Finis

The photo above is a group shot of all the adoptive families on our first full day in Guangzhou.  I thought it would be a good way to begin this final post.   Christy and I would have had jet lag beaten by now but for a tiny, cute little Asian princess who's had other ideas.  We've been up with her since 2 am, taking turns playing with her while the other tried to sleep.   Cedric, poor sweetheart, had a hard time going to sleep last night.  I think he was afraid that if he did, we'd be gone when he woke up.  That's how we left him for China, and I don't think he's forgotten that feeling.  He's also quite keen on making sure we're both in his sight at all times.  But he'll settle down soon enough, as will Clare.  Fortunately I have this entire week off, so we'll be all right.   Every time I step outside now, I take a deep breath and savor the sweet, fresh, glorious air of Kentucky.  It'll be a long time before I take that for granted.  Same goes for sparkling clean tap water.  In China, even the natives can't drink it out of the tap.  Can you imagine living your whole life being stuck with bottled water?  The waste of plastic must be immense.   Now that I'm finally out of the range of China's censorship police, I can shoot from the hip using some key words without risk of triggering a shutdown of my internet access:   The minister at that Christ Church spoke from First Samuel about the ancient Israelites' desire for a king, and how that was a sign they'd rejected God.  He said that we cannot give our hearts to a regime.  God must always be first in our hearts ahead of government.  That took real guts to say, "special zone" or not.  China puts people in prison for less. When we were at Tiananmen Square, when out of earshot of anyone nearby, our guide quietly informed us that the student-led protests in 1989 were actually supported by the majority of the Chinese people, but when they were brutally suppressed, everyone was too afraid to take a stand. The Chinese government cannot keep up this quasi-communist, single party regime indefinitely.  I do not know when it will collapse, probably within the next couple of decades, but collapse it will.  There are too many people in that country who love modernity, who work hard, and who resent the government.  We're talking about a country that still has a Gulag, that still jails people and tortures them for speaking out, that murders Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and prisoners, and then harvests their organs for transplants.  A country that has a mass murderer, Mao Tse-Tung, on all their currency.  Think Hitler is bad?  Stalin?  Mao beat them both, killing over 40 million of his fellow countrymen through shootings, concentration camps, and starvation.   So, would we ever do this again, even if we waited until the kids were older so they could go with us?  No.  It's become too drawn-out, too expensive, and too time-consuming.  As the global community continues its general descent into morally relativistic madness, it has been decided by the United Nations that it's better for children to remain in their native countries rather than be adopted by Westerners.  The Hague and UNICEF are more concerned with maintaining racial purity than easing the suffering of children.  This is not just my opinion, either—they've made it clear, in writing, that international adoptions are now to be considered a "last resort."  And domestic adoptions are no better, for reasons I think I've already mentioned in a prior post.   Besides, this is what we'd planned on even before we got married: one birth child, one adopted from China.  Our family is complete, as is.   Anyone who wants to keep following with pictures and summaries should just send me their email addresses via pathman1066@yahoo.com and I'll add them to the list.  (If you've been getting Cedric updates all along, you don't have to do anything.)  Also, anyone who wants a DVD of all the videos and photos I shot while in China, just email me your mailing address.  Anyone who wants to visit, just say the word—we'd love to have you.   You know, I started this blog for family and friends to follow along, to share in Our Great China Adventure.  But over time it became more than that.  Eventually I was no longer writing for all of you, but for Clarisse and Cedric.  When Clare is old enough, when she is ready to get married and start her own family, I want her to read this.  Many, many times, do I want her to read this.  Over and over again until the words are imprinted in her.  For I want her to know just how much she was loved, how hard her mother and I strove to get her and bring her home—her rightful home, the place where she was meant to be all along.  We loved her years before she was even born.  We knew her by name before she even existed.  I think of Jeremiah 1:5: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you."   Christy and I have been blessed with special parents.  Our children are, too.  And if we do nothing else right in this life, we want to see to it that we raise our children so that our grandchildren feel the same way.  Cedric and Clarisse, read these words and understand that parenthood is the hardest, the most important, and the best thing you can do in this lifetime.  It is unglamorous.  It is exasperating.  It is all-encompassing.  It is brutal.  Yet it's the greatest thing in the world, go figure.  Find someone extraordinary with whom to do it.  Put real effort into it.  Use Christ as your lodestar.  He will direct your paths.   Thank you all for joining us on this journey.   Love,   Craig, Christy, Cedric, and Clarisse

Reunion

Dinner perked me up. Eating a properly cooked, gristle-free, honest-to-God chunk of American beef, without a noodle or grain of rice in sight, has a way of doing that. So here’s what happened after we landed in Kentucky:

Dad picked us up at the Bluegrass Airport baggage claim. What a relief it was to give him a nice long hug. Reminded me that no, I wasn’t dreaming, we really were home. We made it to the house just before midnight, but my Mom, bless her heart, stayed up waiting to see Beebee in person for the very first time. Poor Beebee was wrung out, so she just cried weakly. What a trooper she was throughout all that traveling hell. Clarisse has a great inner strength.

As soon as we got in the house, we both went up to Ceddy’s room and snuck in while he was sleeping. We just had to see our boy—after sixteen days, it was time. I’d blocked him out as much as possible during our voyage, actively trying not to think about him or hear him in the background while I was on the phone with Mom and Dad. It was just too painful and made me hate China for forcing us to be away from him for so long. That resentment threatened to spill over to Clarisse, so mental exercises were all I could do. He was in nearly the exact same position he’d been in the last time we saw him, at 4 am on Thursday, May 6, as we left for the airport. Writing about it is very difficult—too difficult to adequately describe the emotions. The feeling and knowledge in the deepest part of my soul that the journey was truly and finally complete, our task had been accomplished. All I can say is what I’d said before, that our servicemen who leave their families for months or a year or whatever are stronger than me.

It was easy getting Beebee fed, rinsing her off in the shower, and tucking her into bed. For the time being we have her in a pack-n-play in our room. Her nursery is all set, but she’s used to pack-n-plays from the two weeks in hotels. Plus she’s never slept alone in her life, so we didn’t want her to wake up in a strange room all by herself. Though I must say that as strange rooms go, her nursery is pretty doggone nice. Done up in a very soothing pink (picked out the color myself), decorated with bees, butterflies, and flowers, and a soft cozy crib. Lots and lots of charming togs, too, mostly the result of our respective mothers’ impeccable taste in baby girl clothing. She’s already napped in that room today without fuss, so it won’t be long before she’s overnighting in there too.

After being up for over thirty hours, Christy and I felt and smelled dreadful, so we showered and hit the sack. Out cold before our heads hit the pillows.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of Ceddy chirping about something. At first I thought I was dreaming. How marvelous and exhilarating the feeling was, when I remembered that it was no dream! Soon Christy was up too, having heard the same beautiful sound. We knew that pictures were forthcoming, so we got ourselves dressed and groomed before opening the door. My parents were downstairs with Cedric already, and when they saw me open the door and come out, they said “Look upstairs, Cedric! Look who’s home!” We didn’t know what to expect after all that time. Was he going to be mad at us? Or worse yet, would he have forgotten us and been nonplussed? God bless our boy, he looked up, saw us, yelled “OHHHH!!!! MAMA!!! DADA!!!” and came running to the stairs. After all that time, picking up our little boy and giving him a bear hug now ranks as the single greatest moment of my life. (Sorry hon—seeing you walking down the aisle at our wedding has met its match.)

Since then the transition has been remarkably smooth. Cedric’s first meeting with Clare took place on our bed. He knew who she was, called her Beebee, and was very gentle. He even gave her a kiss, the sweetheart. For her part she was wary at first, probably wondering who the heck this silly kid was. She’d never seen a picture of him before and certainly did not know what we were talking about when we spoke of him in China. But after a few minutes of watching him flop around on the bed squiggle when tickles, a smile crept into the corner of her little mouth. Henceforth it was easy sailing. So much so that, by noon, my parents felt their presence was no longer needed, so they headed back home.

Words cannot do justice to what my parents have done for us these last two and a half weeks. Not only did they take exemplary care of Cedric, they cleaned our house, trimmed our lawn, and even took care of some odd jobs I’d been meaning to do for awhile. They lightened our load and were phenomenal in doing it. The gifts we brought back for them seemed pathetic when stacked up against all that. Except for the gift of a new granddaughter, of course.

Tomorrow I’ll do one more post, finishing up with some reflections and final thoughts.

Beebee Trek: The Voyage Home

Eight thousand three hundred miles, four airports, and twenty-nine hours brought us from Guangzhou, China to Lexington, Kentucky through Beijing and Chicago. Maybe “brought” is a bad choice, since it sounds passive and comfortable. Wouldn’t want to have endured all that and give the wrong impression, as you’ll see below:

Christy and I were awake continuously for over thirty hours. We both woke up around 5 am Saturday morning in Guangzhou, got Beebee together, ate our last meal in China with the other bleary-eyed families in our cohort, then checked out and convened in the lobby with our travel guide, Allison. She’s a Chinese national who, like many of them, adopted an English-sounding equivalent of her real Chinese name for the ease of her charges. She took care of all of us during our week in Guangzhou—no small feat, considering all the touring and paperwork we did. She actually lives in Beijing with her husband and two children, but is a contract worker with our adoption agency who’s been doing this for years. Since her kids were born she’s been cutting back on these trips, doing them once every month or two. During the week it became obvious that her real enthusiasm is more in the consulate paperwork than the touring, which I understand completely. Besides, if an adoption agent has a strength, that’s where the adoptive families want it to be.

While on the bus to the airport, poor Allison got choked up thinking of how much she’ll miss us, how lucky our children are to have us, how much better a life they’ll all have in the U.S., and how she’ll be praying for us. What a sweet, wonderful, godly woman. She then asked one of our group members, an ordained minister, to lead us in a group prayer. Very powerful moment.

At the Guangzhou airport the pain got off to an early start. Turns out that United Airlines, which is what we were all flying, screwed up the transfer of information for our children’s tickets to their China Air affiliate. On top of that, the woman at the counter, who couldn’t have been more than 21 or 22, was clueless as to how to process adoptive children. Even though we all had our paperwork in complete order, it took the whole group about an hour and a half to just get our boarding passes, and she would only give our kids their boarding passes for the initial flight to Beijing, saying that we had to get new ones for the kids at each step of the way. (Thank God Allison, who was flying back to Beijing herself, was there to translate all that nonsense for us.)

Security was a problem, because even though we showed the young woman at the podium all of our boarding passes, she wanted to know why we didn’t have Beebee’s ticket, too. Explaining to her that we had to surrender the ticket to get the boarding pass didn’t seem to register. Eventually one of the more experienced security people said it was OK, so we moved on to the ground-level gate, which was absolutely sweltering. Absolutely no AC, plus the door was open to the runway. A simple small bottle of water was $5, and the only potable water out of a free dispenser was hot so the Chinese could brew their tea and noodles.

We sat there for another hour until a shuttle bus came to haul us and about a hundred other Chinese travelers to the plane, sitting far off on the runway. It took three buses to get us all there, and boy oh boy were they packed tight. My tolerance of BO should have been strong by then, but I guess there’s just some smells you never get used to. Then on the plane we sat for about 15 minutes, waiting for some latecomers and our luggage to be loaded. Just as we were to get moving, thunder and lightning with heavy rain blew in and kept us sitting for the better part of an hour. Thankfully, like in Florida, such storms move out quick.

I’ve come to realize that Chinese planes, while being more comfortable and featuring better service than U.S. jets in many respects, are absolutely dreadful at regulating cabin pressure on descents. I don’t know why that’s such an issue for them, but once again Beebee and I were in agony the last 20-30 minutes of our 3-hour flight to Beijing. By the way, there are nonstop flights from Guangzhou to Los Angeles, but they’re done by a different airline. Had we arranged our flights in a more geographically sensible pattern, it would have meant a total of five transoceanic one-way tickets (two there, three back). No one in the group could afford that, hence the Beijing hassle.

It was odd, seeing that cavernous Beijing airport again through the thick brown smog, unearthing those original thoughts and feelings when, sixteen days prior, we first touched Chinese soil. Felt more like a couple of months had passed.

Not much time to get sentimental, though, because we had to reenter the airport for the international flight, recheck ourselves for new boarding passes, plow through a looong line at customs and immigration, and go through security again. It’s a big airport and they don’t exactly overdo the conveyor belts and escalators, that’s for sure. At security we found that the Benadryl bottle we brought for Beebee had cracked. Fortunately Christy had the good sense to put it into a Ziploc bag beforehand, so the mess was contained. But it raised a red flag with security, so we had to go to the nearby police station for them to run the liquid through a chemical sensor that looked like a top-loading washing machine (albeit a very expensive one). At each step of the way I had to drop the fortysomething pounds of three carryon bags I was hauling, dig out our passports and boarding passes, and show them to various expressionless agents and guards. After awhile they all started to blur together. When we arrived at the gate I realized that I’d left the boarding passes at one of those points, probably the last one. By this time our 3-hour layover in Beijing was nearly over, so I had to run back to retrieve them. Thank God they were still at that police station.

At the gate we got our final dose of Chinese overemployment, as a girl was standing with a sign indicating the order of the seating (naturally we were in the penultimate herd of cattle). Imagine, having a job that could be easily replaced by a post. She made the most of it, though, making sure we all knew that, in those 500 or so square feet of the Beijing airport, she was the boss. Whatever helps her cling to a shred of dignity, I suppose.

The last straw in Beijing was when, after going through all those checkpoints, we had to go through yet another security baggage check right before boarding the plane. Come on, we’d just suffered through all that, and now I have to show our passports and boarding passes for a fifth time in this damn airport? And they’re opening our entire luggage again? The one female guard was a real hard case, forbidding the baby bottle of hot water Christy had prepared for Beebee’s next formula feeding, even insisting that Christy drink the entire bottle. Poor Christy started chugging, then in a moment of disgust (i.e. clarity) with bureaucrats, just poured the rest of the bottle out right on the floor in front of the guard. The woman was stunned at Christy’s audacity. Not in all the fifteen years that I’ve known her have I ever been prouder of my girl. She was 100% right to do that. I don’t give a toss what anyone else thinks—they weren’t there, I was.

[A side note: Islamic terrorists have really made this world a worse place to live. From the shoes to the liquids to the metal detectors and screenings, flying has become a rotten experience, and it’s because of them. I have no patience for Muslims who spend oodles of time whining about being profiled and no time helping us stop their co-religionists. Political correctness and sensitivity can take a hike, they’re just a bunch of bullies.]

For the long flights to and from Beijing we had a Boeing 777. Big plane, holding about 250 people, but didn’t have the two levels that a 747 has. The night before, I’d checked our seating assignments, studied them via seatguru.com, and was able to make a change, putting us in the first row of Economy Plus. That turned out to be a brilliant decision (hey, when I hit a home run, why should I bore you with false modesty), because we ended up having about three feet of leg room. It was enough for the flight attendants to give us a bassinet for Beebee to sleep in. We didn’t even know they had bassinets on airplanes. This thing, though, was basically a gym bag that sat right on the floor. Initially we were reluctant to put her in it—me thinking it would be uncomfortable, Christy not liking the similarity to the box in which Beebee was originally discovered—but after a couple hours on the plane, Beebee had dozed off in Christy’s arms. So we decided to give the “bassinet” a shot, putting one of those dinky airplane pillows under her head and covering her with her fluffy pink blanket. Wouldn’t you know, she was out cold until about 90 minutes before landing in Chicago. A couple of times she shifted into an awkward position, so we had to adjust her but she didn’t wake up. One annoying thing was that whenever the seatbelt lights went on, the flight attendants were bugging us to hold her in our laps. Having had enough of dimwitted people bossing us around, we just ignored them. Although there was a lot of turbulence on this flight, it was all minor and we didn’t want to risk waking Beebee up and triggering a meltdown.

I have a brutal time sleeping on a plane. I just can’t do it. The only time when I can maybe catch a couple z’s is if I’m in the window seat and can lean my head against the curved wall. But in a plane that’s 10 wide, there’s not a great chance of landing a seat like that. Even with one of those inflatable horse collars, I can’t sleep sitting upright. Christy’s too small for me to rest on, and while the strapping young Chinese man to my left had a comfortable-looking shoulder, it just wasn’t going to happen. Christy dozed a little, but even she was hard-pressed. A lot of it was because Beebee was right at our feet, and we were trying to be careful not to step on her or kick her. She would also frequently twitch, flail her arms, and make a lot of grunts and squeaks while sleeping, just enough to make us think she was waking up.

We kept ourselves occupied on the plane, though. There were multiple channels offering mostly watchable inflight movies—Monsters, Inc. and Invictus were my choices—plus that neat real-time map showing our progress. On this return trip we didn’t go over the North Pole, but instead flew over Kamchatka and the Bering Strait into Alaska and the Northwest Territories. So we were over water only a brief stretch of the 13-hour flight. And we both had books to read. In all it was a relatively comfortable flight, insomnia nothwithstanding.

When we landed in Chicago it was 4 pm central time, equivalent to 5 am China time. By that time both of us had been awake for about 24 hours straight. That kind of sleep deprivation, combined with such a long flight, made us pretty wobbly coming off the plane. What awaited us in Chicago was an immigration line that was over one thousand people deep. That’s right, one thousand people. I am not exaggerating—I counted the people in one section, then multiplied it by the number of times the line folded over on itself via those ubiquitous tensa-barriers. It was inhuman standing there after that long flight, swaying with exhaustion, fighting the urge to pass out, suffocating in the body heat and BO of one thousand other people, shuffling forward several feet every few minutes. Right next to our horde was a shorter, faster-moving line for U.S. citizens, but we’d been specifically told by that consulate agent in Guangzhou, as swell as Allison, that we had to go in the immigrants’ line because Beebee was not technically a citizen yet.

So there we stood, enduring that torture for over an hour, when a U.S. official saw all of us in line with our kids, figured out what we were there for, and told us to 1.) Get the heck out of that insanity and into the U.S. line; 2.) If we ever adopted again, to go straight to the U.S. line. That’s the problem with bureaucracies—they get so immense, each uniform you talk to says something different. For all I know, someone doing this again (not us, that’s for sure) could take the man’s advice, only to encounter a different officer who sends them to the back of the immigrant line. So the guy at the desk looked at all our passports, etc., stamped ours, and sent us to a separate desk for Beebee’s processing. This next guy was himself an Indian immigrant, very nice fellow. We handed him Beebee’s paperwork from the Guangzhou consulate, he stamped Beebee’s passport, and just like that, she was a U.S. citizen. Were we not so numb with exhaustion, we probably would have felt something like a sense of accomplishment.

Then it was on to pick up our checked luggage, for which we had to search in a giant pile along with everyone else’s from that Beijing flight. From there we went to the customs line to run all our baggage through a scanner checking for flagged items like veggies or whatever. Then we rechecked our larger bags and had to go to another terminal for our last leg into Lexington, which meant going through security one last time. All total, in all three airports, we showed our passports and boarding passes nearly a dozen times. We ate an overpriced meal at Johnny Rockets (only place I could find in our terminal that had actual seating) and sat at our gate for a couple hours, taking turns holding Beebee while the other slumped over some luggage and dozed. The last plane was a dinky puddle-jumper in which I couldn’t even stand upright, but the flight was less than an hour. The Bluegrass Airport, small even when busy, was desolate except for our flight coming in at 11 pm EST.

So that was our journey home. This has been a long post and I’m jet lagged as I write this, so I’ll defer the reunion details for tomorrow. Just one last thought: if flying is a hassle, and international flying is a hassle squared, international flying with an adoptive child is a hassle cubed. The two worst elements of modern life—airlines and bureaucracies—are synergized to utterly suck the life out of you. Can you imagine how phenomenally tough those early explorers like Magellan were?

My Last Post from China

In all likelihood this will be the last blog post in China, unless Beijing Airport's got free Wi-Fi.  I know that O'Hare does not, and I have no intention of paying $15 just for a couple hours of access in Chicago.    Today we were on our own, so we took the subway to Sun Yat Sen's Memorial Hall.  He was the original founder of the Kuomintang Party in China, the forerunner of Mao's Communist party.  The building itself was quite impressive, though there wasn't much to see on the inside.  For one thing it was absolutely stifling in there, without air conditioning, fans, or open windows.  For another, though there were plenty of descriptive murals and photos, including English translations, they were extremely superficial in nature.  It was basically just a laundry list of dates, letters, and events with no explanation of their causes or significance.  Of course, the Hall portrayed Sun as 100% virtuous, and the KMT party as completely noble and without flaw.  For us Westerners the Memorial Hall was truly educational, but probably not in the way that they intended.   Behind the Hall was an expansive municipal park.  It was on a large hill in the center of the city, which meant lots and lots of stairs.  Rather strenuous carrying Beebee in her stroller, considering the sweltering humidity and near-total lack of moving air.  But the vegetation was lush and there were plenty of things to see, including monuments, small ponds, and statues.  Plenty of Chinese were enjoying the park, doing tai-chi exercises and that nifty hackysack game with the shuttlecocks.  Most were elderly, and like elderly people everywhere the oppressive weather didn't dissuade them from wearing full-length slacks and even long-sleeved shirts.  Reminded me of Orlando.    Clare was fine all morning and, as usual, attracted a great deal of fawning at the park and Memorial Hall.   But early afternoon she was very difficult, refusing to eat or sleep.  Even after having a BM she was still cranky.  We don't think she's sick, because she was fine and cheerful as long as someone was walking around with her.  Then, in desperation, we plopped her on the bed and flipped on the TV.  She lay there content, watching telly out of the corner of her eye and playing with her rattle.  Next thing we knew, she was sacked out.  Gotta remember that whenever she gives us a hassle back home—for her, TV is soporific.  Just like her paternal grandfather.   Before I close out until we make it back home, I should mention a little bit about the families with us in Guangzhou, as they're not the same as those from Nanchang:   The other family from Lexington is a veteran of the adoption process, having done this once before in China.  This time they brought their 5 year-old adoptive girl back with them.  She's quite a character and a social butterfly, as all-American as any native child.  They also have another adoptive 2 year-old from the States, who's staying with family back in Kentucky.  Like us with Cedric, it tore their hearts out to leave him.  The parents are in their early 50s and quintessential Kentuckians.  The mother's due for a hip replacement soon after returning to the States, and clearly needs it.  The poor thing's been in a lot of pain, especially with all the walking and ubiquitous stairs around here.  Both she and her husband look utterly worn out.  Their new daughter is about 13 months old and is roughly the same size as Beebee.  The girl's clearly been malnourished, looking pale, wide-eyed, and having already lost all her baby fat.  They claim that she's doing fine, and certainly she does eat well, but every time I see them at a group function the baby ends up bawling and screaming.  I have yet to see her even crack a smile.  Right now she reminds me of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, but I'm looking forward to seeing them at some of the agency's reunions over the next few years.  They are clearly excellent parents and I bet the girl will thrive under their care.  Accompanying them is a 17-year old girl who's a very close friend of the family.  She's trained in ballet and carries herself like it, very serene and elegant throughout all this insanity.  She's clearly been a tremendous help to them, especially as Mom's ailments have reduced her capacity to care for both kids.   Another large contingent is from Utah, also veterans and having brought their 5 year-old (give or take a couple years) adoptive Chinese girl with them.  Their daughter is absolutely adorable, very cute and shy.  One set of grandparents from Hawaii met up with them in China, so it's been a nice vacation for them.  Their new daughter was special needs, having had a heart condition necessitating surgery here in China.  The girl seems to be doing great, though, with good color and robust lungs.  It's possible that she'll need additional surgery in the States, but even if she does, it'll be minor additional touching-up.  They've been superficially pleasant and amicable, though a tad insular.  But for them this is more of an extended family event, so I guess they can't be blamed for wanting to keep it that way.  They're a great-looking family; the girl will do well.    A trauma surgeon and oral surgeon couple from southwest Pennsylvania adopted a 6 year-old girl.  She was originally special needs because she didn't have any hair for some reason.  Whatever the cause, it's resolved now—she has a full head and is breathtakingly gorgeous.  This girl will be stunning when she matures.  She landed into a great family, her parents are a delight and she has four siblings (all biological from the parents) waiting to dote on her when she gets home.  She'll need a lot of help; though she was charming during group activities, in private the poor dear's had tantrums and panic attacks wherein she deliberately bangs her head against a wall or desk, screaming out a Chinese word that means "nanny."  Unfortunately things like that happen with older kids, completely understandable but distressing nonetheless.  We could tell that the parents are warm people, though, and were fully prepared for this.  I'm not worried about that one.   One family I especially feel for is a Floridian couple in their mid-to-late forties who are now first-time parents of a 5 year-old boy.  Like the other older kids, he's having adjustment issues; in his case they're taking the form of willful defiance and violent outbursts.  This would be tough for even seasoned parents to handle, but for rookies it's brutal.  They don't seem to have a lot of self-confidence yet, but who would if dropped into a similar situation?  Yet even with them, there are early signs that the boy is coming around, including calling them by the Chinese words for mommy and daddy, hugging them, and preferentially playing with them to the exclusion of others.   Surprisingly there are several parents who are here by themselves, either because the other parent had to stay back home with their other kids or couldn't get time off from work.  In all cases these parents are adoption veterans and especially suited for the rigors of temporary single parenthood.  (I on the other hand would have cracked like an egg if I had to take care of Beebee by myself during this process.)  One is a mid-aged Baptist minister from Tennessee—if his accent didn't give him away, his wardrobe consisting solely of University of Tennessee paraphernalia sure as heck did.  His special needs girl had a cleft lip/palate that was sloppily repaired.  Her nostrils are uneven and her upper lip hasn't been "spliced" together properly.  He's a saint, very gentle, yet one tenacious customer—even after the arduous flights home tomorrow, he's scheduled to deliver the Sunday morning sermon at his church.  I hope he knows what he's doing, because he already looks beat up to me.   One of the de facto leaders of our group is a vivacious woman from Georgia who lives, breathes, and sleeps Chinese adoptions.  She's done this twice before, and originally wasn't going to do it a third time, but was sponsoring a Chinese boy within the auspices of a nonprofit agency.  A year ago she paid for his cleft palate repair while he was in an orphanage.  During that time she followed his progress online, and gradually came to see herself as his rightful mother.  Her husband (stayed back home), while initially resistant to the idea of adopting yet again, eventually relented.  So here she is, with a 3 year-old who glommed onto her after a very brief adjustment.  He's a hoot, already decked out in Disney gear and oversized sunglasses, looking very much like a typical American kid.  Even she's showing signs of wearing down, though, having developed a nasty sinus infection requiring antibiotics.   The last member of our group is another woman here on her own who adopted a girl with an unrepaired cleft palate.  She's a bit introverted, and I never made time to specifically talk to her, so that's pretty much all I know.   Based on the dynamics of the past couple of weeks, it's very unlikely that any of us families will develop lifelong relationships even though we've all shared some pretty intense and unforgettable experiences.  It's just the nature of being scattered all across the country and, aside from the adoptions, not really having a lot in common with each other.  That's not a bad thing, it's just the way things go.  We all have our lives to live.   Of our entire group, Beebee is apparently the only one without any obvious physical problems and/or psychological issues to overcome.  While we're obviously grateful for her health, we're highly impressed with the other families in our group and their skill in handling the challenges they've taken on.  These are truly extraordinary people, the crème-de-la-crème of parenthood.  Most admirable.  May God bless them and their charges with health, joy, peace, and love.   Pray for us, that the flights are on-time and event-free, that Clarisse's poor ears don't hurt her, that there's no problems with Beebee's immigration processing in Chicago, and that we make it back to our sweet little son Saturday night.

The Oath

First off, I was misinformed.  This wasn't an oath of citizenship.  It was just a verbal oath by us as parents that we haven't fudged or lied about anything on any of the paperwork.  Clarisse isn't a U.S. citizen until we arrive at our first port of entry into the States (in our case, O'Hare Airport in Chicago).  There, we take her last official packet of paperwork, sealed in a brown envelope, to the Immigration Office at the airport where they file it.  The moment Clare's passport is stamped by the officer, she's a U.S. citizen.  Everyone we've talked to says it's very anticlimactic, because by that time you're so exhausted no one has any energy to celebrate.   The Consulate General office was a half-hour bus ride from our hotel.  Very heavy traffic.  We weren't the only cohort of families there; a couple of other agencies had their clients at the consulate as well.  It really wasn't anything spectacular, just the 4th floor of an office building somewhere in downtown Guangzhou.  (At least, it seemed like downtown.  This city's so huge it's basically one enormous downtown.)  You could tell Americans worked there, because they really cranked up the AC unlike Chinese-dominated businesses.    We were all waiting in this large area with loose plastic seats.  You could tell there used to be a bunch of signs and pictures hanging on the white walls that have been removed, replaced by images and text (in Mandarin) describing Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Native Americans.  Nothing else about the U.S.A., its founding, prior waves of immigration, Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty, the wars, or any other interesting factoids.  Apparently to the new powers-that-be, the only groups that matter are blacks and Native Americans, and the only thing that's ever happened in our history that's worth showing off to foreigners is the civil rights movement.  That was disappointing, but not too surprising.   We'd been told that the entire process would take about 90 minutes, but in all it was only about a half hour.  Each family was called up to the window to show our passports and sign a document, then sit back down and wait until everyone else had done the same.  The women working the windows were Chinese nationals and called out the kids' original Chinese names over a muffled loudspeaker, so it was hard to tell when it was our time to go up.   There were about 30-35 families in the room.  Adoption veterans said the last time they did this a few years ago, there were twice as many.  Just another sign that adoptions from China are dying a slow death.  It was very touching to see so many people with kids ranging from Beebee's age to early teenagers.  Quite a few had obvious problems worse than cleft palate.  One 5 year-old boy looked like he had craniosynostosis, which is a problem wherein some of the cranial plates fuse together too soon.  I can't remember if I'd mentioned him or not, but I'm quite certain I saw him at the medical clinic last Saturday.  His head was too tall and waaay too long, protruding backward quite a ways.  It was quite noticeable, and I'm not certain whether surgery could fully correct it.  But God bless that American family for taking him in.  Like I'd said before, it's nice to see God finally cutting some of these kids a break.   Several families really decked themselves out in shirts, ties, and dresses, with red, white, and blue motifs.  Most of us, having tried to make efficiency the highest priority in packing, were clad in jeans, shorts, and T-shirts.   Once we were all done with the signatures, an ebullient American woman in her 30s-early 40s came out with a microphone and explained what was about to happen.  That's when our misapprehensions about the meaning of this oath were dispelled, and we found out that this wasn't really all that big a deal.  Additionally she gave us some other interesting information.  For example, having the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou rather than the capital city of Beijing is very unusual compared to the arrangement in other countries.  But in China the vast majority of adult immigrants into the U.S. originate from Guangdong Province, so to make things more convenient for them the immigration/naturalization services were located in Guangzhou, the capital city of the province.  Plus it helped reduce the already excessive business of the embassy in Beijing.   Even so, this consulate is the fourth busiest of any U.S. consulate in the world.  (Didn't get a list of the others, though I'd bet Canada and perhaps Mexico and England are up there.)    In 2009 the total number of Chinese-to-U.S. adoptions was about 3,000.  The peak year was in 2005, when over 7,000 were completed between the countries.  The nature of the adoptions has changed dramatically, too: last year, for the first time, the number of special needs adoptions was higher than standard ones, 57% to 43%.  This year the proportion of special needs is 61% so far, and probably will end up being even higher for the whole of 2010.  That's because China slowed the process so dramatically a few years ago, a lot of families decided to switch from normal to special needs to shave off a couple years' wait time.  Having had Cedric in 2008, we were willing, even glad, to wait a little longer.    But reading the writing on the wall, it's obvious that China is planning on eventually shutting down non-special needs adoptions altogether.  They claim it's because domestic adoptions are now taking in more unwanted babies.  Certainly more Chinese couples are opting to go that route, especially older professional couples, considering that fertility drugs are illegal here.  Some will even deliberately adopt a baby girl to ensure that their son has a wife someday.  But even taking all that into consideration, it's unlikely that there's really that significant a dearth of unwanted babies.  It's more likely that China, like South Korea, has decided that it's shameful to have their children being taken care of by foreigners.  Therefore, they are taking draconian steps to limit such adoptions.   After the little adoption trivia spiel, the woman asked us to all stand and raise our right hand.  [The following is for my parents and brother, the rest of you can just skip it: TAKE OFF YOUR HAT!  RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND!  NOW PUT YOUR LEFT HAND HERE!]  The oath was boring, just a wordy promise that we've been as honest as the day is long.  No problem here—the biggest fudge was Clare's birthdate, and we certainly can't prove that one way or the other.   So that's that.  Tomorrow afternoon we get Clare's visa, then Saturday morning we fly back to Beijing, then Chicago (where she's actually made a U.S. citizen), and then to Lexington.  We have nothing else to do tomorrow, so we're probably going to walk around a local park.  I also learned that Sun Yat-Sen's birthplace is nearby and readily accessible by subway, so I'm going to try to get a look before we head out.  After all, it's going to be years before we see China again, maybe never, so might as well strike while the iron's hot…

The World’s Biggest Wholesale Clothing Mall

OK, I'm not entirely sure that it really is.  But it sure felt that way.   Let me back up.  First off, the important news—our agent confirmed that Clare's paperwork with the U.S. Consulate has been officially approved.  We're scheduled to go to the consulate at 2:30 this afternoon.  So by the time most of you read this, she'll have been sworn in as a U.S. Citizen.  Of course, technically she's not taking the oath herself; it'll be us doing it for her.  All the other adoptive families will be doing the same for their kids in one big swearing-in.  As I said earlier, it'll be a moment to remember.  Unfortunately the memory will not be supplemented by photos, because the consulate does not allow cameras or camcorders.  They're very uptight in general, banning everything but our passports, one bottle for Clare, and one change of diapers.  That's all we're allowed to bring with us.       As usual we had time to kill today, so we took the subway to this massive wholesale clothing mall we'd heard other families talk about.  As I'd mentioned earlier, the subway is very clean, spacious, modern, and absolutely thronged with Chinese scurrying in every direction.  Most were accommodating of Clare in her stroller, probably more so than the subways in NYC would have been.  But the air underground is not aggressively circulated and filtered, making it feel suffocating and claustrophobic.  Still, the token machines were bilingual and the maps quite clear, so we had little difficulty in finding the correct stop.   The wholesale clothing mall was several stories, all underground and directly connected to the subway system.  Aboveground was a retail mecca the likes of which I've never seen. I half expected the Chinese equivalent of Austin Powers to start a street dance along with a cadre of trendy-looking shoppers.  The subway also connected to a gargantuan bus terminal whose electronic schedule was as long and sophisticated as any airport hub in the States.   I know I keep using phrases along the lines of "unlike anything I've ever seen," but that's what this wholesale clothing mall was.  It seemed to be arrayed in a giant cross, with the central areas having the escalators and coffee kiosks while each arm of the cross was crammed with clothing stores of every kind.  The majority of them were geared toward women in their teens through early forties, with a heavy emphasis on spaghetti-strap cotton tops featuring sequins and/or images of various Western icons like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga.  (Nice to see that the most important things about the U.S. are making it overseas.)  Apparently the hippie look is big in China these days, as peasant skirts and tie-dyed tops were also a common theme.  There were plenty of men's shops, too, mostly aimed at the metrosexual crowd who like their blue jeans painted on and their button-down shirts not buttoned at all.  One arm of a lower level was choking with children's stuff, everything from Disney paraphernalia to hypertrendy street clothes to froo-froo dresses to footwear of every kind you can imagine.   The prices were genuinely wholesale, not the "factory-outlet" sucker deal you get in the States.  It really opened my eyes as to how little clothing really costs, and the markup we see in the U.S.  A full woman's dress here cost $45, probably less than half what it would have back home.  Professional soccer jerseys including embroidered logos ran for $6-7 when they'd cost at least $50 in the U.S. or Europe.  My advice: don't ever, ever buy clothing in a U.S. store unless it's a serious discount, because they're probably still making a tidy profit even on sale.   Of course, I'm not entirely sure about whether some of this stuff might not be irregulars or brand-name knockoffs.  One clue is that they were really persnickety about cameras in the mall.  And I was politely reprimanded for photographing the logo of the coffee kiosk at the center of the complex.  Gee, does it remind you of anything in particular—say, a purveyor of similar goods based in the U.S., specifically out of Seattle?   Another problem with the mall is that there were no changing booths in the stores, so if you wanted to pick up a pair of jeans or a dress, you're pretty much either letting it all hang out in public or just guessing that you have the right size and fit.  So for Christy and me, who already have a hard time finding clothes that fit well, it wasn't worth the hassle.  Besides, there were so many stores it became overwhelming.   One member of our trio, however, could not get enough of the place: Beebee.  She was waaay overdue for her nap, and we were sure she'd just zonk out in her stroller.  But she had other ideas—she wasn't going to miss a thing.  Our little princess is already showing signs of being a shopaholic, enthusiastically taking it all in and showing not a whit of fatigue until we made it back to our hotel room.  It probably helped that all the clerks and shoppers were staring at her, making cute faces and noises.   Speaking of which, considering that this little one's grown up in an orphanage where it was several babies per nanny, she's gotten used to full continuous doting from two parents awfully quick.  The perfect picture of contentment and happiness gets cranky mighty fast if we lay her on the bed and do something else for even just two seconds.  We've been talking about how much of an adjustment it will be for Cedric when we get home, having a new baby sister that competes for attention from us.  But I'm starting to wonder whether Beebee's reaction might be even worse.

Rest of the pics from the previous post...

...these go along with the other 5 pics and the narrative about Guangzhou.

The Streets of Guangzhou

Today our agent filed our paperwork with the U.S. Consulate.  She'd told us to stick around the hotel from 9-11, in case there was a problem with something and she needed to get ahold of us.  But it's almost 12:30 now and Christy hasn't heard anything, so we're assuming that no news is good news and the consulate has rubber-stamped Clare's application for citizenship.  Tomorrow afternoon we'll be swearing her in as a U.S. citizen.  That will be a moment to remember.   Since only one of us had to stay in our hotel room, and Christy's been the main driver of all the paperwork and could handle any problems better than me, I took advantage of my uselessness to walk around a few blocks of this city by myself.  Ended up getting caught in the rain, but I was sweating so much by that time I didn't notice the difference.   The larger thoroughfares are really, really kinetic, far too dangerous for pedestrians.  Especially since, unlike in the States, cars have the right-of-way and don't stop for those on foot.  Good thing there's an extensive subway system or there'd be no way to get to the opposite city block without playing a lethal game of Frogger.   This is one fascinating city.  You can be walking on a major city block with opulent hotels, Lamborghini dealerships, state-of-the-art telecommunications and technology corporate centers, all seasoned with acrid auto exhaust, yet one quick turn down a side alley and you're immediately sandwiched between old cramped apartment buildings, dingy street shops, chewed up pavement overgrown with slippery moss, and the sharp tang of sweat mixed with urine and authentic Cantonese cooking.  It's tempting to call such organic neighborhoods the "real" China , but in truth the "real" China is all of it, the old and the new, rolled together into one immense bundle of contradictions.  No wonder the West has a hard time figuring out what to think of China .  They probably don't quite know what to think of themselves.   The street shops are something else.  Especially in the tight alleyways where they probably figure most round-eyes don't want to walk—in such spots the natives let it all hang out.  Such shops mostly consist of tiny hole-in-the-wall crevices where everything from Jack Daniels to water faucets to bicycle wheels is sold.  They don't even have walk-through doors; it's all right there.  No idea how they manage to pack everything up for the night.    You can get some terrific deals at these stores.  One toy shop had a ton of stuff, everything from Transformers to Thomas the train.  So naturally I picked up several Thomas toys for our little Thomas Fan Club President, Cedric.  It ended up being only a fraction of what it would have cost in the States.  Even in toy shops, haggling over price is apparently accepted, because we went back and forth a few times before settling on an even better deal than what the stickers showed.  Then I happened to notice some really authentic-looking toy assault rifles and pistols being sold by the same shop.  I mean REALLY authentic, so much so that I'm not 100% sure they weren't real.  I'm assuming they were fake only because China forbids the selling and owning of guns by private citizens.  Although I have heard of illegal gun shops around here, I can't believe they would be so brazen as to showcase the stuff like that.    Lots of restaurants, mostly not meant for Western alimentary canals.  From some the aroma was awfully tempting, but we'd been warned not to eat at such non-approved venues because we'd likely get sick.  Others reeked of rotten seafood and feces—the marketing skills of some proprietors apparently needed a little work.  Very common sights both here and in Nanchang are restaurants that openly hawk their wares in the form of live animals.  No wonder aquariums aren't too common around here—just go out to eat and you'll see it all.  If it fits into a 50-gallon tank or a small cage, they'll cook it.  Snakes, eels, giant gastropods, ducks, bizarre crustaceans, sawfish—you name it.  The more disgusting, the better.  I didn't see any dogs or cats in cages, but come to think of it, I haven't seen too many of them anywhere in China.  Hmmm...    Medical services in China are quite different from more conventionally socialized countries.  Here it's pretty much just fee-for-service for everything.  They can get awfully draconian about it; for example, hospitals won't release a patient, even a child, until they're paid in full.  That's how quite a few kids end up adopted—their parents were forced to abandon them in hospitals because they couldn't afford the bills.  But on the bright side (if there is one), you can waltz into a clinic and get a PET or CT scan done anytime you want.  Wonder if they throw in a manicure for free if you get the PET/CT combo special.   In all, one remarkable town.  Never seen anything like it, and judging by the looks of the people in the alleyways as I was taking pictures and filming, the feeling is mutual.   (FYI, I couldn't post all the pictures via one email, so a separate posting has the remainder that go with this narrative.  Hope it comes out all right on the blog, because to reiterate I can't see the blog from here--it's banned by the PRC.)

Chen Academy and Guangzhou Gardens

Adopting in China involves a lot of time-killing while the bureaucratic gears creak along.  We got our paperwork going in Nanchang first thing in the morning last Monday, but we couldn't leave the city until last Friday because Clarisse's passport and official adoption certificate didn't arrive until then.  Medical exams were done ASAP in Guangzhou on Saturday, and our consulate paperwork was completed and assembled yesterday (Monday), yet we can't leave for home until Clarisse is sworn in as a U.S. Citizen on Thursday and she gets her visa on Friday.  An extra cushion day was built into the schedule in case the visa's delayed, which is why we don't leave until Saturday morning.  There have been cases where a child's visa didn't arrive in time and a family had to miss their original flight home, then rebook a day later with astronomical last-minute fares.   The main reason it's taking so long here in Guangzhou is because of the older kids in our group who were forced to have TB tests as part of that new insane U.S. policy.  Since those TB tests take 72 hours to complete, that tacks on additional "dead time."  (Also remember that these kids have already been vaccinated for TB, so they all come up positive anyway.)  And the consulate appointment with the swearing-in has to be done en masse—they won't let individual adoptive families do it even if some families' paperwork, like ours, is complete before others.  So in essence, those of us with younger children are being held up by the TB rules for the older kids in our group.  Only tomorrow morning can everyone's paperwork, which has been sitting around since yesterday, be filed with the consulate by our agent because the TB results will be in and recorded.  That's one good thing about our agency—they really do their best to keep things moving along, including having our Chinese agent take care of the actual consulate hassles so we're not sitting in offices all morning tomorrow.  But they can't force these governments to pick up the pace.  The Chinese government was slow with things last week, and now it's the U.S. government's turn to stick it to us.   Of course there's nothing any of us can do about it, so we just try to take it one day at a time and be glad that, in a few days, this 5-year process will be over.  There's a couple of other families with very young children waiting back in the States, and we're all missing them terribly.  I try not to think about Cedric too much these days, because when I do, I just get seriously depressed.  None of the people I've talked to in our group are planning on ever doing this again, in China or elsewhere.  It's been an ungodly, expensive hassle for us and for my wonderful parents, who are taking excellent care of Cedric back in Kentucky.   That's not to say that we regret doing it this one time.  Clare is an absolute doll, still turning heads everywhere we go.  She's bonding wonderfully with Christy and is now at the point where she doesn't want Christy out of her sight.  Every time she sees me, she flashes the cutest little cherub grin.  Starting yesterday, she's now refusing to let anyone besides Christy and me hold her.  We, like everyone else in our group, are just dying to get home and begin life as a complete family.   Today was the last day of organized touring.  I think everyone in the group is glad of that, although in fairness our adoption agency has done a good job overall of trying to keep everyone occupied as much as possible, just to help pass the time.  First we went to the Chen Academy, which used to be a private school that was established by the very wealthy Chen clan in old Guangzhou.  It's been restored and remade into a Chinese Folk Art museum, showcasing all sorts of impressive techniques such as block art, fan-making, calligraphy, and the like.  (Most of those exhibits either prohibited flash photography or would not be done justice with photos.)  Each of the rooms were arranged around the main central courtyard and opened directly into the yard, which contained a lot of trees and bonsai.  Despite the vegetation there was an odd smell around the academy, sort of like a pile of rotting garbage.  I think it might have been coming from something nearby.   One featured technique in the art museum involved full-sized pictures that were done via stitching rather than paints.  Only when the picture was studied up close could you see thousands of short, fine threads of varying colors, carefully woven together to produce an image that, from a few feet away, could easily be mistaken as a photograph.  Even the scenes featuring people looked like photos.  I've never seen anything like it.   Another room had bone and ivory carvings similar to what was on sale at the White Swan Hotel.  The level of precision and detail in crafting complicated scenes, right down to the leaves on miniature palm trees or the ropes and flags on a ship, was utterly mind-boggling.   The Chen building itself also had a lot of intricate stone and wood carvings in the doors, walls, and rooftops.  One could spend an entire day there just studying all of it, but the complete lack of moving air, plus the peculiar odor, cured us of that inclination.   Next we went to a large family-friendly city garden.  This thing was enormous and boasted of being the largest one in China.  Admission was required, but no one complained because there were cascading fountains, neat statues of cartoon characters, a windmill, Roman columns, a mini lake full of fish, and lots of lovely flowers, bushes, and trees.  Everything was obsessively manicured and maintained.  But here, too, the heat and humidity was oppressive, so we only stayed for an hour.    Then we all had lunch.  We're down in Cantonese territory, which is to be distinguished from the more politically prominent Mandarin in the north.  The languages are slightly different, as are the customs and cuisines.  A Mandarin meal involves one big plate with one item for a single serving, whereas Cantonese tradition has multiple medium-sized plates, each containing one kind of food, put on the table all at once.  From there each person takes a couple pieces of each dish and puts it on a small plate for individual use.  I think I prefer the Cantonese way, because you get more variety in a single meal.   Well, tomorrow morning our agent submits our papers to the U.S. consulate.  We have to stick around the hotel room just in case there's a problem with something, so we can be easily reached.  Our agent has checked everything over and gave us a thumbs-up, so here's hoping that nothing is amiss.