He's sleeping! HALLELUJAH Lord!!!!

Last night was the first night, since coming home from China, that Matthew has slept through the entire night! He had a WONDERFUL day yesterday. Found out that he loves peas! PEAS, PEAS, PEAS! He loves Walmart too. (Especially where the fishes are!) He had a grilled cheese sandwich, that mom really took off most of the breading because it was too hard for him to breakdown in his mouth by himself. LOVES french fries. Do you know a child who doesn't?????

We got some Chinese documents translated by our adoption agency! THANK YOU Stefani and Charlene for all that you do for us parents!!! So today I will run those to our pediatrician to get Matthew's testing started. He's NOT going to like it, I'm sure. (just the usual.......lead poisoning, parasitic, routine bloodwork, urine, stuff like that. OH, he will have something extra because of his brain development is so much smaller than "normal" kids. (What's normal?!?!?) At the moment, we are to give him LOTS of vitamins/minerals, every juice available to him w/extra vitamins, Calcium, you name it. Matthew loves everything you put in front of him. (I guess when you have had nothing but the same thing over and over again, and given nothing else, OF COURSE you would take new things with no problems or complaints!)

Some new foods he's had in the past 48 hours are: animal crackers, strawberry-banana juice, gummi bears vitamins (will NOT take poly-vi-sol), grilled cheese sandwich, turkey, gravy, ketchup (you'd better give it to him or he will point to it and KEEP pointing to it until you give it to him), maple syrup (sugar-free), french toast sticks, hashbrowns, pancakes, hot dogs (LOVES 'EM!), lemonade, chocolate milk (prefers regular though), lasagna, homemade bread........so yeah, HE LOVES FOOD!

Just found out that our friend and companion in China, Jim (and his son Eric) made it home to the US of A last Friday!!!! AMEN for answered prayers!!!! He's the one family that needed some extra paperwork. We are so thankful everything went through and that they are home where they belong!!!! I know the Mom is QUITE excited about her son! (she couldn't travel, so she is loving on him as you read this!) Congratulations Wendy!!!! ;o)

Keep us in your prayers! LOTS and LOTS of doctor appointments in the next 2 weeks and LOTS of testing to be done. Matthew gets a doppler ultrasound, EKG and something else on Thursday in order to see what's up with his heart murmur. Pray it's just nothing and that he'll grow outta it! PLEASE! Then it's back to the pediatrician on Friday for follow up on his ear infection/weight check. (he's underweight, only in the what was it? 5 to 10 percentile? Something like that. I'm losing track already. I have it written down in his growth book. Pray also that his head development would take off because of the extra vitamins/minerals he's getting!

We love our son! He's such a joy to be with. Gentle, quiet, always inquisitive, wants to know more and more every single day (he points to everything and wants to know names or things). It's already hard to imagine life without our Matthew! God knows we are so blessed!

(PS, no, we haven't found the camera yet, but we KNOW we have it! Have one more suitcase to unpack! GIVE US TIME! :o)

Saturday, March 17th, 2007 - HOME, HOME, HOME!

Oh gosh it feels so good to be home. Even though most of us are sleep deprived and cranky as all (won't mention the main 2 who are!!!), we are home and settling in. After a VERY long, 30 hour of either flying, waiting or hanging on to the airplane seat for dear life, we are on the ground and staying put for awhile. The event on Thursday started at 4:30am (China time) for us. Bags were packed. We left the hotel late because our guide kinda overslept but came running into the hotel lobby just as we were truly about to leave (or else we'd have been late for our flights). She felt totally terrible about oversleeping! She didn't even want to accept our gifts we had for her for helping us in Guangzhou. As I explained it to her, everything didn't depend on this one morning. (She helped us like crazy!!!) Anyway, she took our gifts, helped us get to our China Southern checkpoints at the airport and went with us as far as she could, got pictures (which we will post as soon as we can find the camera) and left.

The flight from Guangzhou to Hong Kong was pretty uneventful. It was kinda like a commuter flight, your up? Then your down 30 minutes later. No biggie. Then, we had some time in Hong Kong. Ate a little bit and got on the BIG LEG of the flying. (Going from Hong Kong, China to San Francisco, California) OH MY GOSH! All I have to say is thank you Lord for the United pilots who flew our plane! It was a 747 - 400. Totally packed.....and from the time we hit air to just past the International Date Time territory, all we had was turbulence. The kind that makes your Pepsi leap up and end up on your shirt. The kind that allows your butter from your meal to be opened up and end up on your shirt. The kind that allows you to hear EVERYONE on the flight gasp because the plane is just moving and you are litterly coming up outta your seat!!! That kind of turbulence!!!!! It was horrible. The kids thought it was wonderful, laughing and saying OOOOOOHhhhhhhhh and mommy was hanging on for dear life to the seat, which is attached to the plane, which is just bouncing all over the place, (so why hold on to the seat?!?!??!) I've never prayed as hard and as furious as I did on that plane!! You know it's bad when the flight attendents serve dinner to you, give you something to drink and then the pilot comes on the intercom system and tells them to SIT DOWN for awhile. Trust me, I DO NOT plan to get on any more planes any time soon! (At least for 5 years!)

Anywho....we did end up getting to San Francisco, even if it was the harder way. We had a six hour layover there. We were starving! We were tired! Airplane food is NOT that great. We ended up going through security/Immigration with no problem. Even the officer greeted us and congratulated our Matthew on immediate citizenship! YEAH US! We got our bags, checked them through security/customs (yet again) and proceeded to get some lunch (who knows if it were lunch or breakfast or dinner by then). SF was on breakfast, so to us it felt like night. (China time) When we finally sat down to eat some Subway sandwiches, we only had about 2 hours left to board our next plane from San Francisco to BALTIMORE! Lucky us, we had to board our plane with about 50 kids who were going to take a tour of Baltimore! OH BOY! (not!) They were loud, they were mischievious, oh my! We didn't really want to fly next to them, but hey, we've made it this far. 5 hours later we were in Baltimore. That flight was turbulent just descending into Baltimore and landing because of crosswinds that were around 20 mphs. Our WOMAN pilot was awesome! Bumpy landing, but hey, we were down, we were safe, WE WERE HAPPY CAMPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As soon as we disembarked, we got our stuff, and the first fresh face we come to was TONI B. who was waiting for us! OH GOSH was it a face we DESPERATELY wanted to see! (She was taking us home!) Even through the rain, none of cared. We loved being HOME! NO MORE AIRPLANES! That's what Rebecca said......Mommy? No more airplanes? I said, NO MORE AIRPLANES FOR A LONG TIME! God did I mean that!!!!! Toni drove us home and we got in about midnight. THANK YOU TONI!!!!

The kids didn't know whether to eat, sleep, or what. It's the time thing/body clock being thrown into oblivion! (I hate this part of it too!) We are ok but it's taking awhile to adjust. Matthew is scared of the cats, all 3 of them. He likes his room, but scared to sleep in it alone. (We have Rebecca in there with him for awhile.) He just stares at everything in the house. We have been teaching him what things are, but how much he retains is totally unknown to us. He's trying. It's alot to ask for a 2 year old.

UPDATE FROM OUR PEDIATRICIAN:

Wow, what a whopper. I knew some things were different with Matthew when we got him but just how much different we weren't sure until we would take him to our own pediatrician. Matthew has been diagnosed with a heart murmor (whether just a childhood thing that will go away? or something else, we will have to see a pediatric cardiologist to make sure), a small "male" problem that will require him to see a urologist, and of course, his cleft palate........our pediatrician feels like after seeing the photos and seeing his palate for "real" and in person, she feels like China tried to fix it. It's not complete though. He will need more work to close up a whole in his mouth that is just behind his teeth line. The rest is totally closed, which is kinda what we thought (because you can see it) but to be rest assured, wow......of course, we were never informed that China tried to fix it. OH well.....his teeth are out of align, but this is common for cleft kids. No biggie there beings these are baby teeth. The Cranialfacial team can help with this also. Apparently, the round scar (about a quarter size) on Matthew's face, has possibly come from an infection or a bite of some sort. She said he will probably have this the rest of his life. (again, no biggie to us) But, we were never told about this either. I tell ya, you just roll with the punches! We are trying to get his vaccination records up to date, but it is HARD! Everything is in CHINESE! Our pediatrician is Asian, but does not read Chinese. (AHHHH!!!!) We've pretty much decided to get tithers done on Matthew to see what his immunity is and to go from there. (With Rebecca she had only immunities to 3 things and that was it!!!) Blood work, testing and cardiac stuff to come next week! *oh please pray for us* (Especially about the cardiac stuff! My father had a murmor because of Rheumatic fever as a child and it went away.......I'm praying it's NOT the worst case scenario our pediatrician gave to us! (a hole in his heart)

Thanks for traveling with us to China! We'll post here and there about our kids as we get something to say. Hopefully we'll be rested enough to attend church tomorrow.

Kristen

Almost home / Nesten hjemme

So the time has come. This is the last post from China, THANK YOU LORD. It's not that we don't like it here, it's just that we like it much better home. :) We went to the consulate today and had the swearing in ceremony. This time we actually had to say the oath and not only answer yes to the question. There were like, between 50 and 100 other families there also! LOTS of babies and older kids with brand new mommies and daddies!!!!! AMEN LORD! *There are still lots more still in orphanages!*

Så har tiden kommet for å reise hjem så dette er siste innlegg fra Kina. TAKK GUD! Det er ikke det at vi ikke liker oss i Kina, det er bare at vi liker oss så mye bedre hjemme. :) I dag var vi på det Amerikanske konsulatet og hadde svergings sermoni. Denne gangen måtte vi si hele eden og ikke bare ja på spørsmålet. Det var mellom 50 og 100 andre familier der. Mange nye babier og eldre unger med nye mammaer og pappaer. Amen Herre. *Det er fremdeles mange som fremdeles bor på barnehjem!*

We promised that our answers on the application for immigrant status for Matthew were true to the best of our knowledge and that was it! All that pomp and circumstance just for that. The new consulate office is quite large! More room, more security, more escalators, more security, did I mention security? Even little Matthew had to walk through the security detector by himself!!! But, we made it through that. We are now packing like mad people, rushing around, trying to get things into suitcases. We are tired, we are hungry for some REAL food, and most of all, we are missing home. China is nice, don't get us wrong, but there IS no place like home.

Vi lovet at det vi hadde svart i søknaden om immigrasjons visa for Matthew var sant så langt vi visste og det var det. All den pomp og prakt bare for det. Det nye konsulatet er mye større enn det gamle. Mer plass, mer sikkerhetstiltak, flere rulletrapper, mer sikkerhetstiltak, nevnte jeg sikkerhetstiltak? Selv Matthew måtte gå igjennom metaldetektoren for seg selv. Vi kom igjennom det og nå pakker vi som gale, prøver å få alt med oss uten å utvide bagasjen. Vi er lei, sulten på mat som vik kan identifisere og mest av alt har vi hjemlengsel. Kina er et greit land men det er ingen plass som hjemme.

Toni? We should be right on schedule for the moment. Track our flights if you can. Remember Itinerary should be posted somewhere on here already. We won't have internet access until we get home, so say a prayer for us that we have NO turbulence, Matthew's/Mommy's ears will be good to fly (mommy, daddy and Rebecca have colds.......Mommy's ears did the same thing as last trip to China. Not open up after descent from second airplane trip. *oy*), and we have safe flights! Like I said, we are tired! DIRT tired! Pray for us tomorrow! We'll need it lugging 4 large suitcases, 5 carry on's, 2 kids, a double stroller and a partridge in a pear tree! LOL

Vi vil ikke ha internet før vi er hjemme så be for oss at vi ikke har turbulens, at Matthews og mammas ører er gode nok for en lang flytur (mamma, pappa og Rebecca er forkjølet.... Mammas ører plugget igjen, som de gjorde første tur til Kina. De åpnet ikke opp etter landingen på turen fra provinsen. Oi), og at vi har en god reise. Som jeg sa, vi er lei. Drit lei. Be for oss i morgen. Vi vil drasse rundt 4 store kofferter, 5 ting for ombord, to unger, en dobbel barnevogn og en papegøye i et pæretre! :)

Look out Maryland, WE'RE COMING HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ya hoo!!!!!!!!!!
Se opp Maryland, VI KOMMER HJEM!!!!!! Endelig.

PS Sorry no pictures from consulate. They don't allow it.

Tuesday Afternoon March 13th.

We are now less than 48 hours from leaving China and I must admit I am actually looking forward to the long journey home. We did have a small little snag in that Matthews name on the plane ticket home was not matching his passport but our superb travel agent, Sue, and our guide here, Ann, has helped us with that. I guess what I am trying to say is...... There is no stopping us now. Especially since it is almost 3PM here and we did not get any call from the consulate with questions. Hallelujah! Matthews visa is going through. Now we only will have to go to the consulate tomorrow afternoon and swear to it that we did not lie on Matthews application. We are actually swearing that on Matthews behalf. It is weird but that is the way it is.


Last night we went on the Pearl River Cruise. That is a resteurant boat that goes up and down the Pearl River a few times while the passengers are having a jolly good time with food and for the ones that want it.... drinks. The food was really awesome and the view from the river even better. The buildings along the river was displaying different kinds of light shows. One of the buildings, China Construction Bank, even showed parts of the movie "Happy Feet". Most of it is hard to describe and pictures doesn't give it the justice it deserve.

So in conclusion, we will be walking off the plane in Baltimore in less than 72 hours and we hope to see friendly faces welcoming us. Well that is if I don't manage to get United to squeeze us in on an earlier flight from San Francisco. If that happens I don't know where we will come in or when but hopefully we manage to get a hold of Toni so that she can be at the right airport at the right time.


Our guide just popped in with the redbook, aka adoption decree, and told us that everything was good as gold. Hurray!!! There is just one fly in our soup now. One of the other families needs extra documentation before their visa can be issued. Please pray they manage to get it over here ASAP so it doesn't delay them for their return. We want all the children home.

Till we post again.

Monday morning, 3/12/07 - Pictures from our Cantonese dinner!

Thank God we knew what we were eating!!! Here's proof! Enjoy!

Sunday afternoon March 11th.

Today we took a trip to Six Banyan Temple. This is a budist temple in the middle of Guangzhou. It is one of those places that shows the contrasts of this country very clearly. In the middle of the temple there is a 57m (about 175 ft) pagoda built sometime around 500 AD.
In other words it is about 1500 years old. The Chinese really know a thing or two about wood preservation cause most of the pagoda is in the original wood. Rebecca and I took the time to climb the stairs all the way to the top. I asked the guide if she knew of other three year olds that have done that and the answer was no. When Rebecca sets her mind on doing something she is very determined. The rules of the pagoda is that if a child wants to go up, it has to do it on their own. Under adult supervision of course but she had to climb it by her self. She did really well.

After the pagoda was built way back when, six banyan trees grew up around the pagoda and the monks there believe that the trees was buddas that had come to protect the pagoda. That is how the temple got its name.

At the temple we were given the option of having our child blessed by the monks.
We decided to opt out of that but a couple of the other familes had their children blessed. We believe that our children are already blessed through what our Lord and Savior said about them. "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The protection from the God of Heaven and Earth is all they need. And of course your prayer coverage.

After the temple we went to the electronics market. I was kind of dissapointed with what I saw. There were 250 million cellphones plus any kind of cellphone accessories, 100 thousand mp3 players, 6 computer and some software (all in Chinese). But then again we did focus our attention on the McDonalds that was in the back of the market and looked at electronics for about 15-20 minutes.

Tonite we are going to be daring again and go for some Chinese food for dinner. All four families are gathering together at a local restaurant that specializes in Cantonese style food. This is the style of Chinese food that is most widespread throughout the world. Owen, Donnas teenage helper and "nephew", did comment on that there really aren't any stray animals around but lets not hope for the reason implied......

Roy

Saturday evening, 3/10/07 - Medical stuff/ visa pictures

Well, today was the day Matthew and LOTS, and LOTS, and LOTS of other babies & children have been waiting for. The medical check. First, we met in the lobby and met Donna, Owen, Elizabeth (the new babe), Lynda ("seven"), Jim and Eric (new cool boy). Donna and Jim and us went to the place where you get your baby's pictures done right outside the physical exam office. Matthew just smiled away. His photo was FANTASTIC! Then Eric had his, and Elizabeth had hers. From there, we were met by groups and groups of more adoptive parents. Some from the US, some from Spain and more Americans. We "strolled" over to the medical check office and waited in line as about 50 children were in front of us. (The office just opened too!!!)

We proceeded to fill out Matthew's information and waited in line. Surprisingly enough, the lines moved!!! Better than when we were there with Rebecca. (I tell ya, the guides have alot to do with it.
Translating for everyone and moving people here and there.) I went ahead and got in one of the longer lines because I knew station number one, MEDICAL & SURGICAL would take a little longer. Matthew flew by with flying colors. Off to station number two, WEIGHT and HEIGHT. This is where it got REALLY FUNNY!!!! Matthew, by then, knew where he was and what they "could" do. He ended up throwing a hissy fit when they tried to measure him. (got through it though) Then we came to weight........this is where you might laugh! They weigh him and he (at first) weighed MORE than Rebecca......I said, "not hardly". Then Roy came over and they weighed him AGAIN, this time he supposidly lost 4 mysterious pounds to come to 26 pounds! Roy and I looked at each other and said, NOT HARDLY! Hey, that's what they said! We hope that our pediatrician will solve this "mystery". ***Side note, when we had Rebecca weighed at the medical check, she weighed 2 pounds less than what they said. WHO KNOWS!*** Anyhoo.......


Off to station number three......This is where I'd like to ask you guys for prayer! Matthew did pass this station. However, this was the EAR, NOSE, and THROAT part of it. His nose had dried blood in it. (Which we knew from Friday morning, when we woke up from sleeping, I got him up from his crib and saw blood on the sheets. Almost called the guide for that one, but we were going to see her a tad later, so we waited.) Apparently, Matthew's left ear is fully infected. This, we were told, is part of him having a cleft palate. The doctor looked in his mouth and said to me, "Hole in mouth" and I said yes, cleft palate. Poor guy, we were given Matthew with him sneezing yellow "stuff" outta his nose. How long he's been sick, WHO KNOWS?! The doctor talked with us through Anne, our guide and because of the severity of his ear infection and what has happened in the last 24 hours with him, she wrote him two prescriptions RIGHT ON THE SPOT! (Usually they don't do that......) So Matthew is on Amoxicillin and some other decongestant type of stuff. So far, he's taken his medicine with no problems. It's kinda like the American stuff but they don't mix it. It stays in powder form and we mix it with hot water.

I tell ya, a mother's heart tells you, GET TO A DOCTOR because you want your child fixed and helped. I wasn't sure what to do until Anne intervened for us! For that we are TRULY grateful!!!! (thank you CHI for her) Matthew had a good nap. A little cranky, but hey, I'd be cranky too with an ear infection raging inside me! For all you adoptive parents out there waiting to travel, DANNY'S BAGELS!!!! We had some AWESOME steak & cheese subs from there for lunch! Cheap and good! Can't beat that!!!

Ok, back to today......Anne got Matthew's prescriptions and we headed back to the Victory hotel (which is WONDERFUL) to handle US Consulate paperwork. Almost 2 hours later, Donna, Jim and myself (Kristen) got everything done! Whew.....what an ordeal!!! Adoptive parents have to do a dossier, and when we get here, we have JUST as much paperwork to do. Whew whee........

Next? Kids had naps, we ate lunch and went SHOPPING!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE GUANGZHOU! We got some EXCELLENT deals on Xi'an warriors (yeah Toni, I found REAL ones), dresses for Rebecca, a "suit" for Matthew, a shirt for Roy and went to the grocery store, Beatrice! (Take notice parents? BEATRICE has food/water for ya! Good prices too!) We went to about 3 or 4 stores and then it began to rain, so we sprinted back to the hotel where we get the kids ready for bedtime. (Mommy & daddy time! Peace and quiet! AHHHHHH.......oh yeah, watching American Idol from last Thursday night.)

Please, please, please......pray for our Matthew. We have one HECK of a plane ride home in 5 days. I can't imagine Matthew's ears if they still aren't decent by then. Oh Lord.....hopefully this medicine will do the trick until we can get to our pediatrician. Louise? We need some prayerwarriors and just know we are praying for Julia too!!!