We have BOTH kids!

I'm sorry for being out of touch.  First something happened with the computer that prevented us from accessing the internet.  Initially we thought it was a problem with the hotel internet access, so that kept Ernie from figuring out the problem sooner, but once we moved on to Micaelyn's city and still couldn't access the internet we knew it wasn't just the hotel.  By the time Ernie figured it out we moved on to a new hotel in a new city that had no internet service.  Once we got back to Micaelyn's city and got her I was tied down with her.  Now we are in Guangzhou and shouldn't have any more internet problems.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to do some posts on each of our previous days here in China, but for now I'll just tell you about our new kids!

First we got Micaelyn.  There really aren't words to describe what it was like to finally see my little girl I had waited so long for.  I have known she was my daughter for more than a year, for many months before that I had constantly looked at her picture on the photolistings and prayed for her to find a family.  For more than a decade we had planned to adopt from China once I was old enough to meet the age requirement.  For more than 2 decades I had dreamed of adopting a little girl from China.  Needless to say, finally holding Micaelyn was a very long awaited dream come true.

When we arrived at the adoption center on Sunday afternoon as soon as we pulled up I saw her foster grandmother (who we had thought was the foster mom because she was always the one with Micaelyn in the pictures we had).  I started eagerly searching the street for Micaelyn, and then I saw her walking up with a young man (who we soon learned was the foster dad).  At that point the endless months of waiting caught up with me and the tears started flowing.  I did the best I could to control myself, but once I had my precious baby girl in my arms it was nearly impossible not to cry those tears of joy.

I imagine we were supposed to meet Micaelyn in the office rather than in the street, so right away we were led up there.  I could tell she was scared but she did let us hold her.  We spent a few minutes talking to the foster family (foster dad and his mom and dad) and then all of a sudden they were gone.  Within a minute of their leaving Micaelyn noticed their absence and was distraught.  She was screaming, kicking, flailing, etc., and that was the way it was getting her to the hotel.  She wouldn't let go of the bag of yogurt her foster dad had given her, wouldn't let us touch it.  Eventually we took her for a walk to try to calm her down.  It worked, but I think that was only because she thought we were taking her home.  She had even gathered her things together along with a picture of her foster dad holding her to carry with her.  Once we got back to the hotel she let loose again.  She spent endless hours screaming at the top of her lungs, even all through the night.  It was easy to figure out the Chinese words for "go home" because she kept repeating them over and over.  She was especially close to her foster dad.  She would not let go of his picture even for one second to change her clothes, and she would hold it right up to her face and scream "Baba!" as loud as she possibly could.  Even Caleb couldn't sleep through her screaming, and I was honestly afraid the hotel would say something to us due to her incessant screaming.

So went Sunday evening, Monday, and Tuesday.  On the bright side, despite her screaming to go back to her foster family she had no problems attaching to me.  This was truly an answer to prayer as I have heard so many stories of the child rejecting the new mom.  Ever since we got her she has wanted me to hold her.  The only time she tries to reject me is when we are around other Chinese people.  The airplane ride Wednesday morning was especially painful.  She kept crying to go home, so the people behind us started talking to her.  Immediately she wanted to go to them instead of staying with me.  Then the airplane stewardess offered to take her to the back of the plane (thankfully we were in the next-to-last row so that wasn't far away).  Of course, then she wanted absolutely nothing to do with me anymore which made getting off the plane quite difficult. 

Later that day we went to go meet Joshua, and just as with Micaelyn we met him in the wrong place as we happened to show up at the same time as him.  As we were walking into the building I recognized him waiting by the elevator - he was wearing the same clothes he seems to always wear.  It was a little bit awkward, and once we got off the elevator he was taken away and we were apologized to for meeting him that way and soon we were allowed to meet him properly.  It was obvious right away he is a very quite kid, particularly around strangers.  The language barrier didn't help.  Due to the fact the adoption has to be completed and registered before his 14th birthday this weekend we were quickly moved into a room to sign the adoption paperwork (we didn't do the normal 24 hour wait).

Once we came back to the hotel we went out to the walking street by our hotel and found a Pizza Hut to eat at (which made Caleb and Malachi very happy).  It was really nice that they also had some Chinese dishes, so Joshua got some soup to go with his pizza and we got fried rice for Micaelyn (she didn't eat any pizza).  Joshua has been really good to all his little siblings, and his presence seems to be helping Micaelyn since he can talk to her in Mandarin Chinese (Cantonese is actually his first language, Mandarin his second).  She hasn't shown such a preference to him as to reject me, but she is happy to be near him.  She likes holding his hand, sitting next to him, etc.  He has been really sweet to her, but at the same time he hasn't tried to actually take care of her so she gets the perfect combination of having him nearby for comfort and language familiarity with me still being her caregiver.  She finally slept pretty well last night and hasn't spent too much time crying today.  She still says she wants to go home but she hasn't been screaming at the top of her lungs so that is a big improvement.  We have yet to see her smile or have her laugh with us, but right now I am just thankful that she has attached to me so well.

This morning we did the notary, and later today we go get Joshua's passport.  Ernie and I are both sick, me especially, which made the airplane ride difficult.  I still haven't gotten my ears to clear out completely, and to make things worse I have the pink eye.  For the past week my eyes have been horribly red, but I was just contributing it to the terrible smog, allergies, and lack of sleep, especially considering it got worse after we got Micaelyn and I was getting almost no sleep.  Yesterday I finally got a nap, and when I woke up my eyes were covered in yellow mucus.  Now I am so glad I asked for the prescription for eye drops for pink eye which I had really doubted I would need!

I will have to ask Ernie about posting pictures.  Since I am using the VPN he said I wouldn't be able to post them straight from the computer like I normally do.  Right now Joshua is wanting to message his friends on QQ (sort of like Facebook), so I'm going to give him the computer.  Hopefully by this evening I'll get pictures posted.