I don't have the words!

Although I'm up at 3:30 now, I can tell you all that I am floating. Nothing has hit me yet. I'm not sleepy, hungry, sore, anxious, any of it. She's here with us now and all is right with the world. Her wrinkled little nose and melodious giggle have got mom, dad and grandma mesmerized. Although I have written many things down in a journal, I feel now is such a precious time for me to be a part of and just be present. I fear blogging will take a backseat, and rightly so. I will desperately try to keep you updated with photos and short stories. I know all of you are probably just interested in the photos anyway. So, I will post several whenever I can.

Gotcha Day

The whole day was an absolute dream. We woke up at 2:30 AM or so which is kind of the tradition here since that first night in Beijing, that now feels like a different lifetime ago. My Mom was in the room next door taking a bath, I was journal writing and all of us wide awake. Luckily we all fell back asleep around 4 and slept til 7:00. Breakfast was wonderful, not just for the amazing western bacon, eggs and local fruit piled high everywhere, but for the fact that every 5 minutes or so another family arrived with their precious newly adopted, beautiful boy or girl. It was hard to focus on eating. After breakfast mom and I went to the steam room for 20 minutes or so to sweat out all we've been stewing in with the smog here. It was amazing!! We got out and almost immediately when I arrived back to the room it was time to leave for the bank. Andy and I were both relieved to exchange our giant wad of hundreds for a wad about 6 times thicker in local RMB and be one step closer to having it not be our responsibility very soon. The bank trip for the exchange of money took quite a lot longer than expected. We came back to the room to straighten up and shower. I packed up Effie's backpack, all the camera capable devices, snacks, diapers, etc. and it was time to go. The drive over was surreal. Almost instantly without my knowledge, we were in an elevator, I heard a few babies crying as the doors opened, and there it was, the scenery of nearly every clip of adoption porn I'd ever laid eyes on. The red sectional couches with black and white polka dot pillows. The little multicolored frog curtain dividing up the play room and the room. I knew right away where she was. Andy peered thru the curtain and motioned to me to have a look. There, right behind the curtain perched on a RED sofa was our little dolly. She looked right at us, smiled, gave a little wave as if on cue. I bawled. And then, I turned it off. I'm not sure how, but the rest of that perfect day is lost in the emotion of finding that which once was lost! She is with us now. God has blessed us and changed our lives.

We made it

So, we are here in Guangzhou and have made many new friends. This morning I heard that I may be able to post to Blogger with my Blogger App. So here goes nothing! If it works, I will start this evening with the story of our journey. Tomorrow is Gotcha Day! Almost exactly this time tomorrow we'll have Effie in our arms forever.

We're on our way!

Leaving KC in a few!

The After Shot

Big breath in and... out.

With everything there is to do

What do you think I've been stressing over in these last few days before we leave for China? Your first guess might be food. Yes, I'll admit food is usually the first, second or third thing on my mind at any given moment. In that same list though comes sunscreen, child safety locks, water safety, toddlers chewing and swallowing their food. Okay, you get the picture. Between writing up schedules, numerous notes and stickies posted all over the house, my mind rests on one thing this morning. I wish I could say it was faith and prayer. In fact, I should probably stop this post right now and get down on my knees to talk to God. But, I can't stop thinking about the shower in our master bath.

So in every place that I've ever lived I am notorious for NOT cleaning the shower that I use daily. Our guest showers and little boy's tub are immaculate (It gets cleaned weekly). But for some reason, while I can wipe down the walls and glass doors with cleaner, I can't bring myself to scrub our shower walls and floor. Embarrassing I know. I hope my Mother is not reading this post.

I think it all started when we lived in Colorado Springs. Andy was deployed for 15 months and I was either preparing to get pregnant or actively pregnant with Jack most of that time. I never cleaned the shower or tub for fear the chemicals in the tub and tile cleaner would be harmful to Jack. When we left Colorado Springs and Andy spent almost an entire day in the tub scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing at soap scum. And, the day we moved out of our house in Sioux Falls that job was mine. Again, it took nearly the whole day and half a can of Bon Ami to get the job done.

Well, we're not moving out of our place anytime soon, so what's the big deal? The big deal is Andy's parents, our good friends and my stepdad are all coming to our house to take care of Jack while we're gone for two weeks to China. We've offered up our bedroom and bathroom as a guest area for such an extended stay. And now you're just starting to understand why my filthy shower is weighing so heavily on my mind. Oh well, it's time to get back to cooking organizing, list making, list checking-off, packing, unpacking, weighing, breathing deeply, lists, lists, lists, notes, Notes, Notes. And don't forget… PRAYING while I scrub, scrub, scrub.

The clean, white part in the upper left corner and around the drain
are the small areas I scrubbed before my shower last night.  Whoa! A lot left to do.

Good Morning!

I am one who covets sleep. I am generally a great sleeper. When given the opportunity I typically fall asleep within less than 10 minutes of my head hitting the pillow. I try very hard to get 8 hours or more each night. Well, that all changed about 2 days ago. On Monday afternoon as we were making our way home from a visit with my sister, both Andy and I were checking our email intermittently... no, constantly. I had to scold him a few times when I caught him doing it while driving. By about noon we gave up on the email coming since China is 13 hours ahead of us. We figured if we hadn't gotten it by then, it wasn't coming that day.

We were wrong. Around 2:00 PM we got the email. We'll leave on the 26th of July. And then something immediately snapped in me. "This is really going to happen!"

I've been treating this trip like one of Andy's deployments. Because the first few were so amazingly hard, I have learned to practice denial. I've gotten pretty good at it. I typically just ignore the fact that an upcoming transition is coming. It is easier on my mind, my heart and my gut to be quite frank. But, this time I have doubt it will be working for me. 

Yesterday and this morning I woke up before 6:00 AM which is very out of the ordinary for me. I typically have to be dragged out of bed by my 3 year old at  7:30 (oops, I'm showing my laziness) Anyway, hoping to be productive today. There are many things to do and organize before we leave.  One thing that eases my mind a bit is the fact that all of our family and friends staying with Jack have graciously agreed to stay here at home with him so that he can be in the most familiar environment possible. That alone gives me a tiny chunk of peace in a whirlwind of chaos.

I will be attempting to update thru blogger while we are away, but I'm not sure how it will work. I also have spoken to my brother about posting for us, so regardless of the obstacles that may stand in our way, we'll get you pictures and stories about our sweet Effie, one way or another.

Here's to early rising from now until July 30th when that sweet little girl is in our arms forever!

Jack and his Cousin having a blast in the water...

... and exploring the neighborhood park.

We're going to China!

We'll know in 2-5 days when our Consulate appointment is scheduled and departure dates will be determined according to that appointment date. We could be leaving in 2 weeks!!! Oh yeah!

Great Things Come in Threes

We got a nice surprise (not really a surprise at all we've been tracking it since it left Great Wall on Friday) today! Our Visas came. Jack is convinced that he's coming to China with us so he assumed when I opened it up and pulled out THREE passports that one was naturally for him. :( Sorry Honey, one for Mommy, one for Daddy and one for Grandma Marci. Frowns. He's been planning ways to get to China with us and coming up with reason after reason why we need him there. It's pretty convincing. But, he's staying right here in the US of A. More frowns.:(