Our first day together....S

After we got Mayleigh home (to the hotel) we got out some toys and played a little. She liked picking all the toys up and she really liked the books! Flipped the pages and we touched the different textures. We hadnt eaten since breakfast so we decided to run next door to a local chinese restaurant and grab lunch with our friends. BUT that meant changing her clothes and her diaper! We were terrified to take her stuff off. But they had holes and they kinda smelled. She really needed fresh clothes! And lets be honest...I couldn't wait to get her in one of the outfits we had got her....and a BOW!!!! :) She did ok with the changing of clothes. A few wimpers but we survived. At lunch she just sat on our lap eating cheerios and bread. She unfortunately wouldnt drink from either of the two sippy cups I brought so we resorted to the bottle. It said she drank from a bottle in her update but I was hoping to just go to a sippy. But at this point, we just wanted to give her what she was used to!
When we got back to the hotel Jeff had to go do some paperwork. I am thinking 20 min. Unfortunately it was an hour and Mayleigh and I had a rough hour. She was so tired and kept falling asleep on my shoulder but the second I would sit down she woke up screaming and throwing her head back. I was so sad for her. I had my light weight sweater that I wore this morning hanging on a chair. She reached for it and put it in her mouth and started sucking on it?? It was a little weird but she was so comforted by it!  So at that point..I just wanted her to feel comforted so I let her suck on my sweater!! :) Well she has not let that sweater down all day and she currently has it in her mouth as she is sound asleep. I thought they would bring a paci since they said she used one but they didnt. I was thinking after see her suck on the sweater, that we better head to walmart and get the girl a paci! A girl in our group had bought one and her daughter didnt use one anymore so she let us have it. Mayleigh will suck on it but prefers the sweater. We may be doing some sewing to make that sweater into a blanket!! :)
As we were hanging out this afternoon, Jeff kept saying how hot Mayleigh felt. She is a sweater I noticed. But we finally checked and the sweet girl had a 101. After tylenol she seemed better and it hasnt come back yet. Might be from the trauma of today. We were told this could happen. At least we hope that is all it is.
We are a little freaked out about bathing her but this sweaty girl needs a bath. Her hair is a mess! :) But we decided not to try it tonight. I am sure if she wont let us put her down, she is not going to enjoy a bath! We havent even seen her walk yet! :( Praying she feels more in the next few days!
In the midst of her crying this afternoon. I got very emotional. I was so sad for her and how scary this all must be for her. I also couldn't believe how much it made me miss my boys back home! I was feeling horribly homesick and the thought of being here another 11 days  before we can go home, makes me sick!! The good news is that we love the group we are with. Have met 5 wonderful families that I am sure will be friends for life! That helps....but really just hoping these days fly by!!!
I dont know what I am doing still up! Everyone is sleeping...I better get some rest. Mayleigh is sleeping next to Jeff. She didnt like her crib at all! But we were just thankful to put her down next to Jeff instead of on Jeffs chest. Although, it was sooo sweet to see her laying with him!!!

Checking out some bracelets! Thanks Angie!! :) 

Couldnt wait to get that bow in her hair!! :)

Finally in Daddys arms. I think this was the first moment he held her! She wouldnt let him before that!

checking out some princess books!

Mayleigh chewing on my sweater!!

Gotcha Day!!

We have Mayleigh!! She is absolutely beautiful!!! Ok, let me back up to this morning. Our group of 6 families from our agency met in the hotel lobby at 930 this morning. We were all extremely nervous and checking and double checking to make sure we had all the documents and money we needed! As we headed over to the Civil Affairs building our guide was giving us a lowdown on how some kids react and how these things are normal. I dont know if CCAI pays her more to be funny and lighthearted because honestly she really helped ease the tension. Just cracking jokes about how if your child only connects to Dad then she will book us ladies massages and shopping trips! She definitely had us laughing and we all needed it.
As we are walking into the building she yells to one of the ladies in our group, your daughter is here. Stephanie starts crying and then all 6 of us moms are crying! Each child gets there at a different time. Just depends on if they are running late or in traffic. Stephanie's little girl was pretty scared and cried pretty hard when she tried to hold her. I think watching that made us all very nervous!! And one by one every 10 or 20 min. another chid would show up. There were also about 4 other families there from different agencies. The room was nuts!! Babies crying, cameras flashing, pacing, so much noise and it was freezing!! So we watched out the window for the next van hoping it would be Mayleigh. And we waited, and we watched, and we waited some more!!! The fun part was during this time we got to take pictures of everyone else's first moments meeting their child. Finally after about an hour or so and everyone had their child but us...Mayleigh came!!
When she came in we showed her the doll we made and she was pointing at it. We gave her the light up wand (thanks Heidi for that gift...what a savior that was!!!!!) and then I took her from her nanny. I dont think she was very attached to this nanny that brought her because we found out that she had been moved out of Marias Big House of Hope a month ago. So we are assuming she was more attached to the nannies that cared for her at MBHOH and not the orphanage she was at for a short time.
When I held her she didnt make a peep. She looked very stoic and her eyes just looked very sad. She clutched on to that wand for dear life! She was happy as long as I didnt put her down or give her to Jeff. We looked at pictures of our family that I had brought and we gave her some cheerios. She at least took the cheerios from Jeff. We felt like that was a good start! :) After about 45 min. and a few papers were signed we loaded up on the bus to head back to the hotel. Mayleigh fell asleep a few min into the drive. She had to have been emotionally exhausted. She stayed asleep as I carried her up to our room and then I was able to lay her down on the bed and she slept maybe 10 min. in the room. When she woke up she just wimpered a little but as soon as I picked her up she was fine. We played for a little bit and she even smiled a half smile. oh, I forgot we did get a great smile while we were playing at the Civil Affairs building. And the best part is Jeff caught it on camera!!  :)

Playing with her light up wand!!

First smile!!!

She was a little scared when we left and got on the bus. But it didnt last long.

we were pretty excited because the doll I had made for her matched her pink and white jacket they brought her in! :)

Trip to Zhengzhou

We left Beijing early this morning and took the train to Zhengzhou which is the capital of the Henan Province. The rest if our group flew but I was told by some friends who have adopted that taking the train is really fun! So we didn't have our guide and had to navigate the train station alone! But we are so proud to say we did it and the train was a blast!! Ended up being such a great choice. To be honest after 14 hours on the plane to get here, I wasn't really in the mood to get back on another flight just yet!
I was pleasantly surprised about the city when we got here. I think I had a horrible picture on my head of this city since I hadn't heard too many good things about it. But it is nice. A little warmer and it's more green than Beijing. More trees and grass. Now you do have to be careful for the zooming mopeds that fly around on the sidewalks!! That can be a little crazy at times!! We have had a few issues with our room . Computer is not hooking up to the wifi so I am typing this post on Jeff's phone. Hopefully we can get it figured out soon! They delivered Mayleigh's crib today and I put my hand in to feel how soft it was and the mattress flipped up! Glad I figured that out before I put her in it the first time! We then were trying to go to bed (well I was but now I'm still up blogging) and we couldn't get the lights to turn off from the switches. Someone came up and fixed that for us!!
After we got in town we had a quick authentic Chinese lunch and then we just unpacked and relaxed. Jeff went to the bank with our guide to exchange money and then  our group headed to Walmart for diapers , snacks , etc !! That was very interesting!! 3 floors and it was really crowded! Chickens hanging on display and  lots of other weird stuff but we didn't browse too much because we just wanted to get out stuff and go! I'm sure we will be back! So Mayleigh has some snacks, diapers , wipes , and a some gloves since I forgot some. It's pretty nice wheather here. About 46-50. Not super warm but warmer than it is back home ! They are having -15 temps over the next few days !
Our guide gave us  an update on our kiddos and also a little schedule of their day and what they eat. Most of the info I already knew but the most interesting thing was that tshe uses a paci when she sleeps!?! She will fit right in...all my boys were paci lovers!! It. Also said she loves the bath and doesn't get fussy or cry.  They also said she likes to be rocked and patted to sleep at night. We may have to work on that!! ;) but I'm hoping if she likes that then she will snuggle with me !
We have the crib, her toys out, snacks ready, and our bag packets to meet her. We will leave here at 930 and should get her around 10 or 10. That is 8 on Sunday evening back home! We can't believe tomorrow is the day!! I don't know that I can get into my feelings about tomorrow right now! I'm thinking I better get to sleep for the big day! We have had trouble sleeping every night so far. We keep waking up around. 3 and last night I never did fall back asleep!

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!! :)