Chinese girls, Kaylee, Danni and Jing Jing, wolfed the stuff down: big
crab claws, round, speckled crabshells that were curried, stinky
mussels, salmon that did not look like salmon and all kinds of things
that I was not inclined to try, I did enjoy the scenery though: tanks
of slitheing, speckled eels, frogs, turtles, giant lobsters, all
varieties of fish, miniature roasted pig, intact from snout to tail,
cages of live ducks, all part of a virtual menu. You just walked around
and pointed and they whipped it up to order, but it felt like ordering
dinner from Pet Smart. Very interesting. I will be so glad to get home!
Miss everyone bunches! Lisa

PS Kelsey, would you put this in order, before the one I just posted a
little while ago? Thanks sweetie!

Views of Kaylee

Kaylee has been doing very well hanging in with all of the activities. Doctors, shots, shopping, traffic, lightning, McDonald's!!! She's a trooper, but also has shown thatshe knows how to turn up that bottom lip and say NO! So we are working through some issues. She's a sweet one! Here's a look!

Dave

Lisa's China Story

Hey everyone! This is Kelsey. I have been posting blogs and facebook for my family while they are in China. They would like to thank everyone for the thoughts, prayers, and comments and to let you know that unfortunately they do not have access to facebook or their blog so they can not see your comments until they return. If you would like to contact them, however, they would gladly receive your emails at : Lisatich1817@aol.com. Thank you and here's their message:

Hello All! The last 4 days with Kaylee have been just wonderful... and so interesting. It will be difficult to condense them, but I will try. Gotcha Day, as you can imagine, was an incredible experience filled with so much emotion. First of all, the anticipation was killing us, then as we were filling out necessary paperwork, the nannies kept parading the children in and out of the waiting room, once bringing Kaylee right up to us, only to be chided by our guide and hustled back into their own waiting area, but once we'd had a glimpse of them, it was all we could do to concentrate on the task at hand. Kaylee appeared to be limping as she was tugged by the hand back and forth. Dave and I commented to each other something about that being the expected-unexpected detail left out of her record. We suspected there may be one, but it didn't matter to us. The details of our first meeting are already somewhat fuzzy (thank goodness Mattie recorded it) but we watched as the Fraziers received their 20 mo old Meili, and the next moment, we heard "Yung-zhe" and were motioned to come over for our introduction to Kaylee. I think I hugged her, not sure, but I remember bending down to her level and patting her on the back and asking the official to tell her that we think she is beautiful and are so happy to have her in our family. She looked at me and mumbled something in a soft, shy voice which I was told meant "Thank you mommy". I stayed down next to her, stroking her back as Dave and I asked questions of her nanny, about her schooling (rode a bus to school, 1st grade), schedule ( up between 6-7, nap 10-12, bed between 9-10), hobbies (likes dolls), friends ( I can't pronounce their names), everything we could think of until my knees hurt, then we moved to a nearby bench where I pulled her onto my lap. Though timid, she seemed to warm up to us right away. I remember Mattie and David talking to her, and then we pulled out pictures of Kelsey, Hannah, LIndsay, Daisy our dog, and our house to show her. The official translated for us and she seemed to understand and smiled shyly. Then we walked her over to where the other families were gathered and introduced her, as we watched them interact with their new children. (The baby Meili had stopped crying, 12 year old Dan Ni had started crying, as the realization of leaving home and friends forever swept over her.) Mattie showed her how to catch and pop the bubbles that Jing JIng was blowing and we played a little while Dave left the room to sign forms and pay tens of thousands of Yuan (RMB's), approx $5000, a gift to the orphanage who raised her, and another 450 Yuan as a reimbursement for her "Finding Ad", which they were required to run in the local paper for about 3 months after she was found. I have not been able to bring myself to look at it yet. When Dave returned and swept her up into his arms, then on his back for a piggy back ride and swung her all around the way only daddies do, she really opened up and giggled. Mattie presented her with a stuffed cat, Mommy gave her a pink purse and Daddy gave her a pink pearl & yellow gold pendant from the pearl factory in Beijing, with the Chinese character for "Happiness" on it .  When it was time to go we realized that she was no longer walking with a limp. Not sure if it was fear, reluctance, self esteem or ill fitting shoes, but it was gone! We gathered her and her suitcase: a small, white plastic bag which held a water bottle, teddy bear and disposable camera from our care package, and a small red memory album with the same photos we last received of her in the orphanage. Her little fingers clung to a small package of paper thin wafers, which she readily shared with us once we were on the bus. The ride back to the hotel was full of hugs and smiles, and when we got to our room, more giggles filled the air as Mattie taught her how to jump on the beds, and back and forth from one bed to the other. We gave her a small bead making kit and she and Mattie made bracelets and keychains to tie on their purses. She caught on so quiclkly, and then we gave her the suitcase of clothes we had brought for her and she was delighted, holding them up and wiggling back and forth. We were impressed at how neatly she folded and put back each piece, and lined up her new white tennis shoes under the side of the bed before she climbed up. She learned "thank you" very quickly and uses it often. We took her to McDonald's for dinner, then after pj's, teeth brushing and prayers (she had no concept of) collapsed early that night, as we were all emotionally and physically spent but so thankful for the incredible miracle we had just experienced and the answered prayer: attachment was not going to be an issue, Thank you Jesus.