Tomorrow's Trip to Orphanage

We wanted to ask you all to pray for our day tomorrow. We will be leaving the hotel early in the morning and traveling 1 1/2 hours to Lily's orphanage. We pray that while there we will be able to find out as much as possible about the first 22 months of Lily's life. Please pray for Lily...that this visit will help give closure to her time there. That she would grasp and understand that the orphanage is no longer her home, and help her move forward in her bonding with us. Please pray that we would be able to get all our questions answered, especially the ones about her surgery.

After we leave the orphanage we will travel 2 1/2 hrs by car to the airport and then take a 2 hour flight home. We are so excited to see the other girls and be a family of 6 (!!) for the first time. It will be interesting to see how Lily does with the chaos we call home!! Thanks for your love and prayers for us!

First few days with Lily in Guangzhou

Here is a video of our first few days with her. You can see that she eats great and is playful. The first day she sat and played by herself for a little but now we can’t set her down to go to the bathroom. She WANTS us. We are glad because that means she is attaching to us and know that we are hear for her.

Walking around the hotel

Today we walked around the hotel some. One of the streets outside the hotel is a walking street and is full of people. We walked down “snack street” also and took some video for you. We didn’t see any scorpions here but have in the past. This morning I was talking with a guy from Oregon and he told me he has never seen this many people before. He logged on his computer and looked at pictures of all the snow covered trees around his house and then looked at the Oregon Traffice department webcams, he said it was incredible to see all the empty roads. but made him feel at home. I think of Black Friday (day after thanksgiving shopping) is like what a regular day of shopping in China is like.

Breakfast day 3

She loves to eat. When she takes a bit she smiles. (I’m thinking our other kids are going to say you never did a blog for us or put videos up, oh well they were not adopted)

I smile when I eat.

Blow me a kiss

We were playing with Lily and saying different chinese things with her. lots of kids know how to blow kisses. We asked her to blow us a kiss (给我飞吻）and she started to cry. I guess it was one of those things that you blow kisses to people when they are leaving and she thought we were leaving her.  So we won’t ask her to do that anymore.

Here are a few videos of us getting Lily.

Girls' Time with Gar Gar

Our big girls are having a wonderful time with Travis' mom, who they call Gar Gar. This morning after Gar Gar made Sydney her milk, Sydney took one sip and said it was "Yuck!" Sandy convinced her to take another sip...she tried one more and still declared that it was "Yucky!" Gar Gar them showed Sydney what she had added to her milk...instead of the soy milk powder she had added about 3 tablespoons of salt to Sydney's milk....I guess it was pretty "Yuck"!

Morning til Nap time

Today has been a fun day. She slept great between us in the bed (couldn’t get her in the crib without her waking up) she slept til 7:30am so there is hope that she will be a sleepy Todd girl like the rest. The Orphanage said 6am and that is too early for us. Only God is really up at that time.

It looks like Sydney will have a fellow finger sucker in the house for them to compare techniques. She sucks her thumb.

Lily and Sonya playing at the Civil Affairs office today.

Us in front of the sign at the Notary’s office thought the flag and Chinese was fun.

Us in front of the Civil Affairs sign in Guangzhou

The Details…

Yesterday I was tying to give you all the details, but my blog program kept crashing. So, instead I just gave you pictures. I thought I would fill you in on how things are going with Lily.

She really is a precious little thing! Yesterday (Gotcha Day ) went so smooth. Our guide Rebecca (the lady taking us around and helping with all the paperwork), got to our hotel about 20 minutes before we were expecting. When she knocked on our door Travis was still getting dressed. After she came in and checked that we had all the correct paperwork, off we went to the Civil Affairs Office to meet Lily. It only took us about 10-15 minutes to get there. On our way she told us that she had called Lily’s orphanage that morning to remind them as to what time to get to the Civil Affairs office.

When we walked in that office there were a few other families waiting in the big lobby area and we sat down with them while Rebecca went to check to see if Lily had arrived. We checked over some paperwork while she was away. When she came back, she said, “Let’s go!” I said, “”Hang on.. give me a second…We’ve got to get our cameras out!” She waited about, oh, 30 seconds and we stood up and I saw Lily through the crack in the curtain to the playroom. I was thrilled I was able to recognize her! I had always wondering if I would be able to pick her out from other children.

Seconds later, there she was walking out in her little blue jeans and pink shirt!! She looked at us and then started to turn back and I picked her up. She didn’t really cry, but we did! She just let us hold her and loved one of the last minute toys I threw in our bag before be left home. She is just a petite little doll! She looks just like her pictures.

She even let Travis hold her! It is not uncommon for little Chinese adopted girls to be frightened by their big hairy American daddies. There aren’t that many men in their orphanages and they are not used to men holding them. We were thankful that she was fine being held by Travis.

Then we spent some time in a small office talking with the person who brought her from the orphanage. It was so helpful to find out basic things about her…her schedule, what she likes to eat, what kind of formula she takes, how she likes to sleep, when she normally goes poop, etc, etc.

One of the things we are most curious about is that she has already had a heart surgery which we weren’t aware of. We knew she had a heart defect but had no idea that she had had an open heart surgery already. When we go to the orphanage to visit on Thursday we hope to get as much info about that as possible. We had been praying that her heart would be healed…not sure if this is the way God had planned to answer that prayer. One of our guides thinks it’s possible that the Civil Affairs granted them the funding to have her surgery done and they went ahead and did it. She said that if the CCAA gives you the money, you have to do it right away or you loose the funding. I asked if that meant her condition had worsened…she quickly said, “No!” She said in China if a child is in really poor condition doctors don’t want to do surgery on them, because they don’t expect that the surgery will help. (This has also been our experience when we were helping our friends, the Li’s, get surgery for their daughter.)

Our first night together went well. She slept good, but Travis and I didn't. She is a cuddly little thing and gets pretty weepy at times. That is a good thing because that means she is greiving. All that she has ever known is different. She is getting to know us, but doesn't know us from any other stranger on the street.

We are enjoying getting to know each other. We are doing a lot of holding and eating. Those are 2 things that help her feel safe and aid in her bonding with us.

Today her adoption was final...and she is ours forever!

Thanks again for sharing this amazingly wonderful journey with us!

(Sorry if this post is all over the place...it keeps crashing and I keep having to pick up in a different place.)

Our first breakfast together

Good Morning! We had a good night. Lily slept well but we didn't. We
were thankful she slept from 9pm until 7:30am (at the orphanage she
slept from 10pm til 6am)! She is a good eater and likes trying new
things. Today is the day our adoption is final and she is legally ours
forever. We better head to the room and get baths before our
appointment.