Back by Popular Demand

Our fans have spoken and we have listened, so we are back with an update.
We made it home in one piece. It was a grueling 30 hour trip, but we made it through unscathed. Nina did very well on the planes, with minimal screaming and annoying only one Japanese businessman. The 12 hour flight from Tokyo to Detroit was the biggest challenge, but we were lucky to have three seats to ourselves and could move around as much as we needed - which was a lot! We showed up at home (our new 900 square foot apt in Brunswick) at midnight to be greeted by 3 very sleepy yet very excited little girls. It was so wonderful to hold them and kiss them and squeeze them tight again. 3 weeks without them was so hard for Hannah and I - maybe harder than it was for the 3 of them. Aunt Lori and Grammy Sue were so loving and attentive and kept them so active while were gone. We thank you both so much for all that you did and for everyone else who helped out as well - epecially Lesbo & Donny, the rest of SLAMM, Lizzy & Joel, Sue L, the girls' teachers at Williams-Cone and Little Acorns, and everyone at Providence for covering for me in my absence. The trip would have been an impossibility without you and your support.
We have been home for 3 weeks now - the time has flown! These weeks have been a time of transition and adjustment for us all, but we are all doing very well and are adjusting well. The first week or so, Hannah, Nina and I struggled with sleep - thinking day was night and night was day - especially Nina. Nina has been sleeping in our bed with Hannah and I alternating nights with her and nights with the older three in their beds. This way, every other night one of us gets some solid sleep. Nina is sleeping fairly well most nights. She likes to to use the bottle as a pacifier and wakes up fairly often in the night looking for it - so do we. She either gags on or refuses the 5 different types of pacifiers we have tried, so we keep on with the bottle. She is eating well and has been healthy thus far. We have determined that the formula she was on in China must have been soy-based as the transition to milk-based formula resulted in blow-out diarreah. Needless to say, she's back to soy-based! She gets giddy when we feed her rice or fish (evidence of her early days on the South China Sea!) and has been a good sport about trying lots of other things. Emotionally, she is doing very well. She is forming a healthy attachment with Hannah and I and her sisters. She's developing some stranger anxiety and has decided she no longer needs to smile at everyone, because she knows she'll get whatever attention she needs from us. This is all very good stuff for attachment. She can still be quite demanding and is sure to get our attention when she wants it.
Her sisters are adjusting wonderfully as well. They are the most amazing little people! Each has had their much deserved break-downs and are excited about being big sisters (again for Emelia and Chloe and for the first time in Ella's case). All 3 of them have wanted Nina to star in show-and-tells at school, but we've compromised with brief guest appearances. They have been big helpers with Nina which as allowed Hannah and I to keep up regular hygene and trips to the bathroom and the occasional moment of having our hands child-free. Hannah and I look at each other every now and again and comment on how much we have forgotten the amount of work having a baby is. We are quickly remembering and relearning and can now get out of the house in about 15 minutes with only 2 trips back inside to grab diapers or a bottle or sometimes a forgotten child! But despite all the work, lack of sleep, no time for ourselves, and sharing a bed with our children instead of each other, we are all incredibly happy and feeling complete.
From here, it's back to work for me, the end of April vacation for the girls, and back to home alone mom duty for Hannah. And then there is the small matter of building a new house . . .


Ella, meet Nina. Nina, Meet Ella.


You'll notice that Ella likes to be where Nina is.


What is this big hairy thing and why does its breath smell like cat litter?


If I wasn't so excited about having a new little sister, I'd be a bit peeved that I'm riding my scooter in the snow in April!


Me too!


Snow?! Nobody said anything to me about snow!


Our new house plan!

Last Day!

Well, it's hard to believe, but our journey here is almost at its end. Today is our last day here in China. We spent our last day cruzing through an antique market and, to prepare ourselves for America, had lunch at McDonalds. Now we are packing our suitcases and preparing to leave. We start our 30 hour trip home at 5:45am China time and get home around 11pm Maine time. I'm still trying to figure out how it takes 30 hours for only 17 hours to tick by on the clock!
We have had a great trip but are very ready to be home. We miss our girls terribly and are looking forward to a small degree of normalcy. I admit that I will likely have some pretty severe french toast withdrawls for a while, but I won't have to worry about any fish soup inflictions! Here are some of our latest pictures. We'll keep updating once we get home, but I would expect there to be bit of a delay.


Nina's first McDonalds experience - and hopefully her last!


Nina and one of her friends from her orphanage.


Nina's not a big fan of baths yet, but she sure looks cute in a towel!


If you look closely, you'll see that there is a famly of 4 on this motorcycle. We are thinking of trading our van in for a couple of these bikes. (This photo was taken by our friend of ours on our trip to the orphanage.)


A man hanging 12 storeys up by a single rope cleaning our hotel window.


And, the grand finale - my morning french toast!

One more day

We have been busy packing and preparing for our journey home. Can't seem to get good seats on the plane, but hope that more will be availabe tomorrow. Here are some pictures that a friend of ours took of Nina. We plan to update again before we return, but our girls were hoping for some quick pics. Hannah

Just Some Quick Pics

Just a few quick pictures before I go to bed. You are spared my commentary this time . . .



A quick peak at our 3 little lovies back home with their cousin Maddy. Looks like Aunt Lori is keeping everyone busy!



And a random shot of dangling chicken.

Sleeping Baby

Bart is walking the halls trying to help Nina fall asleep. He has a nice little path he follows each night. I wonder what we will do when we return home and it is to cold to journey outside. Nina had an off night sleeping last night. I thought I had the better end of the deal with Bart putting her to sleep and then I wake in the night with her. Last night she decided to play for an hour before returning to sleep. Once you all meet her you will understand why this was hard for the two of us trying to sleep. She tends to be loud and strong with her expressions. She is also in the bed with us, which she thinks is grand. I agree on most nights.

We had our "red couch" photo taken today. It is a tradition in the adoption community that before you leave China with your daughter you take the babies pictures on the red couch in the lobby of the White Swan. This didn't go very well for our group. Of ten babies....I think they were all crying. We have decided to try again tomorrow with our personal cameras. Again...I think Nina was crying to loudest. She quickly recovered and shared her bright smile with us.

Bart will update later about his adventures today. Nina and I spent the afternoon relaxing and playing at the hotel and Bart did some exploring the area. It amazes me the places he finds.

We wanted to do a quick update for everyone today...and promise to share more tomorrow. We plan to go off just the three of us to an area that is known for the art work. Again...sounds wonderful to me. In the afternoon we go to the American consulate and complete the last step in our adoption process.

In case any of you are ever considering taking a trip without your children. My advice is NOT TO! I truly feel like a part of me is missing. Love them, kiss them tell them I love them. They are so precious to us. Love, Hannah

More Randomness

It is Sunday evening here in China. Hannah, Nina and I and another family we are traveling with just got back from looking at millions (if not billions) of beads in the an underground maze of bead shops in central Guangzhou. Hannah was in her glory and will return home with lots of new jewelry projects. We then walked back to the hotel via Qing Ping market, the first open market (economically speaking) in China - one of Deng Xiao Ping's market experiments. It used to be known for all it's exotic products and animals. Now, the most of what we see are live turtles and scorpians (for soup) and dried sea horses, star fish and other "herbs and spices."




Yesterday, we laid low here on the island and enjoyed one the American comforts here - Starbucks. It like walking into any other Starbucks in the U.S., but a little nicer! It's a nice way to spoil ourselves now and then.


This morning (after being reunited with my french toast!) we went to the Six Banyan Tree Temple here in Guangzhou. It is the oldest buddhist temple in the city. There all the babies in our travel group received a blessing from one of the monks. I also climbed to the top of the 17 storey pagoda - it was a bit freaky up at the top, but gave unqique view of the sprawling city.

Also today, we made one last attempt to get an earlier flight out of here to try to get back to our girls a day or two early, but, alas, all the flights are full. This is apparently a busy time to be here. We're still on target for a late arrival in Portland on Saturday! We miss all of you back home and will fill you in on more randomness tomorrow!

Victims of Fish Skin Soup!

Sorry for the delay in updating you all. As the title of this post suggests, the 3 of us have fell victim to the fish skin soup we so politely partook with the orphanage director. It has each hit us slightly differently - I hugged the toilet, Hannah was achy and had Major stomach cramps and Nina screamed all night. The degrees of our reactions directly correlate to the amount of fish skin soup we each ate. Needless to say, we are not very rested at the moment but we are on the mend. The hardest part for me has been foregoing the french toast and bacon for the last 2 days. Today we go for Nina's official physical exam and then we plan to lay low and try to recuperate. We are a little out of the loop as to what we are doing the next couple of days, but we know we'll have everything wrapped up by Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, we can't get a flight until next Saturday (the 31st) morning. We were both aching for our 3 girls back home last night and just wanted to pack up and go home. This morning, we are feeling a little more positive. We'll try to update more a bit later.

Shaimian Island

Shaimian Island is the small island that our hotel is on. It is on the Pearl River and is separated from the rest of Guangzhou by a small canal. Most of the buildings were built by the French and the English following the opium wars - the island was a concession made by the Chinese as part of a treaty. Shaimian Island is where a lot of the foreigners to Guangzhou stay, especially those adopting as the whole island is set up for us. Therefore, it is essential to get off the island and into the city to experience the real China. Just over the canal is the famous Qing Ping market with winding alleys where you can buy anything from dried sea horses to turtle shells to antique trinkets. Shaimian Island is beautiful and covered with 250 year old trees and the parks that are full of locals doing tai chi and playing badminton. At night, all the buildings along the river are lit up with dancing neon lights and there is a perpetual laser show in the sky above the river. We have a great view of this spectacle from our 12th floor hotel window.
This morning we went out to drop off our laundry at one of the small shops and take a walk in the park. We were lucky enough to run into a huge group of uniformed school children (literally hundreds) who were demonstrating some sort of dance/martial arts routine. We also saw a group of preschool or kindergarten aged children who practiced their "hellos" on us. They are always a bit shocked when we can speak a little Chinese to them. One of their teachers asked about Nina who was sleeping strapped to my chest. As always, we showed her a picture of her 3 sisters back home to which exclaimed to the other teacher "zhen piaoliang!" - they are so beautiful. Yes they are. And we miss them terribly!

Photos of Dianbai

Here are some photos of Dianbai - Nina's home town. It is also called Shuidong (city by the water) since it is located right on the South China Sea. Dianbai is known for its seafood which we sampled when we had lunch with the orphanage director. We were told that it is custom to eat your soup before any of the other dishes. Fortunately for us, it was fish skin soup - my personal favorite - much better than snake skin soup! It was actually pretty good and would have been better if I hadn't know what I was eating.

This is the gate to the orphanage where Nina spent her first 10 months of life. As Hannah mentioned below, we were asked by the director to not post photos of the inside of the orphanage. It is located down an old winding back street. It was clear that neighbors don't see white people all that often as word spread fast and people all poked their heads out their doors and children sped down the street on their bikes to catch a peak of us.

This is us with the orphanage director and his assistant director. They were very nice. The assistant director appeared to be very fond of Nina as did all of the nannies. When we were eating lunch she taught us how to feed Nina a gigantic spoonful of rice in one bite!

This is a very nice old woman who was interested to see that we were carrying Nina on the front of us instead where we are supposed to be carrying her - on our back of course! She thought we were pretty silly!

Here are Hannah and Nina by the South China Sea. I went down to the water while Hannah tried to get Nina to sleep and collected a bag of shells and sand. The water was actually quite warm. I only has a moment to take in the beauty of the ocean until I was accosted by a swarm of cart pulling vendors trying to sell me giant conch shells. It was pretty cool to be looking out at a body of water that stretches all the way to where my girls are back in Maine!

And lastly, a truck load of live piglets. After all, it is the year of the pig.

No words!

This is my first entry since being in China. Bart is feeding Nina right now and after reading the email and blog comments I don't think we could wait any longer. First I want to share a picture or two of the three amazing little people that are waiting for us at home. We love and miss them so much. Lots of people keep asking us if Nina is our only child and when we respond with a no and tell them of our girls at home their eyes get big. I quickly pull out their picture that I carry with me everywhere and everyone is amazed by them. I never imagined myself the mother of four children...would never question it. Having all my girls is a blessing to me. I marvel at each of them and their unique qualities and gifts. They are each so different and special in their own way. I see each of them in their new sister.

We passed school children today and took a lot of pictures. A few boys got in trouble for showing off in front of us. It was fun to communicate with them with facial expressions and body language. My favorite was the preschool class marching around the court yard. The two teachers were admiring Nina and asked how old she was and if she was our only. I of course pulled out my pictures and their eyes got big, as did their smiles. I think they approved.

We were away yesterday visiting the orphanage. It was a good trip - long and emotional draining. I like to beleive that it is a good orphanage. It is hard for me due to my desire for all children to have the love and tenderness of a parent. THey have many special needs children there that will never be adopted. Bart reminded me over and over that we cannot help everyone. I can't help but have lots of ideas and dreams as to how to give back to the little ones left behind. We got some pictures of the inside the baby room, but were asked not to put them on the internet. If you have a daughter at Dianbai please email me and I will look to see if I have pictures of her. We enjoyed lunch with the director and his assistant. Have any of you tried fish skin soup lately? Bart ate it. I tried very hard to be respectful. Happy to report that we have not had any reactions to the new foods we tried. The ocean was amazing and Bart collected some shells to bring home. We took pictures of the spot that Nina was found and learned more about her beginning. They reported that she hated to go to sleep so much that they would put her on their backs and have to leave the room so that she would not wake the other babies. I am glad that she was able to ask for what she needed. Time to go. Off to a fabric market today. Anyone that knows me will understand why Bart asked me to stay on a budget. And I thought I hit the jack pot when we found street after street of beads. Love to you all, Hannah

It's Official!

Our adoption of Nina was legalized in China today, so it is official now, she is our daughter. We still have some bureaucratic processes to do over the course of the next week and a half before we head home, but the big ones are over! Now we are mainly dealing with the U.S. Government. By popular demand, here are some new pictures. The girls requested more pictures of Hannah and I, so here they are. Also, don't miss our premier podcast from China below - The Fine Feathered Chicken.