and again!

She can eat them again...

Baby Angeline seems to like bread a lot

Angeline has a very active personality

Hi, everyone! It’s Sunday here in Guangzhou.

Thanks everyone for letting me know that you see the blog fine!
We arrived at the airport, this afternoon, to a warm welcome from William’s relatives. Many of his aunts, uncles and cousins, whom he hasn’t seen in a few years, live in Guangzhou. Everyone was so excited to meet our new daughter, Angeline. (We have been calling her San San, because we think she would be able to take to her Chinese name easier.) We’ll start calling her Angeline, when we return back home.
We were a little apprehensive about how San San would handle her first plane flight. We had heard so much about how fussy babies get during take-off and touchdown that we made sure we were well-prepared. San San was not going to get the better of us. Not this day! No frazzled, worn-out parents to meet the relatives! So, daddy prepared the bottles, one with water and one with juice, and took out the toys. When the plane started to line up, along the runway, William gave her one bottle of juice. Half- way through the bottle, the announcer announces that it would be another 10 minutes before take off. We thought, you’ve got to be joking! We had a dilemma, should we take the bottle away from San San, before she finished, and risk upsetting her, or just forget our well-made plan. Anyways, we decided to let her keep drinking and prayed that the plane would take-off soon. Well, San San finished the juice before the plane took-off… she ended up sucking her thumb and fell fast asleep. WHAT A NICE BABY! Why didn’t we think of that?!
Throughout the rest of the plane flight, she did so well.

First day in Guangzhou was quite an interesting transition for San San. After we checked -in to the White Swan Hotel, we had Dim Sum with William’s relatives. San San got to meet many of her new relatives very quickly and up-close, too. She was doted on by everyone. We noticed San San attached to some relatives more than others. She particularly likes to be held by those that wore glasses, especially, skinny men wearing glasses. Huh, we wonder why? She goes to women who wear glasses, too, until she realizes that they are not mommy.
At night, we had a big dinner celebration, in a noisy, crowded Guangzhou restaurant. The food was great!!!

Day 7 Today is Shopping Day.

We went to Nanjing Road (the most popular shopping street in Shanghai) for a walk and bought more baby clothes. They are so pretty and relatively inexpensive, because they are “Made In China”. We bought onesies for $2 a piece. Shopping malls here in Shanghai are humongous. It would probably require someone a whole day to walk through it.
Tomorrow is our last day in Shanghai, we will attempt to do some shopping for mommy’s clothes. We will be leaving to Guangzhou on Sunday morning. It will be San San’s first flying experience on a plane. We are really looking forward to it. It’ll give us an idea of how she’ll handle her plane flight home, to the US.

Day 6 Becoming more relaxed with our daughter (San San)

Today is Thursday, July 26, and San San’s cough and runny nose is getting better. We think the infant cough medicine is starting to work. Her phlegm seems much easier to cough up. Today is a fairly relaxing day. We’ve finished all the necessary paperwork today. Our guide was nice enough to bring San San’s Chinese passport to us, rather than have us go to the gov’t office to pick it up, which is the normal routine. Tom and Jim have made the adoption process for us amazingly smooth, in Shanghai. We are so grateful! It’s still very hot outside, about 38 degree Celcius, so we didn’t go out in the daytime. We tried having the baby play with the new toys that we bought her, but she still seems not to want to play by herself. Being next to her is not enough, she insists on being held while she plays.
This evening, we returned to the mall and had Shanghai’s popular Shanghai noodles. Susan finally gets a little break. With a sigh of relief, San San fell asleep without too much fuss and is right now, sleeping between the pillows, on our bed. Once asleep, she sleeps quite well through the night.

A happy baby that always smiling and laughing!

The EXCELLENT CARETAKER feeding our lovely daughter right before the hand over!

Day 4 and Day 5

The first night with the baby wasn't too bad, at least not for the daddy.
Totally out of mommy's suprise, San San doesn't have any attachment issues at all. She actually was attached with mommy so well she slept through the night on mommy's tummy... for the "WHOLE" night. What a Lovely baby!

On day 4, baby wake up early in the morning, had formula and bun, then we head over to the Adoption and Marriage Service Center to sign the official paper work. ANGELINE IS OFFICIALLY OUR DAUGHTER FROM NOW AND FOREVER! We love you Angeling!!!
It was so hot and humid while we were running around with our guides, baby Angeline handle it really well and didn't make any noise at all even though her forehead was dripping sweat...poor baby! But I guess she did get used to the hot weather.
We rushed to our apartment right after all the paper works were done. We rested for the afternoon. Then we went out to the shopping mall for dinner at night when it's not as hot as the day time. After dinner, we did a little shopping for baby's clothes. And guess what, San San was so happy to see so many new things, and she starts saying "baaa baaaa...". Daddy was melted and can't describe the unbelivable feeling as a father.
At night, baby Angeline still has to sleep on mommy's tummy, and still is very afraid of losing mommy :(

On day 5, we pretty much stayed at the apartment for the day. We waked up in the morning and trying to have a routine for the baby. When Angeline saw daddy in the morning, she always cry until we play mommy, daddy, and San San game because she still doesn't get used to seeing man. We will tell baby who mommy, daddy and San San is while mommy is touching our faces... and Angeline will watch us closely.

Afterward, of course we brush her teeth then we feed her milk and bun. We played with her and listened to some Chinese children's song. She was then hold by daddy for the FIRST time and she felt asleep on daddy's arm. In the afternoon, mommy desparately wanted her break after holding Angeling for 3 straight days, Angeline was hold by daddy and cried the whole time. Angeline is really testing daddy's patient.

San San is quite cranky today. She cries the most today, because she was having runny nose and coughing quite a bit due to the cold that she caught since the first day we saw her and is getting a littler worst. Luckily, we did brought some robitussin...and it seems to help a bit for her coughing. As a routine now, we went out at night time to the mall for dinner. We will be head on to Guangzhou in 3 days. and hopefully, we will get the Chinese passport for San San tomorrow or Friday.

Day 3 GOTCHA DAY!!!

Hi Everyone! I know you’ve all been waiting for this day to come. I have to say it’s been incredible, unbelievable and definitely, hard to describe, especially, all the emotions we felt throughout today.
Right now, it is 1 AM Tuesday morning. I was finally able to slip away to post on this blog, while Angeline is sleeping.
The day started out early around 8am, when we met our two guides Tom and Jim. We took a taxi to the governmental office to take care of the adoption paperwork first, before heading to get Angeline, at the orphanage. It was uneventful, except for the fact that we were the only couple there at the office. The guides expected that there would be other groups there, too. Suffice it to say, the paperwork took probably a total of 10 mins. and we were off to the orphanage, 30 mins. away.
The orphanage, which is called Shanghai Children’s Home, at first glance from the outside, looks like a beautifully-gated theme park. It is a huge facility, newly-built in 2001, and is considered the best-of-the-best of orphanages, in all of China. China is very proud of this facility and has made this orphanage into a showcase. It has trained and certified caretakers, medical and dental in-house care, programs for music and dance classes, facilities for specialists to perform regular cognitive and developmental tests, classes to teach the children basic education and much, much more.
Well, enough about the orphanage. I think I went on a tangent, didn’t I? We were definitely very impressed!
Upon arriving at the orphanage, and after viewing the informational video that they had us watch, we walked across the campus (yes, literally that big) to find Angeline’s room.
When we walked into her room, we saw a group of four nannies or caretakers seated on stools, in one corner of the room, feeding babies porridge. To their right, was a long line of maybe eight babies, in walkers, waiting to be fed. It was quite a scene! Some babies were crying because they were hungry and it wasn’t their turn, some babies were already fed and laying quietly, in their cribs. Our Angeline, had just passed the front of the line and was being fed. I, being her mom, picked her out of the crowd immediately! A sixth sense is what they call it. Either that, or it was because she was the only one with hair. Apparently, they knew we were coming to get her, so they had let her hair grow out.
After her feeding, they quickly changed her clothes and attempted to hand her to me. It was an awkward attempt at best! Her grip on her caretaker was like a vise. It had to pry her off of her. Obviously, she cried, but fortunately, only for a few minutes. After all the picture-taking, and quick Q & A session, we swept Angeline back across the campus, into a waiting taxi cab. Literally, from that moment forward, she has not loosened her grip on me, until now. William is doing his best to try to play with her, but she’s not having anything to do with him or anyone else for that matter. I’ve heard that this will pass and I can’t wait, because my arms are killing me!
Anyways, enough literature for now, I’m sure you want to see pictures and video clips. Please let us know your thoughts. We truly welcome hearing from you guys. If our pics don’t look right, please let us know. We can post the pictures, but we can’t see how they come out, because China blocks them somehow. ENJOY!!!
P.S. We did have an opportunity to go to her finding spot (the place where she was found) and, even, talked with the person who found her. It was very emotional!
Will anyone please email me and let me know if you see the blog ok?
ckho328@hotmail.com

Day 1 & 2 Last two days of Coupledom…

After many hours of flying, we finally arrived at PuDong International Airport at night. We had a warm welcome from our two guides, Tom and Jim, at the airport. Despite being very tired from the flight, we enjoyed being entertained by them, on our ride to our apartment, while they talked about the Shanghai Children’s Home and how modern it is. Our guides are very informative, well-informed and totally nice people. They told us that it was rare to be able to adopt a child from Shanghai, because this city seldom has abandoned babies, compared to other provinces. People here are just more well-off, compare it to like New York, in the states. We were also told we would be able to visit the orphanage, so that we can see for ourselves, how modern the orphanage is. The purpose of modernizing the orphanage is to give the children a better living environment conducive to better learning and development.

After resting for the night, on Day 1, Lana, our friend, accompanied us to the supermarket and mall to shop for baby supplies. Shanghai is such a modern city that any item we wanted to buy, they had. Not only did they have Pampers and Huggies, they also had European brands, too. Susan was tickled pink to be able to find what she needed. After a long day of shopping, we all went to get a foot massage…we even managed to fall asleep midway through the massage.

On day 2, feeling a little less jet lagged, we woke-up at a decent hour to do some light shopping at Nanjing Road. It is our last day as a couple, yea…but, then I really feel like we will miss it. Mommy and some friends went to the hair salon to have their hair cut and washed.
In the afternoon, we went to meet our guide, Tom. His hospitality is much appreciated. He took us on a nice tour of Shanghai City and its newly developed areas, in Pudong.

At night, we had dinner with Tom. We took the opportunity to bombard him with questions about the adoption process and what we needed to do tomorrow. To our amazement, he told us “Don’t worry. Everything will be very easy!” Now, not knowing how our little Angeline will be take to us, we are definitely a little concerned. But, Tom kept reassuring us that all the babies that he had seen placed with families, in his experience, attached really well with their new parents. Well, we hope he is right! We will definitely find our early tomorrow morning--- OUR GOTCHA DAY!!!

FINALLY, it's really happening!

We still can't believe it! We have to keep pinching ourselves and each other. In less than 24 hours, we will be sitting at SFO, waiting to fly over to the other side of the world, to receive our daughter. It is with some nervousness, anxiousness, and trepidation, that we start our journey into parenthood. We will continue to post pictures on this blog about our experiences, throughout our trip in China.
We'd like to thank everyone for all the wonderful comments and support, you've given us, not just during our adoption process, but, all these years, when we were trying to start a family.
The next time we blog, it will be from Shanghai. Please check in with us soon. BYE!

Latest Picture of Our Lovely Angeline!

One more day and we will be traveling to receive our lovely daughter.
Over these last few days, we have so busy packing, packing and more packing.
It seems like it's never-ending. We want to make sure we bring everything we will need, but, also, not so much that it seems like we're bringing our whole house with us.
We have to constantly remind ourselves to pack "LIGHT". Yeah, right!
We're, also, happy to have received the above picture of our baby, from Janet Fink. She was so nice to take pictures for us, so that we can have a first glimpse of our lovely daughter. Janet had just returned home, from her trip to the Shanghai Children's Home, after she finished her therapy work, at the orphanage.
In the picture, Angeline is being held by her most-loved caretaker. Her picture is, also, taken with her next to the pillow, we sent her. She looks confused. She's probably thinking, who are these people and why are they plastered on a pillow?
Wow! I can start feeling the connection between us. I hope she recognizes us when we meet on Gotcha Day!

Here is our day by day itinerary!

5 more days and counting.............
Here is our daily itinerary:

Day 1 19 July, Thursday - Leaving on Shanghai at SFO (approx. 15 hours to Tokyo + 2
hours transfer to Shanghai)
Day 2 20 July, Friday - Arrive in Shanghai at night. Staying at Shimao Riviera Garden Apartment.
Day 3 21 July, Saturday - Get all supplies and food ready and get settled into the house.
Day 4 22 July, Sunday - Relax and prepare for the BIG day.
Day 5 23 July, Monday - Gotcha Day in the morning!
9AM officially meet our daughter & begin the registration
process at the Civil Affairs Dept.of Shanghai Province.
(Finally, get to be holding Angeline!)
Day 6 24 July, Tuesday - Get Notary
Day 7 25 July, Wednesday - Visit the orphange, if possible
Day 8 26 July, Thursday - Relaxing day, playing with Angeline
Day 9 27 July, Friday - Receive Chinese Passport
Day 10 28 July, Saturday Relaxing day, sightseeing in Shanghai
Day 11 29 July, Sunday - Travel to Guangzhou and check into the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island
Day 12 30 July, Monday - Medical check-up
Day 13 31 July, Tuesday - 9:00AM visa appointment
Day 14 1 August, Wednesday -4PM Oath ceremony and get US visa. We are officially done!
Day 15 2 August, Thursday - Visiting families in Guangzhou, prepare to return to US.
Day 16 3 August, Friday - Flying back to the US in the morning!

8 more days and counting..........

Only 8 more days left and we will be flying across the Pacific Ocean, to the other side of the world, to the beautiful city of Shanghai, to meet with our long-awaited, lovely daughter,Angeline. All of a sudden, we feel time is running out. We feel so not ready, since there are still so much to prepare for Angeline's homecoming (but, we are actually so anxious that we want to hold her in our arm every time we look at her photos!).
In these few days, we've been busy preparing our documents, to bring back to china, booking our hotel romm, and starting our packing.
We did finally get our airfares booked. We purchased 2 airfares to Shanghai, but 3 airfares to return back to US from Guangzhou. What a good feeling to have! Two persons leaving on a trip and three persons coming back.

In only 8 days, we will find out where Angeline had spent the first year of her life. We are so thrill to have found some pictures that show the inside of Shanghai's welfare institute or orphanage! An organization run by voluteers travelled to china and did an exploratory trip to Shanghai Children's home around March of this year, and had taken many photographs.

You can check this site out and see if you see Angeline in these photos.
We have looked closely at the photos numerous times to see if Angeline may be in there.....but yet to confirm if she is in these photos. At the time when they took these pictures, she was probably around 10 months old. Here is the website:

http://www.volunteerforhope.org/en/2007/pages/photoalbum.html

Please let us know if you think you see Angeline in the photos.

A little more time for ourselves!

We would like to congratulate Amy and Zachery on the adoption of their cute, little girl Caelyn. They had just returned home from China on Friday. You are welcome to view their exciting journey, by just clicking on their link, on our blog.

This was definitely a busy week and weekend for us. Belive it or not, we actually worked on July 4th. No, we are not workaholics! The whole office agreed it would be better to close on July 5th and get a 4 day weekend out of it. We were thinking of doing fireworks on July 4ht at our house, but we'd rather wait to celebrate when Angeline comes home. So we just enjoyed the night watching fireworks on TV.

On July 5th, we continued to prepare the house, clean, and organize (throw things out!). Mommy was very busy washing all the clothes for baby Angeline.

On July 6th, we spent a day being adventurous. We went whitewater rafting on the American River, in Sacramento, with our office staff and friends(see below for photos taken at the American River).... We definitely won't be doing it for awhile, once we have our daughter. It was really fun and scorching HOT! We had a pretty scary moment when Susan fell off the raft going down one of the rapids..........luckily she swam fast enough to get back to our raft.

On Saturday we were so tired from our trip, we slept for half the day. We'll surely miss sleeping in.......but maybe not.

On Sunday, we were back to our fast track mode again. More preparation of the house and we, actually, cleared up the back yard, to make it more child proof. Susan went to shop for more baby supplies. It seems to never end.

New Measurement Update

Happy 4th of July, everyone!!! As I'm typing this blog, I hear fireworks popping and whistling just outside my window. I'm thinking, next year AJ will be 2 years old. She'll probably be ready to see her first fireworks display. Lots of "wow"s and "ahh"s! Which, by the way, I will tell her, was invented in China some blah, blah, blah years ago. (I guess I'd better google for the answer before that time comes, huh?).

Anyways, yesterday we received updated measurements of AJ at 13 months. Our pediatrician was a little concerned about the accuracy of previous measurements and wanted us to request updated ones. Her old measurements placed her in the bottom 3rd percentile of normal weight, height and head size, but her pictures showed her to be normal developmentally. To say the least, we were pretty concerned. Was she terribly malnourished? Did her head size indicate that she would have learning difficulties down the line? Will any of this affect her future social, emotional and physical development?

After two weeks of apprehension, our agency coordinator, was finally able to convince CCAA to fax us new updated measurements. AJ must have put up a good fight! That's our girl! Well, we received it yesterday via e-mail and am happy to say, that the new numbers place her close to the 50th percentile, in terms of, head circumference (whew!) and her weight, though still on the low end, around the 10th percentile. She's a tiny little thing, but she seems to be very healthy! We are falling in love with her more and more every day.

About a month ago I received an e-mail from a wonderful woman, by the name of Janet Fink. She had founded a foundation called Shanghai Superkids, which brings occupational therapists to Chinese orphanages to help rehabilitate children who have special needs. She had, also, adopted a little girl with special needs from Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute (SCWI), in 2005.

She wrote that she was going to visit SCWI, in late June, and if we were interested in having her to try to get pictures of AJ. We were,like, oh my gosh! No way, this is just too awesome! If she carries this off, she is going to get a very nice donation from us! I, really wanted pictures of AJ before adoption, so that we can show them to her, when she's older, what her life was like before we came into it. Great lifebook material!

Well, to make a long story short(not!), she returned to the states last Friday and e-mailed us to let us know she had seen AJ. She wrote that when she walked into AJ's room, AJ zoomed over in her walker to see who came in. When she picked AJ up to give her a hug, she cried, because she was shy and didn't know who she was. (I would have given anything to have been there to hug her myself.) But, once she handed her over to her favorite caregiver, she immediately stopped crying. We can already imagine something similar on GOTCHA DAY! But, this time, we won't be handing her back to her caregiver. All-in-all, a great sign, though! What this tells us is that she has learned to form healthy attachments to those who love and take care of her and, therefore, will be capable of forming healthy attachments again. It is always a concern for adoption experts when babies don't form a bond with those familiar to them and just go indiscriminately to anyone.

Janet, bless her heart, was able to take pictures of AJ and her favorite caregiver, along with a pillow we had sent to her, with both of our pictures on it. She was even able to take some video footage! We couldn't believe it! We are just over the moon with joy and anticipation! We're hoping to receive it in the mail any day now. WAITING, WAITING, WAITING!!! It seems like that's all we've been doing, lately. Well, anyways, we look forward to sharing them with you, just as soon as we get them.

Notice of traveling to china for adoption RECEIVED!

Over the weekend, we are so busy preparing for Angeline's home coming. Daddy and mommy were busy working out to prepare to carry baby Angeline as much as possible when received her in china so that we can bond with her faster. Mommy is also busy organizing baby's room, and started to prepare cabinet space in the kitchen for Angeline's eating wares....we were told adopted babies are always so hungry in the first few months.

Today, we are excited to hear from our agency, our Traveling Notice is here!!!
For the longest wait, we finally have a traveling date now. It is going to be on July 19th.....tic tic tic tic.....a 17 days count down.
This will be the longest 17 days in our lives waiting, waiting, and waiting, for our baby princess from china.
We should be receiving our itinarary tomorrow from our agency, and we will post some more.

Angeline is 1-1-1!

Angeline is exactly One year, one month and one day old! How exciting!
We miss you Angeline! We can't wait any longer to come pick you up.