New Hope Orphanage Visit

We have been unsure this whole time as to where Mayleigh was actually living. We were put in touch with a lady back in Aug. who works for Show Hope and all she did was confirm that Mayleigh was in their care. But there are many different houses in the Henan province so we really never were sure where she lived. Everyone was always really vague with me when I would ask which show hope house she was in.

Since we knew there was one in Beijing we decided to try and go since we were right here...even if Mayleigh didnt live there. Let me back up a little and explain some new info I got today about the Show Hope organization. I guess I assumed Steven Curtis Chapman opened all these homes from the ground up. But it was actually a couple who moved to China about 20 years ago for the husbands job and the wife decided she wanted to help the orphans. So I think back in 1998 they started one in their home. A few years later Steven and his wife started hearing about what they were doing and wanted to get involved. The Chapmans have been raising about 80% of the funds for the Show Hope organization and are a big part of the organization. They have built a few more orphanages and are working on a new one in Mayleigh's birth city, Nanyang. So we actually got a personal tour from the man that opened them. He was wonderful. We first asked him if Mayleigh had been living there and they said no so he got right on the phone and called Maria's Big House of Hope to check with them. We finally got confirmation that she has been living at MBHOH. Even though the orphanage we went to today was not where she was living, they are run the same so it was similar and I am so glad we got a chance to see it. MBHOH is too far and we would never had a chance to go see that one.

He showed us around and explained the room situations. There are 12 kids per room and the ratio is 2 kids per nanny. They always watch after the same two, but 3 nannys rotate on 8 hour shifts. Then they have bedrooms with 4 cribs per room. So they are like little families of 12. The kids get to know each ohter. Then they had a nice cafeteria and a room he called Kindergarten. They start going when they are 18 months to this room for about 45 min a day. They start doing organized play and learning english. I thought that was amazing. Not just a typical orphange where there is no learning going on.

This place was so impressive! They were so organized and the kids had nice clothes on and nice warm beds with quilts that the woman who opened it made. They had a nice playground outside also to play on when its warm. The babies that were about to have surgery were in a separate room to keep them from getting colds or getting sick before surgery and then there was a separate room for kids who were recovering from surgery. 

We were able to go in a few rooms and I was amazed at how comfortable these kids were with us. Just running right up to us and putting their arms up to be held, climbing on Jeff's legs and saying mama to me. One girl in particular came running to me and wanted to be held and loved. She was such a doll and I fell in love with her. I noticed she had a large scar on her chest so she must have had heart surgery at some point. I was getting nervous because she was very clingy and wouldnt let me put her down. The nannies didnt speak english and I felt like she was getting worried or annoyed at how clingy this little girl was. 

Some of the rooms were taking shifts going down to the cafeteria to eat. It looked like the were just eating some kind of rice porridge. They had them all lined up in high chairs or sitting in double strollers. It was neat to see. 

I wasnt sure what kinds of emotions I was going to have today seeing the orphanage. In one hand I was so happy to see the good care they were getting and all the smiles on their faces. But it was really hard to leave, to know that some of these kids may never have a home. I wanted to stay and continue playing with them because I felt like we brought pure joy to their faces. We waved at them from the windows and they waved back with big smile and some blew kisses! They were all precious!!! 

Well the pictures are taking forever to upload and I wont get a chance to do anything again until much later...So I will post pictures tonight.

The Great Wall

Today was such an awesome day!! A long day, but so much fun! We headed out to the Great Wall with one other family and our guide. Our guide is so sweet and has given us so much information about China. Almost too much at times...its hard to take in the amount of info she was giving us on the bus to the Great Wall! But she really has been wonderful!

This was my second time to climb the Great Wall but I was so excited to do it again with Jeff.  We were quite ambitious and climbed to what we thought was the top. But it was just a trick...it was the top, but only the top part that we could see...once we got up to the look out tower, there was much more to keep climbing. At that point we had a pretty good leg workout and needed to meet up with our guide for lunch so we headed back down the steep steps. It was pretty cold out but after we got going and we were climbing straight up at times, we were starting to shed some layers. We then left for lunch. It is hard to explain this place but on the bottom level there was a factory like place that made hand made vases made with copper. It was very detailed work they did and they were beautiful. Then there was a huge store to buy touristy stuff and the restaurant was upstairs. The food was pretty Americanized Chinese food. Our guide said she was going to eat with the bus driver which we thought was weird. We later found out that she just said she didn't really like the Americanized Chinese food! :)

We obviously took lots of pictures so here are just a few!

This is the sign that says..."You are not a hero until you climb the Great Wall of China" 

This was the copper vases. You can see the detail that goes into making those designs with little pieces of copper.

We made it!!

My first post from China!!! 24 hours after we left our house we arrived at our hotel!! All the travel went pretty smooth... minus the extra 2 hours it took us to get to Chicago because of the snow storm. It's 8:20 here in Beijing. We are all unpacked and ready to go to bed. I havent slept more than maybe an hour or so in the last 24 hours. Jeff slept a little bit more than that on the plane. I ended up sitting next to a very nice woman who was from Beijing. She and her husband were professors at a University in Beijing. We talked for about 3 hours about Chinese cultures and family and about all kinds of stuff. I learned so much from her and it was really neat getting to know her! :)

Tomorrow is going to be a full day. We meet our guide in the lobby at 8:30 to head to the Great Wall. We will climb for an hour and a half and then have lunch there. Once we get back to the hotel around 3 we are going to try and take a shuttle to the New Hope Orphange to take a tour. We think this is where Mayleigh has been living. She will not be there tomorrow when we go because she has been taken to her home orphange which is her birth city orphanage. They do this a few days before adoption day. But we are still excited about the chance to go through the orphanage and see where she has been living for the last 18 months. I know it will be a long day but so worth the hour and a half drive to get to her orphange!

Good night!! :)

Update on our China doll

After you receive your LOA (letter of acceptance), our agency can request an update. They tell us to not expect it for at least 3-5 weeks and sometimes people never get one. I didnt believe them and thought it would come sooner! I checked my email starting a week later, ALL.THE.TIME. Then after about 3 weeks...I sadly quit. I felt like I was never going to see a new picture of her before we went to get her.
One afternoon about 5 weeks after our request, we finally saw her face again! She had changed so much! The last pictures of her, all her hair was pulled back and she looked so different with her "bowl cut"! :)
They told us she is walking and she understands what is being said to her. She can say a few simple words and she can take her shoes and socks off! I wonder if she will be just like her brother Kullen and take them off in the car!! ;) They also said she is active and outgoing! They call her Mei Wei. Calling her Mayleigh wont be too different for her! The name resemblance still amazes me!!
They also gave us her size. She is 22 lbs and is 30 inches tall. When we compared those stats to Kullen when he was 18 months...they were actually very similar. Kullen also was 22 lbs at 18 months. They are both little. That only put him in the 5-10 percentage on the growth charts! Kullen was a little taller than Mayleigh at 32 inches. It says she has a tiny foot....between a size 4 and a 5. But that works perfect. All (and it's a lot) the shoes I have bought have been 5's! The shoes and boots are hard to pass up!! They are all soo stinkin' cute! :)

We can't wait to get to her and find out all about her ourselves!!!!! Enjoy the pictures!!

What's in a name??

Well if any of you know me well, you know I have a VERY hard time making decisions! :) So just like anything else, I (we) couldnt make a decision on our sweet little girls name! Jeff kind of wanted to wait until we saw her picture. I on the other hand, did not! I liked having a name pretty early in the pregnancy with all my boys and I wanted the same with this adoption. I really like to be able to think about my unborn (or adopted) children by their name.
So we had it narrowed down to 2 names. Mia or Annakate. We were going to use her chinese name as her middle name for sure. We wanted to keep a part of her name with her! We had loved each of these 2 names and for about 8 months or so went back and forth weekly on which name we liked better. This time, we let friends and family in on our two names and we got lots of comments from the peanut gallery! :) In fact some of my friends just called her Annakate. (that is the one I was always leaning toward)
Then one day I was reading a blog from anther family who had adopted from China and they named their little girl Meili. I thought it was really cute and sent an email to Jeff that I really liked it. As I thought about if for a few hours and realized the meaning behind the name...I just KNEW that was it. It felt so right and I was completely at peace with it. Unlike the other two names. In mandarin, the word mei mei means sister. How perfect! She is the only sister in the Lloyd family! Also I later found out that just one Mei means beautiful! :) And that she is!  I loved that the leigh part of the name (or Li for the way the other family spelled it) was my middle name.  Her name was different and had so much meaning! So Mayleigh it is! :)
The spelling was hard to decide. I wanted to do the mandarin spelling of Mei but we got some feedback that it would be hard for people to figure out how to pronounce that spelling so we decided on May and  spelling Leigh like I spelled my middle name. We thought this was the easiest, most straight forward spelling for people to pronounce it right, but of course people still have had trouble! ;) The easiest way to describe it is like Bailey with an M. Maybe we should have spelled it Mailey! :)
So a few months later we get her referral and were so excited (and shocked) to see that her name is Mei Wei. And there was the peace that I had when we chose her name a few months before! Pretty amazing stuff! God really has his hand on this adoption!
Mayleigh Wei it is! Perfect! :)

The Call...

At the beginning of the summer we were officially done with our paperwork and officially logged in with China's adoption system. We then started our wait...the long dreaded wait to get that important call from our agency saying they have our daughter. So the boys and I kept busy swimming and playing outside all summer long! And I tried not to obsess over waiting for that call! That was tough! August 1 was just another summer day...or so I thought. We had spent the morning at a friends house for her boys birthday party. The kids bounced in the bounce house she had rented all morning. We had a picnic lunch out in the yard and had a great time. Just a normal Thursday... so I thought!! We got home and I got all the boys in their beds for a nap and I sat down and opened my computer ready to just relax. My cell phone rang. I assumed it was Best Buy. We were having a new refrigerator delivered that afternoon so I assumed they were calling to tell me they were on their way. I about died as I grabbed my phone and saw that it said Colorado. Our agency is based in Colorado. My heart skipped a beat. I listened carefully as she told us she had a file for us to look at. She said she was a beautiful little girl who was 14 months old that had the cutest little smile! My heart melted. I couldn't wait to get off the phone and call Jeff. After she gave me more info she emailed me the file. AHHHH!! I had to wait for Jeff to get home from work in order to open it. In the meantime, Best Buy had come and I was a frazzled mess. I hadnt moved all the food out of our old fridge and I couldn't even focus. At that point, I shared with Brennan the good news that we were going to see a picture of his sister! Finally Jeff came home and we opened the email to see her beautiful face!!! 

These were the referral pictures that came in her file. They gave us lots of info, which was honestly hard to focus on after seeing her face! We were completely in love!!!  

I'm going to try this blogging thing again

Well, I started a blog about a year ago... wait, 2 years ago, thinking it would be nice for family and friends to keep up with exciting and fun things the Lloyds are doing. BUT... then I realized I could barely keep up with what the Lloyd family was doing, let alone post it on a blog!!! Life is busy as ever but I am going to do my best to keep up with this blog as we journey across the world to get our sweet daughter.
Let  me back track a little. I have always wanted to adopt, even before Jeff and I started having kids. I am so excited that this dream is becoming a reality! After 3 beautiful boys we knew there was a perfect little girl waiting in China for us. So about 16 months ago we started the LONG paperwork chase to get her. I knew I was drawn to China but was nervous to tell Jeff that we would have to adopt a child with a special need. Luckily, Jeff responded with, "If we are going to adopt a child, I think that is the best way to go. Let's help a child who may never have gotten it." I knew at that moment we were on the same page!