Tuesday, June 2, 2011
We have made great strides today!!!! First we had a humongous bowel movement (first one in four days) and we had three full bottles. She did not sleep or cry as much and even sat in Lissie’s lap for about 10 minutes. She was sitting up some, seemed alert and curious. She still is very reserve with me and I think that has allot to do with my size and sound. I also seem to have taken on the role of having to do the “harder or more invasive things.” Giving medicine, giving baths, cleaning out her nose and so on. She sees me coming and you can tell she is thinking “oh crap here comes that huge white guy again”. We chose just to stay close to home and let the dust settle some so our only outing as a family was dinner last night and she was content to hang out in the stroller and look around. Still not smiling much and will not take anything from you (except a bottle). She still hates to be picked up and goes rigid still. She has become more tolerant of being moved while sitting in the stroller.
We are going to continue hanging out on the floor with her and giving her things to stimulate interaction with us. We will smile allot and work on touching her as much as she will let us. Soothing and light tickling. Hopefully we can get her to smile some. We are both feeling allot more optimistic today and hope that she will stay on a positive path.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Heartbroken, frustrated and angry. I have never seen a child who was so uncared for, that they cannot stand ANY type of touch. We went to the doctors for the passport physical and then to the Chinese consulate to apply for her passport. She cried the entire trip and screamed any time she was touched by anyone. I just sat on the floor and cried with her. Talk about powerless. I just wanted to sooth her stress and fear, but how do you do that with a child you cannot touch? So we keep trudging on. She only ate twice and when she was not crying, she was sleeping. I would say she slept a total of 16 hours.
Why am I angry???? How can a person willfully neglect a child to this degree? I know it happens, I have seen it on TV, but it has never been so personal before.
On a lighter note, LISSIE’S BAG ARRIVED!!!!!! Holy cow! She has cloths and everything!!! Now she can use her own deodorant and I won’t feel like I am sleeping next to some guy!!! I tell you, when the driver dropped off the bag, I almost kissed him.
Did I talk about how hot and humid it is here? Oh my God!!! It is HOT! I went through three changes of cloths yesterday. Unfortunately, I did not keep enough fluids going in, that were going out. As a result, I passed out while sitting in front of the hotel last night. It was so weird. Sitting reading emails on my blackberry, next thing I know, I am looking at the trees above the sidewalk. It took a few moments to figure out what had happened and once I did I figured I better sit up at a minimum. Also did I mention that the Chinese don’t like to help 240 pound, passed out Americans? Well they don’t. Even the hotel doorman who just stood there and watched the whole episode. Finally a passerby helped me up and took me into the hotel lobby. So now I have this huge knot on my forehead (I think that is where I landed) and a massive headache. And no, to all you wise crackers, I was not drunk. But with the pounding head I have today, I should have been. LOL
For Thursday, we have decided NOT to go shopping with the rest of the group and just have a nice slow day hanging out in the room AND DRINKING LOTS OF WATER. Maybe Mary Hannah will adjust just a little more. Feel a little safer, a little more relaxed. We are also going to Skype with Mom and Max today. Very excited!!!! Have not seen or talked with him since we left.
Until tomorrow.
Lumpy
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
First let me say that Lissie has corrected me on the spelling of our new girl's name. It is spelled Mary Hannah. Don't I feel like a dumb ass!!!
We received Mary Hannah about 24 hours ago and this is what we have observed so far:
- She currently weighs 17.6 lbs. at one week shy of 19 months. She goes rigid and her arms go up above her head when she is held.
- She prefers to be left alone to explore on her own. She can crawl to some degree, but not the typical arm/leg motion. She is able to prop up on one arm and turn to look in the opposite direction. She even knows the perfect downward dog yoga position!
- We did notice that she keeps the top part of her fingers closed most of the time. So, not a full on grip but just from the second joint to the tip. Although she is able to stretch all of her fingers out when she is reaching for something.
- She rocks back & forth on her knees to self-soothe, which is common with babies from orphanages.
- Her skin looks really good in the diaper area. Some slight bruising on her back which she is sensitive to. She appears to have a fungus on the bottom of one of her feet but does not look too serious.
- When she was handed off, it was obvious that she had a temperature and a cold with cough. This could be stress though as she had just traveled eight hours by car. We gave her infant ibuprofen when we got back to our room & that seemed to help.
- No one has ever cleaned this child's mouth! Her breath is very rancid. She is still on a diet of formula mixed with rice cereal: 8oz. 4-5x a day. We will continue that while we are here, no need to stress her further. We are also giving her 1.5 ml of multi vitamin drops in her formula daily. She drank about 3 oz. last night around 7pm and we put her down at 8pm to sleep. Poor girl was worn out as she slept to about 8:30am.
- We are concerned about her hearing. It's hard to tell with the language barrier if she can hear us. She has absolutely no verbal skills. She makes very little baby noises but is very alert and inquisitive. Even her crying is weak and I did get her to smile a few times.
Today we went back to the civil affairs office and went through two separate interviews with officials and Lissie had her picture taken with Mary Hannah. Did I mention that she does NOT like to be held? She cried for 3 hours strait during this trip because we had to hold her most of the time. She finally passed out from exhaustion and I decided that she and I would pass on the shopping trip with the other families and head back to the hotel. This is going to be a challenge for a while because our natural instinct is to hold and comfort. But this stresses her out more. Her comfort comes from being put on the floor and left alone. From what we are being told, this is common with children from this particular orphanage due to a 20 to 1 caretaker ratio.
We have one more official meeting at the consulate for her passport and birth certificate. The rest of our time will be spent on daily excursions set up by the adoption agency and getting to know our daughter. Hopefully, by the time we get on the plane to come home, she will be OK with being held. If not, it is going to be a LONG flight for us and anyone around us!!!
Next project is to work on getting "Expedited VPN" so we can use skype and facebook. We have not seen or talked with Max since last Thursday.
Oh we STILL do not have Lissie's bag!!!!!!! Hopefully we will have it late this afternoon.
I'll write more tomorrow.
Matt
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Thanks to all who replied and even to those who replied with the usual smart ass comments. I am very happy to know that there are those who still care. Lissie's bag did NOT make it in last night, but we did receive a phone call this morning stating that they have the bag in Beijing and it will be put on a flight to Guang Zoe at 3pm today. We will see.
At 2pm today we will be leaving to get Mary-Hanna at the civil affairs office here in Guang Zoe. We did learn today that she is coming from an orphanage that is about an eight hour drive south from where we are now. So that means we will not be able to go and visit.
To answer a few questions..... Mary-Hanna is 18 months old and has been at the orphanage since she has been born. Do not have any info on the birth parents. We do know that she was a premature baby and is extremely small. Just to give you an idea, she weighed 14 pounds at 11 months. That is all we know at the moment.
We will be leaving China on June 10, so the remainder of our time here will be spent doing all the required paperwork, Dr. appointments and taking an oath in front of Chinese officials stating that we will take good care of our new baby.
we will be sending out some pictures later tonight or tomorrow. We will not be able to send anything on facebook as that is not allowed in China. We are looking into Skype and if we are able to use it, we will let you know. Just as an FYI we are 12 hours ahead of you.
Thanks to all for your prayers and good thoughts.
Matt
On Sat, May 28, 2011
Well we made it to Guang Zhou today at 1am your time. Two of the bags made it to Beijing at 3am this morning and we were able to get them before we left. Unfortunately Liz's bag is still missing. According to the airline the bag will arrive in Beijing around 5pm and then they will put it on a plane to Guang Zoe, arriving at 10:40pm tonight. Needless to say we are going shopping this afternoon.
On the brighter side, we will be getting Mary-Hanna around 3pm tomorrow!!!! So excited!!!
Yesterday we met 5 other families who are adopting. We all did the Beijing tour, seeing Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. I have to say though the most exciting part of the trip was the driving around in traffic. PEOPLE ARE INSANE HERE!!! I was amazed at the things that I saw. Take your worst driving experience (For me it was Atlanta) and multiply it by 1000. INSANE!!!!!
Until tomorrow
On Fri, May 27, 2011
Well we made it to Beijing. We missed our flight due to being delayed out of Akron. But they were able to get us on another flight which actually got us here earlier!!! Now if we just had our luggage!!! We will be wearing the same clothes tomorrow as we tour Beijing. Hopefully no one will notice the odor!!!!
More to come.
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