We are in China!!!

**let me start by saying that there are probably numerous typos in this post, but just being able to get this out there while in China was a miracle so please bear with me on this one! I will try to correct once back in the states :) **

August 29th (Friday)
We made it! We have been in China a full 24 hours now. We still won't get to meet Lily for a couple of days, but we have been having a lot of fun sightseeing here in Beijing. We spent the morning at the Great Wall. It was really incredible hard to describe! We also met three other families that are traveling with us and also adopting through our agency. We have connected very easily with them and they really make the traveling a lot of fun.

I have taken a ton of pictures and will post a few in this blog post. I am just hoping that this all works. The Internet and especially blogging and Facebook is quite tricky here in China!

September 5th (Friday) 
Okay - so I wrote that and then lost internet connection and never got back to my blog - ha! Well, here we are in China on day 9 of what will be a 15 day long stay in China so we are just over the half way mark. We are now in Guangzhou which is a southern province of China. It's like the Florida of China and is just as hot and humid. We will stay here for the next 6 days. I am thankful to be able to stay in one place for a few days. All the packing and unpacking and running everywhere with all the babies has been hard on our group at times.

So many amazing things that happened in the last 8 to 9 days I'd like to recap for you. Please bear with me when I try to remember all of the things that have happened:

We got up Friday morning and visit the Great Wall as I spoke about above. It was an amazing experience and I am so glad that we got to do it! On the same day we also visited the jade factory and got a tour and education on how jade is refined and made into various objects and jewelry. We then
did some shopping there which I loved! On Saturday, August 30 we visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden city and then we went to cloisonné factory and the silk factory for an education and some more shopping. On both days we had great family-style traditional Chinese dining with our group which was a ton of fun.

On Sunday, August 31 we got up early and headed for the airport. We flew to Nanjing..... This is the capital city of Jiangsu province which is where we would be meeting our children the next day.
After arriving in checking into our hotel our guide took us across the street to an authentic Chinese vegetable market.
It was crazy! Here we are and a very upper middle-class area ....beautiful hotel beautiful shopping mall, nice cars, etc..... across the street and in a back alley type setting is a vegetable market that has everything from veggies to live frogs, snakes, eels, chickens - you name it! We saw some crazy stuff and I am so glad we got to see that, but once is enough ;)
Later that evening sleep decided to shop in the mall that connected to our hotel and we had dinner in the mall at Papa John's. I don't care for Papa John's in the states but it was actually really good in
China and was like a taste of home.

On Monday it was Gotcha Day! Lily's orphanage is located in Xuzhou city which is also in this province and is why we had to fly to Nanjing to start with.  We were supposed to meet the kids at the adoption center, but there was a change of plans and the orphanage director decided to bring the children directly to us on Monday morning at our hotel. We were all so excited about that news. Not only did it mean that we didn't have to go to such a crowded and public place to meet the kids and
that we can stay in the comfort of our hotel but also that we would get them several hours earlier - yay!!

About an hour before the kids were supposed to arrive our small group began gathering in the lobby. We watched anxiously for the car to pull out that will be carrying our children. When the car did pull up it all seem to happen so quickly. I had barely realized that it was our babies being carried in before we were being handed "NaNa".  She cried pretty hard for the first five minutes after I got
her but she eventually calmed down nicely. She was very quite reserved and clearly sad for the rest of
the day, but we miraculously got some smiles and laughs just before bedtime that same day!
It was an emotional day full of ups and downs and mixed with a lot of questions for me and Derek. We knew Lily some medical struggles. We were fairly unprepared for exactly what that would look like. It's very difficult to see a child not be able to do very basic things that she should be doing at her age and not know exactly the cause. We were unsure at that point what she wasn't doing because of fear, because she didn't know how or because she was too weak to do so. Regardless we knew we would do whatever it takes to help her and just felt incredibly blessed to finally have her in our arms. We were definitely in love!

On Tuesday we all went down to the adoption center and completed all of our paperwork for the adoptions. It was a very exciting morning! At this point I was still the only one who could hold Lily, but she was now giving her dad and brother many many smiles and laughs with very little effort from them :)

We are learning more about Lily every day and she is amazing! I first have to say that she is filled with more joy than any child I have ever seen in my life. She laughs and smiles at everything and never complains about anything (other than being held by a stranger or left alone - both very understandable!). It is so encouraging to see her sweet spirit regardless of what she has been through in her short little life.

On Wednesday, September 3 we traveled by fast train to Xuzhou province to visit the babies finding
 spots and spend the night at the Gloria resort. The next morning we would be visiting their orphanage. The fast train was pretty neat. It was about an hour and a half ride from Nanjing to Xuzhou. Lily was so good on the train ride and really loved watching out the
 window at the scenery. Once we arrived in Xuzhou it was a crazy hectic drive to the Children's Hospital where Lily had been found just about a year earlier. Our guide was able to actually lead us inside the hospital and to the
exact stairwell well where Lily had been found.
The Children's Hospital was nothing like you would ever see in the United States. It was a very sad place. Lily's entire demeanor changed once we walked inside and when we went to the stairwell she definitely seemed to know where she was. It was very sad moment for us, but also seem to be therapeutic as she was ending one chapter of her life and starting the next with her family - US!!!
The next morning (Thursday, Sept. 4th) we went to visit her orphanage and get a tour. That was a very hard trip. We definitely wanted to see her nannies and to see were she had lived for the last year of her life but we also knew that this would possibly be very difficult for her to go back to. I had a lot of questions in my mind before going there. I was unsure if Lily would be excited to be back there and see her friends at nannies or if she would be sad and want to stay with us. Upon arriving at the orphanage they sent us to a reception room where they had set up snacks and waters for us where we were to sit and relax before tour. It was there that I got the answer to my question. Derek had been unable to hold Lily at all until that point without her crying. In that room she willingly went to him and let him hold her. I think she was telling us that she chose us. Just writing now makes me very emotional. Just the impact that that moment had was amazing.
We saw many things that day at the orphanage that I will never forget. I am just so happy that Lily was coming home with us and that that was another part of her life that was over and behind her.
Later that afternoon we headed to the train station again to ride back to Nanjing. Once back to our hotel we would get a quick rest to get up very early the next morning and catch a flight to Guangzhou for our medical appointments that needed to take place before the National "Mid-Fall Harvest"
holiday that starts Saturday, Sept. 6th.
Again even after the very stressful day Lily was an angel! She even showed us a more playful and excepting part of her as she began to play games with Tanner like hi5, clapping when he did
something silly and even waving to us :)

On Friday morning we all got up at about 5 AM and everybody dressed got our bags packed and got out the door to board our flight to Gaungzhou. As soon as we arrived we boarded a bus and drove straight to the medical center. Once there they drew blood for Lily's TB test.... We won't get the results for a few days so please pray for a negative result!
After the blood test she went to 3 other rooms for additional exams. One ENT doctor, a general doctor for her overall exam and a nurses station for vitals and height, weight and head circumference. She was crying, trembling and in a cold sweat throughout most of her examinations. It breaks our hearts to see her that way and I wish I knew what had happened to her to make her so afraid of nurses and doctors. She had had the same general reaction when we toured the hospital room inside her orphanage. :(

After leaving the medical center we traveled to our hotel, Victory Hotel, on Shaiman Island in Gaungzhou. It is a historic European designed hotel built in 1895. The building is beautiful and the island has many shops, parks and restaurants including the "famous" Lucy's in the adoption world which serves many western and American style dishes. After settling in and freshening up we decided to take a little walk around. We were starving and headed to Lucy's to eat. Derek and I ordered the steak, pork chop and lamb chop platter to share and it was amazing! Tanner had the sirloin steak. Lily had rice and chicken congee. We all shared onion rings, French fries and veggies. We left completely stuffed!

We also stopped in a Christian shop on the island that sells many crafts and adoption related items where all the proceeds are used to help support local orphans and orphanages. It was a great shop and I picked out many wonderful gifts for both my girls and other family members :)

The rest of this week we will spend our last few days here in China and they will be filled with sightseeing and visa appointments, etc. while we prepare our kids to leave their home country. I am so excited and ready to go home, but the real loss that will also mean for Liliana is not lost on me. Though she may not realize yet, she will be starting all over again in just a few short days.

Over the last five days we have seen so many things change with Lily. She will now stand on her own and sit and play with toys and crawl over to what she wants to play with. She still makes almost know sounds other than to cry or laugh. Sometimes though when she is falling asleep she will mumble and make noises. She could be saying something, but with our very limited Mandarin it's hard to know.
Regardless of what physical struggles she may be having due to her circumstances or possible health challenges right now we know that she is just going to keep getting stronger. She is smart, sweet and full of joy! We are so thankful for the amazing little person that she is and can't wait to see how she continues to grow and blossom right before all of our eyes. She truly is a miracle and we are so blessed to call her our daughter :)

I will try to update my blog as I can while I am here. It is easier for me to remember things as they happen but so hard to get the time and a decent internet connection to update!
I will make sure that once I am back in the states I do an updated travel packing and tips blog for other families that are checking out this blog and may be traveling to China soon to get their son or daughter.

Thank you all for continuing to follow our story and for the many prayers and words of encouragement.
Love,
Jessy (and family)