A Travel Update

We've started the countdown...we are supposed to be leaving in about a week. I say supposed to, because we still do not have plane tickets yet. Before you say anything, we can't purchase them until we have the green light from our agency, who is waiting from the green light from Mak's province. Charlie and I decided that we were just going to go with the flow and be happy with whatever our travel arrangements (and dates) end up being...although we kind of feel like our girl does when they first put her down in front of that giant cake! Not unhappy, but definitely not completely comfortable.

We are so excited about the next couple of weeks though...wish us luck!

Please remind me...

If (actually, from what I hear it is "when") I ever get tired and long for my old life of business travel and conference calls and Banana Republic suits and high heels and working dinners and feeling important, please remind me how it is not cool that the people at multiple airports know your name... and it is not cool to spend half your time in a hotel room... and it is not cool to troubleshoot the hotel's wireless connection every night... and it is not cool to use your BlackBerry as your alarm clock.

It is cool to be there for your children and it is cool to spend time with your spouse and it is cool to go out with the girls and it is very cool to not wear all dry clean only clothes! Right?

Change

I love change. I embrace change. I long for change. I like to move. I like to change jobs. I like to meet new people. I love to travel to foreign countries. Change for me is good.

Today, I'm freaking out about change! I am SO ready to start this new parenthood journey with Charlie and I am SO ready to say good-bye to traveling every other week for work and I am SO ready to meet our little girl...but today, I'm completely freaked out. We leave for China two weeks from today! ...and we're not ready. I'm up in the NJ/NY area until tomorrow night trying desperately to concentrate on work (I got a great email thank you from one of my colleagues today that said, "You are one of the most effective and enthusiastic trainers I've encountered!"...so at least I was on my game during those sessions!). My awesome neighbor said that we had some big boxes from Babies R Us delivered this week, so I can't wait to get home and see what they are. We ordered Mak's car seat and baby gates last weekend. Wow. A car seat in the car. That's bizarre - and awesome!

Yes, we're a bit crazy...

...for trying on the pool and/or bath visors that we received for Mak at our baby shower yesterday. Apparently we are cracking under the pressure!

A great group of work friends threw us a fun baby shower. The food was great and the kids were so cute! I don't think anyone will forget the Oh Sh*t incident! Now onto the thank yous...

We "might" be headed to China!

We got a message on Friday that they released appointments to our group with the understanding that if there is any bad news on the swine flu front that we will be turned away when we get there...and they want us to leave June 4th! That is less than 3 weeks away. We are so excited and so completely not ready!

We did break down last night and buy baby gates for the top and bottom of the stairs, as well as her car seat. They are both only available online (our town is pretty small and doesn't have much variety in stores) and could take up to 2 weeks to arrive. Ugh - let's hope that UPS delivers better than DHL!!! We need to have that car seat installed before we head to the airport - let me say it again - on June 4th!

Something that Made us Smile....

One of our concerns about being put on hold due to swine flu is that Makena EE wil have to stay in the SWI even longer. The pictures that we received from her birthday cake celebration made us feel a lot better about that. Makena looks happy, healthy, and well taken care of. It also appears that she is loved. In the background of several of our pictures shows a lot of fun and brightly colored toys; a few of the pictures also show one of her nannies. I wish that I could reach out and hug her nanny for taking the time to help Makena celebrate her birthday.

Happy 1st Birthday, Makena EE!

Charlie and I had a wonderful surprise waiting for us when we got off the airplane from the Bahamas (very nice...) last night. Pictures of Makena with her first birthday cake! She looks happy and healthy; we feel blessed that we were able to get the pictures. Crazy as it might sound - in the first picture we think that she actually looks a bit like my baby pictures (and my sister's, as well as my mom's). We are a bit biased, but what a cutie...and..she did a great job with her first fork experience and first taste of frosting!

The Good and the Bad...

Woot woot! We got our travel approval (TA) from China! Yay! That was the good news...we were granted our Chinese Visas (multiple entry good for a year) and finally received our TA. All systems go. Then Great Wall tells us the bad news...Mak's province stopped granting appointments because of the swine flu. There is no estimate on how long they will stay closed. One step forward...two steps back! We do not know when we will be able to travel now, but will be sure to keep at it until they allow us in!

Trauma

Charlie travels all the time. He travelled so much internationally that he had to get more visa pages in his passport. How crazy is that, right? Imagine my surprise when, after going through the Chinese Visa requirements one last time before submitting our application, I realize that there is not one entirely empty visa page in my passport! The morning that I needed to send it into the consulate too...trauma!!!!!

After some research, phone calls, and a chat with Charlie, I was able to get an emergency appointment at the closest passport agency. So I hopped in the car that evening and drove to Washington DC. Expedia supplied a relatively cheap hotel...I got there so late that night that they upgraded me to the suite. There was a full kitchen, living room, and bedroom - more closets than my house! I headed to the passport agency with all of the required paperwork the next morning for my 9am appointment. Turns out, I had to leave it there and return at 2pm. Since hotel checkout wasn't until noon, I changed into running clothes and took a 90-minute run around the mall. Ran around all of the monuments and caught a glimpse of several politicians. After a quick shower I headed out for Chinese (fitting I thought) and sat next to some senators from the midwest. Very interesting to eavesdrop on!

At 2pm I returned to the agency. Long story short, my passport wasn't ready and I got to enjoy the company of the other hundred or so folks waiting for their paperwork as well. Right before 5pm they called my name...woohoo!!!! I headed straight to FedEx down the street to send in all of our visa applications information. It's actually due back to us tomorrow! Ugh...what a relief it will be to have everything in our hands again! We are still waiting for our TA...that pesky swine flu needs to go away so that we can travel!

I quit...

...My big contract today. I about had an anxiety attack last night just thinking about it though! This is just one of the things to do before we travel to Makena, but it sure was a big ticket item! I will work for this client until the end of May and we are hoping to travel shortly thereafter. Wow...

East Meets West

I spent my weekend in Columbia MD (wow...what a blast from the past! I even drove by my old apartment...) at a great China adoption conference. There was so much information, but all of my reading really helped prepare me for the shock that many of the families attending felt. Adoption starts with tragedy; regardless of how you look at it, it is not a good start for a little kid. They lost their birth family, and when we pick Makena up, she will also lose her SWI caregivers. It is our job to make her transition to us as smoothly as possible. We will smell funny, look funny, and sound funny to her. Not the kind of transition a typical one-year-old is used to! We will do our best though...she is probably much more resilient than her parents!

While I met SO many great PAP (prospective adoptive parents) families at the conference, there were two people in particular who I will never forget. The first was the president of our agency. She is amazing and after speaking with her (she knew who I was and asked me how Charlie was doing...and before you say anything, she was standing in the hall and had nothing to reference...I simply couldn't believe that she would know our names - she really takes all of her families into her big family), I feel a new sense of hope. That probably isn't the right word, but she made me feel so good about our choice to adopt and about little Makena. Mak is a "Fu Baby", which is how they refer to all of the kids referred from the Fuzhou SWI.

While I wasn't able to meet Mak's SWI director, the second amazing person I got to meet was the director from a province just south of Jiangxi. He was fantastic, and although communication was strictly through translators, his giant heart really came through. He spent almost an hour speaking in front of the group about his kids. It struck me that he said his wife hated him having the orphanage director job...ever since he took it he has spent all of his time at "work"! It was a blessing for me to see and hear an actual orphanage director speak of his experiences...he did talk about wanting all of the kids to get adopted because an orphanage was no place for these small souls to grow up though. What a great man!

Our little "E E"

There are a number of options to send a care package to your child in China. You can drive yourself nuts trying to decide which is the best one, how to get it there, and even if you want to try to send your own! After some research, we discovered a birthday care package! We ordered it immediately and she should be getting her mini birthday cake, toy, nanny candies, camera, and translated orphanage letter the week of her 1st birthday! Ann at www.redthreadchina.com is fantastic! Not only did she communicate with us immediately about Makena's package, but she also got us updated info on our little one...

height: 28.7 inches
weight: 19.8 pounds
feet: 4.5 inches
head: 17.5 inches
chest: 17.5 inches
teeth: 3 on the top; 2 on the bottom

Her nickname is "E E"! ...we will be referring to her as Makena E E until she knows her American name. She even has a new pediatrician! It was crazy to go into the pediatric office today and fill out the paperwork, or at least give them our info and put down not available for the requests that weren't included in her Chinese medical report. I love the office though and they have a lot of experience with international adoptions! We feel lucky that they had room for us...

Another Picture of our Girl

Here's our cutie...floating in the air! We just love her expression and cannot imagine how warm she must be in all of those layers!

We received a message from our agency's referral team today that said "farewell"! We are no longer part of the referral process, as the travel team is transitioning us to their care. Next is our travel reservations and visa applications (as soon as we get our approval). We're hoping for a quick approval!

Even though we won't be with her on her first birthday, we did send her a birthday cake care package today! She probably won't enjoy it much, but the nannies sure will! Every kid should have a cake for their first birthday and we are hoping that the nannies take some photos of her with the camera that will be included. Any pictures that we get will simply be priceless.

Sending off our paperwork

FedEx is transporting the adoption acceptance paperwork to our agency as I write this...we made the cut off tonight and it should arrive right on time tomorrow! There was no question whether we would accept her or not. We signed without hesitation and now begin the last period of waiting. We hope to get our TA soon, although four weeks is the average...come on CCAA...we're ready to travel and see our daughter!

Speaking of paperwork, we had another snafu with the government. No, they didn't mistakenly approve us for Russia again (we assume at least) or misplace something, but they did mistake us for another family and tell us that our social worker paperwork did not meet federal guidelines. That was a long 24-hour period while we sorted that out - it was also the first time I cried since we got our referral. I didn't cry or "lose it" when we got the call or when we saw her picture or when we called our families or when we picked her name. No, I cried when they told us that, after all of the work we've done and the multiple times we've jumped through hoops and after looking at her precious face, there was a potential show stopping issue with our paperwork. That brought me to tears....ugly tears. All of a sudden Makena is real to us and we can't seem to get there fast enough! The paperwork issue is cleared up now though, so it appears that we are good to go! For our drama-free house, there was a lot of drama Tuesday to Wednesday this week...ugh!

Her Referral Package

We got more information on our little "Mak" today. There are still some documents yet to be translated, but her lifestyle report said that she is an introverted and timid girl, and is very shy in front of strangers. She becomes active under the environment she is familiar with. She likes to mimic and stay in crowded places. She likes listening to music and watching TV, likes taking baths, playing with toys, and playing games with other children. Sometimes she appears to be stubborn a bit.

The meaning of Makena is "one who is filled with happiness"...one of the items translated in the referral package was her name. Name meanings are very important in the Chinese culture and we were thrilled to read that her last name means happiness. That felt like a sign that we chose the right name for her!

It's a Girl!

We got the call at 2:29pm this afternoon. We are parents! Charlie and I took the afternoon off and we both sat in the sunroom trying to stay busy until the phone finally rang! It was Stephanie from Great Wall with good news about our little one.

Chinese Name: Fu Yan E
Birthdate: May 10, 2008
Residence: Fuzhou SWI (Jiangxi Province)
Measurements (as of January): 17lb, 26in

Over a lovely celebratory dinner we discussed her American name. We are very proud and honored to introduce Makena Rumor Brown. Makena is the beach where Charlie and I got married and we couldn't resist giving her the pet name that we've used for her over the last almost four years!

Only one page of her referral was in English, so we will have to wait until Wednesday to get the rest of the information, but what we know so far is that she:

• Is a moderate sleeper
• Sucks her fingers in her sleep
• Tears paper and grabs toys
• Laughs out loud
• Likes music
• Sits on her own
• Eats biscuits on her own

We are over the moon in love with our little race car driver...

The Stork has Landed

We were just notified that the stork has landed...and has something special for us! Wow...

Still waiting...

DHL is not my friend anymore...we are still baffled on how they could lose that package! In an effort to always find the good in things, it did give us one more weekend that was not filled with baby shopping. It also allowed me to be thankful for having my business trip cancelled for today, because I wasn't thrilled when it was a few weeks ago. Now I get to spend Tuesday through Thursday of this week conducting Web-based training from 9am to 8:30pm. Woohoo! I was relatively productive at work this morning, but I'm to the point now that I will catch up with my email from the other client and then I might turn on the TV. After all, there is really no better time suck for me than the good old television and all of the TiVO programs that I've yet to watch!

It's such a strange feeling to just sit here and hope/wait for a phone call. Assuming that everything is in order, our little one was matched with us at least a week ago and her info and photos had to sit in that DHL package all weekend. There is no word to properly explain the feeling that you are a parent but you just don't know it yet!

We have still not picked an official name. We will wait to see her picture and then do it by "secret" ballot. While we like the same names, our favorites are definitely different! Anything will be just fine though; we just want her to be a happy and healthy little girl! Come on Great Wall and DHL...let us know about our little girl!

Courier Mistake

Okay. I know I just posted that we would be parents today. Well...not anymore. The courier misrouted them to the wrong zip code and we won't be able to get the information until Monday now. It will be a LONG weekend...

Any minute now...

We could be parents. Yes, you read that right! Wow. Our agency said to expect a notification message around 1pm central time and then they would call us after that. I finally broke down and printed off "The Call" list of questions so that I didn't forget to ask something important when they do call. We even looked to see if there was a Walgreen's close to Charlie's folks so that we could send a photo to them today. I also ran up to the market and got champagne; it's been a long haul - we deserve a little bubbly to celebrate our first child! Let me say it again, wow! I'm nauseous...back later...