The End of Day 1

Already comfy, safe in her father's arms, on the bus on the way back to the White Swan - Day One is coming to a close. We are all physically and emotionally drained and exhausted. We have our little girl. Tomorrow we will come back to the CCAA to sign some paperwork to start the process for legally adopting her in China. Now, we go back to the hotel, where we already have dinner plans with William, his sister, her husband and daughter. He called me in the 15 minutes after getting into our room and before we had to go back downstairs to go to the CCAA yelling, "Cousin, so you arrive in China and don't even call your cousin to tell him you're here!" Ve-ly funny. When I said, I literally just walked into the room. He said, I know. I wondered if there were cameras. You know, we're in Communist territory. I told him we had to be back downstairs in a few minutes. He said, ok. We'll go out to dinner tonight then - to celebrate. I'll be there at 5 or 5:30. Just then, Der came to our room to make sure we were ok with our arrangements and was a bit perplexed that I could already be on the phone chatting away in Chinese to someone. I told him it was my cousin, who wanted to come take us to Dinner. He said you better make it 6 or 6:30. Already causing a ruckus, we are.



Isabella's first night with us. A new beginning for her and a long way away from the LeChang SWI. I was saying to Bill, things are already looking up for this little girl.

Tears of Joy

Gosh, she's so little. Probably very scared, never having been in a car that long, never seeing so many new, strange faces. Just hold her so she knows it'll be alright from this moment on...
Bill is being so good, taking pictures of this most precious moment for all of us. Eddie is looking on pensively thinking.... hmm, i wonder if my Nintendo will be charged up again we get back to the hotel. Actually, he's probably thinking, so that's what she's like.
Well Eddie, you asked for a sister. Here she is. Love her. Be good to her, from this day forward.
Our long journey's end. The beginning of our new family.
By some stroke of luck, while the nannies have a different native language, they also speak Cantonese! They, along with most everyone else we've run into are shocked I speak Chinese. We are chatting about Isabella's life til now, her habits, routines, diet, etc. They tell me she is a happy little girl. She is healthy and very smart. Her eyes are dark, very dark - they emphasize several times. (I was embarrased to not know, so did not ask the significance of that til later when I ask William and his sister at Dinner that night why it was important.) The Chinese believe the darker the iris, the healthier and stronger the child is. They kept remarking how we got a good healthy baby. Indeed, her iris is so dark, you can hardly see her pupil in lower lighting. The other parents did not get the luxury of getting all the background info I got.

Live from Guangzhou - Meet Isabella Chung Templeton

This is from the bus on the way to Guangzhou. I hardly recognize this city from when I was here last in 1990. Steady growth, buildings, skyscrapers everywhere. We crossed the 2nd longest twin span suspension bridge in Asia. The longest one is in Denmark - according to our guide Ben.
This is at the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs). After a 3 hour long bus ride (Eddie napped, Bill and I didn't, can you tell?) from Hong Kong, checking into the White Swan, dropping off our luggage, etc, they whisk us away by van to the CCAA to meet Isabella who is waiting for us. At the same time, we were travelling by bus from HK, she was travelling from her orphanage in LeChang, which is about 3 hours by car to Guangzhou.
We're waiting in the lobby area along with 6 other families in our group - can you say anxious? Oh well, let's get those people to take a picture of us, since we're all standing here with our cameras out. Eddie is all ready to meet his new sister, with toys in hand.Now, we're moved to a room. Moms on one side, Dad's with cameras on the other side. Why do we do that? Idling chit chatting with the other anxious moms. We're realizing that unlike the last time we were at this moment, while still in a room with lots of people, we're fully dressed - and if we wanted to, we could have a drink like in the next few minutes.
We all have family numbers. Ours is #4. That's Der (in the red shirt), one of our 2 guides in China. I guess, he'd be the midwife? When he called #4 first, I felt like I was on the Price is Right, and he just said "And the next contestant... Come on down!" (I think I even heard the music playing in my head) What a weird sense of humor I have.... The woman holding Isabella is her nanny and the woman behind her is the Director from the LeChang SWI (Social Welfare Institute - Chinese for orphanage). I don't know who the woman in the white shirt is admiring my new daughter.

Alas, the daughter we've been waiting two and a half years for.

Arriving in Hong Kong

Arriving at the airport in HK. Feeling pretty good after a 15 hour flight from Newark. Of course, you notice Bill is doing all the luggage handling - its all I can do to move myself and take this picture. The direct flight on Continental to HK - we highly recommend it. We were on a Boeing 777-200 - the one with 9 seats per row, 12 bathrooms on board. Service was great and the gizmo at each seat that had over 300 movies, games, tv, radio and music videos for free - that was cool and occupied the 3 of us for the majority of the flight. That and feeding us every 2-3 hours - Elaine, you would've loved it!

This is Ben, our HK guide. He met us at the airport, gave us instructions, a short tour of the airport and area and tucked us in a very nice hotel. We would be going to Guangzhou the next day to meet our babies, so he said to rest up and avoid temptation to go shopping. That, plus the new airport is on Lantau Island and about an hour from the downtown shopping district in HK. Its nice though, a lot nicer than the airport in Kowloon we landed at last time. This airport opened 6 yrs ago.
Check out the Krispy Kreme! I can't get a hot donut in Wilmington DE, but can at the airport in HK. How about that? Not that I need donuts, hot or not.

Got a Departure Date!

Well, looks like we're leaving for Hong Kong (then onto China) on August 23. No return date yet. Gotta love the process. So its the countdown and we're finally, really, going. Here are some pics from Eddie and my recent trip out West.

Playing hooky one afternoon in Seattle...

Still No Date

We're told to be ready by mid August. That the anticipated travel date is still Aug 20-25 - but no exact date. Meanwhile, we're going a little crazy...

Still No Travel Date

i think this part of the waiting is actually harder than the first 28 mos. at least then, i didn't know her. i hadn't seen her face. i didn't know her name. there wasn't a specific little girl in china waiting for her family to come get her. now, i'm stuck. here. waiting for them (the agency? the chinese? who knows?) to tell me when i can go get my little girl. the new addition to our family. she, who will complete - us. it'll be a month this sat since we got our referral, but still do not have a firm date on when we can go to china. gracewood is planning for us to go between the 20-25 of aug. now you know what i know, which isn't much...