Kunming, Yunnan, China
June 22nd 2006 2:05 am
Sorry I haven’t written anything yet. It has been an extremely difficult week – physically, emotionally, and spiritually! But I am feeling much better now. I will tell you my sad story now, because there is a good ending! One week ago, last Wednesday, I was packing for China and making certain that I had all the documentation needed for the adoption. The finalized itinerary that I had received a few days before contained a word that I had not seen before in regards to Jim’s Power of Attorney (POA). It said “authenticated.” In every previous communication I had regarding the POA, I had been told to have it notarized, which we did on May 16th. Authentication is a big process (I thought it was a huge process but in the past several days my perspective has changed as to what is “huge.”) Most of the documents that we submitted to China in our dossier in May 2005 had to be authenticated. This means that the Secretary of State of Wisconsin certifies that the notary who notarized your document is a true notary. After your document is certified by the secretary of state, you must submit the document along with the state’s certificate to the Chinese Embassy in Chicago. The Chinese embassy will review it and issue a document of authenticity, staple all pages together, and put their stamp on it. You cannot remove these staples or the document becomes inauthentic. It usually takes the Sec of State about 1 -2 weeks to issue a certificate and the embassy takes about 1 week, plus the time to ship it to a courier in Chicago because the documents must be hand delivered and picked up at the embassy, nothing can come through the mail. I called my caseworker to confirm, and she made a few phone calls as she wasn’t certain of what needed to be done. I called Denise Hope, who is an adoptive parent of two Chinese girls who runs a courier business in Chicago. She is extremely professional and an expert on adoption documentation. Denise told me that there is no way that I would be able to adopt Josie on Sunday without an authenticated POA. She was at the embassy when I called her on her cell phone. They had just closed the window of the clerk. She knows them well, so knocked on the window and asked for a favor: If she brought them one document on Thursday, would they authenticate it in one day. They said that they would! So I rushed down to the WI Secretary of State’s office and asked them to please certify my document that same day so I could overnight it to Denise. I started crying in the office and Billie, the lady who does the certificates, right away said, “don’t cry, hon. Just go get a cup of coffe and come back and I will give you your certificate.” I’m crying now just thinking about it. The next day I drove down to Chicago first thing in the morning and waited for Denise to call me to let me know that she got the authentication finished. She met me in the parking lot of a golf shop on the west side of Chicago. I gave her a picture of Josie so she could see who she was helping.
That night Aileen got safely to Madison and we (I) spent the night packing and repacking. Our flight went smooth to Chicago and we were so pleased to get on the plane for our non-stop (which I was very pleased about) flight to Hong Kong. After we boarded the plane, nothing happened. Except it started to get very very hot in the cabin. An announcement was made after awhile that they realized it was hot in the cabin and asked everyone to please pull down the windowshades and it would cool off when we started to taxi to the runway. More time passed. Another announcement: there were delays and they would give us an update shortly. I don’t know how many times that happened. Finally they said that one of the pilots had a family emergency and they could not fly the plane without him. They were looking for another pilot and would let us know as soon as they knew something. After a while they said that they probably had another pilot and our flight would leave in about 2 hours, and asked us to deboard the plane. I was not worried: We were scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong at 4:50 pm on Saturday, and our flight to Kunming did not depart until 12:00 pm on Sunday. Well, it turns out that the pilot could not make it to O’Hare until 4:00 pm, and the crew was not allowed to stay more that 3.5 hours past scheduled flight time, which was 12:23. So because the crew had to be relieved at 3:53 and the pilot would not make it until 4:00 or later, the flight had to be cancelled. We would not be able to leave Chicago until the next day – So we would miss our flight to Kunming! Which also meant we would miss our appointment to pick up Josie. I was dumbfounded. I got on the phone with Jim who started looking for other flights from Chicago to Hong Kong that would arrive before noon on Sunday – it was only Friday afternoon so I thought we might find one. The only one to be found would take us through London and somewhere in Japan and still not arrive until 12:30 pm on Sunday. And it was $2,600 per person. We were stuck in Chicago. United Airlines gave us meal vouchers and a hotel voucher and said to come back at 6:00 the next morning, and our flight would leave around 8:00 am, to arrive in Hong Kong at 12:09 pm on Sunday.
I didn’t know what to do – If we missed our appointment to pick up Josie that would push every other appointment back in the process: you have to have your child with you for a certain number of hours before you can sign Chinese adoption papers. Then it takes a few days for them to issue finalized documents. Then you have to go to Guangzhou where the US Embassy is located to process American paperwork. We already had our appointment set at the US Embassy for June 26th. I started calling people at Lifelink, our adoption agency. I tried many times to call Echo Poon, our facilitator in Hong Kong who was going to be our guide along with Mary Wong, and who had issued our itinerary. I had heard that she is amazing and would take great care of us. But I couldn’t get my international phone card to work. I didn’t know if we should go to China – what if we got there and the whole thing needed to be rescheduled for another time. Finally I decided that since my luggage was being held and then would be going to Hong Kong the next day, that I would go unless I heard otherwise from Echo. We got to the hotel in Chicago and I kept trying to phone Hong kong with no luck. I went to the business center of the hotel and paid $10 to send an email to Echo. Later on I finally got ahold of her on the phone, when it was morning in Hong Kong. I think I had been too frazzled and was dialing wrong, although Aileen had tried it too. Echo said to come to Hong Kong and she would wait for us at the airport. She would arrange for us to get to Kunming to catch up with the group, although we would have to take several flight because there were no more available flights from Hong Kong to Kunming. She would travel with us.
During this time I was so frazzled and Aileen was so calm and faithful. I don’t know what I would have done without her. I couldn’t even complete my sentences or remember what I was doing. I couldn’t sleep with worry. Two huge things had gone wrong in the past two days that I NEVER would have expected. What else might go wrong, I thought. I was very angry with God and felt like he was torturing me. I felt like I had been tested enough with infertility and cystic fibrosis, why should this process be messed up too. Finally I remembered that I don’t know everything and that sometimes things work out differently that we expect. I read a lot of scriptures and finally got my hope back. I read that “perseverance develops character and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.” Even though I personally see no reason for me to have to persevere (tongue in cheek) I remembered that that’s the only thing to do. I’ve experienced before that hope does not disappoint us, and sometimes when things look the worst they turn out way better than you could have expected. So I “got better”, although I still didn’t sleep until Sunday afternoon when we found Echo at the airport in Hong Kong.
Echo is amazing – I can’t even describe her. I think she is about 4 feet 11 inches tall. She never stops moving and she insists on getting a luggage cart and pushes our luggage around for us. She maneuvers us around the Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Kunming airports, ignoring the beggars and people trying to get us into illegal taxies, asking us if we need to use the restroom, if we need any water, if we are getting some rest on the flights. When we arrived in Hong Kong, she said that she had arranged for us to take a shower after our long flight, and she checked us into a hotel room and told us to meet her in the lobby in one hour for our next flight. Can you believe it?
She asked me for my documents and in between flights she debriefed with me. The group was meeting their babies as we were flying, but she and Mary had arranged for me to meet Josie at the Adoption Registration Office on Monday morning, at the appointment where I was originally intended to finalize the adoption. Instead of the 20 hour waiting period, there would be a two hour waiting period and I would finalize the adoption before leaving the registration office on Monday morning. There was a fee for expediting the paperwork, but they had arranged for someone to do us a favor and make certain that our documents were ready at the same time as they rest of the group so we could keep the rest of our appointments in the next 2 weeks. Echo completed our Customs and Immigrations forms to travel from Hong Kong to China so Aileen and I didn’t have to do anything except follow her around.
When we arrived at the hotel in Kunming, it was midnight on Sunday night. We had left Madison at 8:00 Friday morning. My Panda Phone (cell phone) that I ordered was waiting for me in the hotel room. Mary met Aileen, Echo and I in the lobby and showed us to our hotel room. She briefed us on the next day’s plans and gave me a large package of formula, as she had asked the orphanage what type of formula they gave Josie and she went to Walmart and bought some so she could have the same type of formula that she was used to. (I will begin mixing it with American formula in a few days and slowly wean her to American formula.) I unpacked and got everything ready because the next day there would be a baby in the room and I wanted to be able to find everything easily. I called Jim on my Panda Phone and told him we made it to Kunming, and he would still become a daddy on Father’s Day because it would be 8:00 pm on Sunday when I got Josie at 9:00 am on Monday in Kunming.
As you can see from the previously posted pictures, the adoption process is and all it’s trappings is nothing compared to having this little baby in our lives. The other families came with us to the office for their final signing of the papers. I had gotten to know each of them from email before traveling, so they were happy to see that we made it Ok to Kunming. When we got to the office, they said, “Colleen, go first into the door because she will be there waiting and they will give her to you right away.” I was actually very calm and restful, not anxious at all. I felt like, - now is the time and it’s about time, and let’s get started. Aileen got her camera ready and went in the door first. We went up a small flight of stairs, turned right, and there was a room with a long table and a few chairs against the wall. There were a lot of people – adults and kids in the room. Sitting on the couch was a little Chinese girl, about 3, and a young woman. The little girl was playing with the baby that the woman was holding – Josie. The woman stood up and handed her to me. Josie was nervous but she did not cry. I finally got to hold my baby!
Mary had briefed me on the bus to the appointment that when I got the baby, I just needed to concern myself with her. When it was time they would tell me what to do next, but just worry about bonding with the baby at first. So I went to another room and sat down and held her out so I could look at her. I looked in her eyes and started talking to her. I smiled and cooed and made funny noises. She looked very interested. THEN she made the hugest most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!! As we played, she started to laugh. Aileen and I just kept laughing at her beauty and tears were running down our cheeks.
Aileen was amazing – she started taking pictures right away. Josie thought the flash was funny, and she kept turning to look. Aillen took 101 pictures that morning! At one point I was planning with Josie and a few times as I brought her close to my face Aileen would take a picture. When I brought her close to my face once and a flash didn’t go off, she was disappointed so Aileen kept taking pictures!
After awhile I had to start signing papers. Part of the time I was hold Josie and Mary would put a paper in front of me and give me a pen and I would sign wherever she told me. She would come and go with papers. We went into another room to get our official picture taken. There was another American woman at the office, who was adopting the 3-year old I had seen. She asked my name and I told her Colleen. She said I’m Juliette. We had been corresponding via email as she is traveling alone to adopt. I told her that I would be happy to meet with her in Kunming as she was very concerned about being alone – no travel partner and no one else in her travel group. I think she just has one Chinese guide. She started to cry when she saw me. We were the first Americans she’d seen in 5 days. She got sick on the flight over and has already lost seven pounds. She said that her daughter Leah was doing very well, but that she herself was very lonely. She had received Leah on Sunday and was back to the office to finalize the adoption. We exchanged contact information about our hotels and panda phones and promised to meet at Green Lake Park.
After awhile Mary asked Aileen to hold Josie as I had a series of papers to fill out that required concentration. That went fine, and we left the office. I put Josie in my kozy carrier (like a handmade snugli) and she promptly fell asleep against my chest. She slept for almost two hours as we walked around with the group and bought some clothes for her and had some lunch. Aileen and I marveled that someone would give us the little beautiful baby. Everything that I thought was so difficult was a drop in the bucket – I would do one hundred times more than everything we’ve done for this adoption if it meant I would have her. It was a beautiful spring like day and we sat in a small park and ate our lunch. Lots of people were staring at Josie, and many came up to get a closer look. I smiled at them all so they would know it’s OK. A couple of people asked if they could pose with us and had someone take their pictures. The last couple of days have been much the same – a lot of staring, mostly smiles, and only a few grouchy looks with harsh sounding Chinese words that I just say “No” to and keep on walking.
I’m going back to bed – it’s 3:15 am here. I finally went to bed on time around 10:00 pm but then woke up and couldn’t sleep. Since we’ve gotten Josie I’ve been sick – diarrhea, throwing up. I’ve taken cipro and tried to get more rest. Aileen has taken care of us, and babysat yesterday so I could nap. Then she went to Walmart to get baby food and wipes and bottled water, a stroller, and some other things. She said the Walmart was quite an experience. We visited the minority villages yesterday (like an outdoor museum – beautiful but I wasn’t feeling well.) and today we visited the orphanage and each of the sites that the babies in our group were abandoned at. It was a very emotional day and a lot of us had a deep long cry on the bus on the way back to the hotel.
I am feeling much much better all around. I got a bit better at keeping Josie’s schedule today and I’m hopeful that tomorrow will be right on target. She is starting to bond with me, I think. She looks for my finger so she can hold it when she’s taking her bottle and when she’s falling asleep. She is a very brave girl. She has a respiratory infection that I’m giving her meds for 3 times/day. She hates that! She also has 4 teeth and is cutting a new one. My mom is advising us of games to play to help strengthen her neck, back and arm muscles as she can’t sit up or roll over or hold up her head while laying on her stomach. She weighed 7.5 kilos at the doctor’s office at the orphanage today. I have no idea how many pounds that is. The first day we thought that she was too big for her 6-9 month clothes but we were wrong. They are fitting her perfectly.
