Tuesday, July 14, 2015

China in Two Blog Posts... Part II

When I left off in my first post we had just received Graham, who was so solemn and reserved it broke my heart. Sometime the next day Britton coaxed the first smile from him. He absolutely loves Britton and having him on the trip with us certainly helped ease Graham's transition. 

Guangzhou
Graham's first flight
The American Consulate in China is in Guangzhou in South Eastern China, just across the water from Hong Kong. All American families must stay there a week to complete Visa paperwork and a medical exam. As I mentioned in my last post, we had two fewer days in Graham's province than usual and two extra days in Guangzhou. This meant we were leaving on a plane with Graham less than 48 hours after we met him. Thankfully, he did great on the flight, mostly because he was still so tentative, reserved, and unsure of us that he sat still, flipped through a book and ate snacks. He had certainly "found his voice" by the time we travelled home. 

Guangzhou is a pleasant, heavily western influenced, tropical city, and we had a lot of time in between our fixed appointments to explore. The heat and humidity were stifling (95 degrees with 90% humidity) but we tried to be troopers. Graham continued to warm up to us and we saw glimpses of his playful personality. Here is a sampling of how we passed our eight days:
Attending Graham's medical exam
Visiting the most amazing zoo we've
 ever been to
Introducing Graham to McDonald's (which we
never eat at home, but I must admit,
tasted pretty good half a world away).
Bonding with Graham
Swimming
Strolling around
Working hard for smiles
Visiting the best Starbucks in the world
(a renovated British Colonial Building on Shamian Island)
Doing "real life" stuff (We needed a stroller and other necessities.) 
Taking a river cruise with the 20 other Holt families
The time passed quickly and enjoyably, though we were definitely ready to head home at the appointed time! 

Inspiration
Our Holt adoption group 
Aside from meeting our son, the highlight of the trip for me was watching the stories unfold around us. I kept thinking of Psalm 68:6: God sets the lonely in familiesIn our group alone, I saw twenty orphans become sons and daughters. I'm tearing up just writing that. I witnessed families welcome long awaited first children, long-awaited second children, long-awaited first daughters, and a few families like ours that were welcoming a younger sibling with many older siblings. Many of these children have significant medical needs. One child will likely need a heart transplant. One child is missing both his hands and feet. One child is deaf and his new family has spent the past several months learning sign language. He had never had a way to communicate and after meeting his new family he eagerly pointed to every object in sight wanting to learn the sign for what he was seeing. Several little girls had cleft lip and palate which brought all kinds of emotions, reminding me of Rosie. The reality is that these children have little hope and bleak futures in China. But each of these adoptive families saw that these beautiful children have worth and wanted to give them a home where they could grow and thrive and be loved. God bless you all.   

Home Sweet Home
Three weeks home and we're doing amazingly well. Watching Graham get to know his siblings, begin to understand that we are his people, and become comfortable in his new surroundings has been heart warming. He was terrified of our dogs and chickens (hysterical crying anytime they were in sight) but within three days began petting them. He is seeking out interaction with me and fussing sometimes when I leave the room. (Yay for attachment!) He has many English words already and understands almost all that we say to him. We see more smiles from him every day, though I do think he has a cautious and reserved nature. God has answered every single prayer and worry and fear with His faithfulness. The biggest blessing this time around has been perspective. I understand the journey better, and it is a journey. When I reflect on how far Rosie had come in two years, how far I have come in two years, I understand that this is only the very beginning opening paragraph of Graham's story. And we all still have so much growing and changing and learning to do. But thankfully there is Joy in the Journey. 
How did I get to be these amazing kids' Mom?
Brother time
The Williams 5

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

China in Two Blog Posts...Part I


We have been home as a family of seven for two weeks. I didn't blog while in China because I wanted to have time to reflect and collect my thoughts before sharing. It can be difficult to have perspective in the middle of an experience. I also find it tricky to blog about adoption in a way that shares the excitement of the miracle but preserves the privacy and dignity of my adopted children and of our family. Many details are theirs alone to share (or not) as they choose in the future. Also, please know that if I don't share hard things, it doesn't mean they aren't there. "Snapshots of Life" is in my blog title. Who takes snapshots of their child screaming bloody murder on a plane for an hour? (I was too busy crying and have subsequently tried to erase that hour from my mind.) If I am speaking to you personally, I am happy to share the hard stuff, but I don't use this forum for too much of that. This is the GOOD stuff! I really tried to keep it to one blog post, but for goodness sake, I used two posts for adding goats to our farm, so I figure Graham deserves at least that. And there is just too much GOOD stuff! So bear with me, Friends.

Beijing

The part of the wall across the road was 
very crowded so we came over here and 
had the wall to ourselves. 
Caleb and I probably would not have done sight-seeing in Beijing this time if we had not had Britton with us. But it was so much fun having him there! Last time it was winter and there was not a stick of green anywhere. We found the city much more appealing this time. We were also blessed with incredibly good weather (mid 70s, whereas it had been in the mid 90s for weeks) and incredibly rare air quality. No one was wearing masks, which is nearly unheard of. Thank you, Lord!

Highlights of our two days:  
*The Great Wall
*Jade factory
*Pedicab ride through a historic Hutong lane
*Kung Fu show
*Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City
*Silk factory
*Amazing lunch at a local restaurant
*Traditional Peking Duck dinner 
*Night Market 


Pedicab ride through a Hutong lane
Tiananmen Square
All sorts of creepy-crawlies at the Night Market
available for consumption. We selected scorpions.



Below is a video of Britton eating his scorpion. You will also witness me dropping mine because it appeared to move. I contend it did. For the record, we bought another skewer and I did eat one, as did Caleb. 

Nanjing

Can you tell I want to throw up
from nerves?
Nanjing is a beautiful former national capital city on the Yangtze River, and now the capital of Jiangsu province where Graham is from. Unfortunately, due to a Chinese holiday, we had two less days there than usual and two more days in Guangzhou at the end of the trip, so we had almost no time for sightseeing. June 15, 2015, is the day we met Graham, but not until 2 pm. I was feeling very nervous. We distracted ourselves by crossing the street to the Confucius Temple, which is one of a handful in China devoted to his memory. It was a maze of well-kept old buildings turned into shops and a very pleasant place to stroll around. Britton had some souvenir money absolutely burning a hole in his pocket and thankfully, he was able to make a purchase: a Chinese instrument called a Hulusi. After three years of tin whistle at Classical Conversations, Britton was able to seamlessly transition to the Hulusi. (I can hardly type this with a straight face. The Hulusi is like a tin whistle + nails on a chalk board. And we shared a hotel room for two weeks.)  
Britton haggled like a pro with this shop keeper. 
Brit's selfie with Confucius
Forever Family Day


This picture pretty much sums up how 
Graham felt about us at first.
Five families with our agency, Holt, and three Dutch families with another agency, all met their children at the same time and location. Graham was the last to arrive. He was led in by the orphanage director and his favorite caregiver was waiting in the wings. He let me pick him up but was very tentative and serious. Eventually his caregiver came over and put out her hands to him and he gladly went to her. I was wishing she had not done that because I could see it was going to be hard for him to come back to me. But as I saw her nuzzle him and kiss him and wipe away her own tears, I realized that my prayers had been answered. He had been loved and I was so, so grateful. I could never begrudge her a final goodbye. Thank you Yuan Nai Nai (Grandma Yuan) for loving my boy. He did cry when he returned to me, but it was a stoic, controlled cry. He stopped and started three times in the 90 minutes we were there. And then he's never cried (apart from fussing at bed time and the aforementioned incident on the plane where he was completely exhausted) again. 
My sad, terrified boy. It was heartbreaking,
but he bore it so well.
Snacks were key to helping him calm down.
The first night we got him in jammies, ordered room service (he loved pizza and french fries!), watched some TV, and he slept 12 hours straight, holding a Matchbox car in each hand. Sweet, emotionally exhausted boy.  

The next day we returned to sign papers and make the adoption official. The orphanage director gave us a gift, a beautiful plate with the name of Graham's city on it. She also gave us her contact information and asked us to send updates on him. She said she would like to send us all of the pictures she has of Graham. She proceeded to scroll through her phone and showed us many pictures of him with his friends. I could see how deeply she cares for the children, and as I've gotten to know Graham more and witness how emotionally healthy he is, I am certain that he was in a very loving place. Through an interpreter, I feebly attempted to thank her for taking care of our son until we could get to him. I could scarcely get the words out for the lump in my throat. She said that it was her job to take care of him. I could see though that it was more than a job to her, and I can't thank God enough for answering this Mother's prayers. 

Part II: Guangzhou, our amazing adoption group, and HOME SWEET HOME!