Reflections from “B’s” US Consulate Medical Exam Day & our One Week
Anniversary in China: (the following was written in China when we couldn't post everything we wanted and internet was not working)
2.9.15--
Today marks one week since “B” was placed into our
arms. Wow- it’s hard to
believe. What a long way she's come in those short 7 days. To watch her now reach for both of us to pick her up
or feed her, etc. is wonderful improvement from where we were a week ago
today. To watch her play mimic
games with daddy and run from him with huge giggles as he chases her around the
hotel room is amazing after 4 days of constant blank stares and nearly no emotion.
All of our guides and our friend in
Beijing who is in Guangzhou right now as well, have all said how well she seems
to be adjusting overall to us and how happy and resilient a child she seems to
be. We agree. (well, at least most of the time-haha)
Today we left the hotel at 9am with half of our travel group
for a 15 minute bus ride to head to the US Consulate to have “B’s” medical
exam. This exam is required in order for her to receive a US visa and enter the
United States. The exam consists
of three different stations that the children have to go through. The first
station is the ENT (ear, nose, throat) and then each child goes to the weighing
station and lastly a general exam room.
This face says, "I know something is up, but I'm just not sure what!"
It’s a bit of organized chaos in this fifth floor as there is one side
that is for U.S. visas for many other Chinese citizens and then the other side
is for adoptive families. Thankfully because she is under 2 years old, she
doesn’t have to do the blood draw for a TB test.
What happened when we arrived was nothing short of comical-
or at least we had to make ourselves laugh at what transpired. On the ride to
the medical exam, we learned that the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China is the
busiest one in the world, processing 2,000 US visas of various types daily. The US Consulate moved to a
new facility about two years ago and when we pulled up to the building where
the medical exam would be done, we passed lines and lines of Chinese people
outside waiting in line for different types of US visas. It was pretty
remarkable. We also drove alongside the Pearl River, which is the fourth
largest in China. Tonight we will take a river cruise to see more of the city and river.
As the bus pulled in, we decided to do a quick diaper
check before we entered the next 3 hours of madness with all of the kiddos. As
we’ve learned quickly here in China, when you have a chance to check/change
your child’s diaper in a somewhat convenient or private environment, you do it and do it
quickly as there aren’t bathrooms with convenient child changing stations
located in them as most bathrooms are squatty potties (a hole in the floor for
waste to go into). If you’ve never used a squatty potty it’s an awesome
experience (said with the highest level of sarcasm ). Sometimes you come across
a Western toilet in certain places and are SO thankful to see those. One of the
squatty potties I used while in Beijing was in a nicer restaurant by China’s
standards, yet I literally dry heaved several times and almost decided to just
hold it a few more hours. (lol)
As the bus stopped, we pulled “B” up really quickly to check
her diaper AND as we had suspected, Little Miss had had quite the major poop explosion
right before her medical exam. (nice, kiddo. You must have known what was about
to happen and decided “I’ll show them!”)
So, we ripped off her clothes as fast as we could so we didn’t get far behind
the group, but unfortunately, it took more than a few seconds to change her
this round and by the time we got her cleaned up and clothes changed our group
had disappeared. We thought they had headed to the Consulate building we had
saw when pulling in so we headed in that direction. We crossed the street and
sorted through line after line of Chinese people standing outside and could not
see anyone from our group anywhere (and trust me, you can’t miss our group when we
are wandering around)
We then wondered if they were able to bypass the lines since
they were a group so weren’t quite sure what to do next. We decided worse case,
let’s head back to where the bus originally parked, about a block down and see
if maybe they realized they had left us and figured our guides would eventually
notice. As we headed that way, a Chinese lady saw us with what was likely a
very puzzled look on our face and in broken English said, “passport photo for
baby?” We knew we had to do
another photo today, but that it was a visa photo, so weren’t sure if she
actually knew what she was talking about. We followed her anyway for a block
towards the direction we were headed anyway and she pointed to a building for
passport photos, but which as we suspected was for Chinese citizens and not the
office we were looking for.
As we turned around to walk back and wait for our
guide to find us, straight ahead we saw one of our guides and she spotted us
and the look on her face was priceless. I seriously think we gave her the
biggest heart attack. She just grabbed us and hugged us and said, “So sorry, so
sorry” and thought that they had left us on accident at the hotel. We told her
not to worry, that we weren’t afraid of walking around on our own and we would
have figured it out, but you could tell she was just dismayed and terrified at
the fact that we had wandered around the streets on our own for about 15
minutes. She led us into the building where we had “B” take her visa photo for
her medical exam paperwork.
They then led our entire group upstairs to the 5th
floor that was filled with adoptive families and their children. It was loud
and crowded and a bit chaotic. You could tell that many of the children did not
love this part of the process. We have to admit that once it came time for “Bri”
to do her medical exams in the 3 stations, she did amazing! No tears, no
wiggling, and complete cooperation with the nurses and doctors (let’s hope that
this is a sign of things to come as poor little one is going to have a lot of
appointments coming up in the days ahead and tentative surgery unless the Lord
intervenes) 
We were also excited to see that she had gained about a half pound
since our last update about 2 ½ weeks ago and weighs in at a whopping 17 ¾
pounds.
We checked over our paperwork and the doctor scribbled some
notes on it in Chinese then we were done! This is out last big step before we
come home. We will have one more appointment on Wednesday, but that one should
be fairly quick and easy.
Today, “Bri” continued to show us more and more of her
personality. She loves watching me make fish faces, and she’ll try to figure
out how to do it and the reaction is priceless. She loves to mimic and today she tried to copy daddy as he
held a remote in his hand and pointed it and then she later tried to do the
same thing. She’s a smart little thing as often she's observed something one or only a few times and then can repeat it or try doing the same thing we just did. Today's funny thing- it has become very clear that she doesn’t like things on her clothes (today she thought her tiny polka dots
on her shirt were crumbs and kept trying to pick them off, it was hilarious!)
She is also showing us the “fussy/sassy pants” side of her
personality too. As we've probably noted before, her most difficult time is when she is sleepy as there is
really nothing you can do to console her until she just stops fighting and settles down and falls asleep. She usually falls asleep quickly, but the few
minutes leading up to it, watch out world! We’ve hit a few points today where it’s just been exhausting
for both Nate and I as she’ll get really upset and she can’t understand us and
we can’t understand her and she’ll get to a point where she’ll start arching
her body and almost hit her head on something or do something that’s dangerous
and just doesn’t want to be held or put down and nothing we do seems to work in the moment.
We have now figured out her new favorite snack, which is a
Chinese rice cracker that she was fed in the orphanage. We are going to
stock up on these before we leave for home. I have a feeling these will be a lifesaver on our long plane
ride. She is also loving her Chinese rice cereal, so much so that today she got
upset when we stopped feeding her and it was gone, so we made up a second bowl
and she ate every last drop. Food is still quite the experiment, but all in all
it’s going as well as to be expected while in a foreign country without
familiarity and the convenience of home in which to try new foods. Thankfully
all of the hotels we’ve stayed in have had amazing breakfast buffets with a
huge assortment of Chinese foods (the Chinese eat what to us is regular dinner
food for breakfast in hotels) and a large amount of familiar American breakfast
foods. Yogurt is also a new favorite for “B”. We’ve been so thankful for the individuals who gave us
little organic food pouch packets with veggies, fruits, etc. before we left (if you have kids
you’ll know what I’m talking about), as those have been our
staple when she wouldn’t eat anything else. She LOVES those things! We have several varieties of fruits and
veggies so she’s eating those well.
Again, solid foods still continue to be a challenge.
Tonight our group took a two hour riverboat tour on the Pearl River.
It was absolutely stunning!
Since it is almost Chinese new year, there are
decorations everywhere for Chinese New Year’s alongside Christmas decorations that are
still up in many places, so the river cruise had not only the beauty of the
city skyline, but the addition of Chinese New Year décor on the bridges we
would pass under or on buildings.
Our tour took us past the Canton Tower building, which is the tallest
tower/building in China and tallest TV tower in the world. It was breathtaking
as it lights up in numerous colors as you stand and watch it change.
The
bridges we passed under had beautiful colors and characters lining them. “Bri”
was mesmerized as we would pass under colorful bridges that would be right over
her head and her eyes would just look up and stare at all of the beautiful
colors.
She also loved listening
to the Chinese music as a lady played a Chinese instrument on the boat.
At one point tonight, poor Nate was holding “B” and all of these little
Chinese ladies surrounded him and kept making over “B”. We’ve noticed and been told that the
Chinese people love “big eyes” and so the fact that “B” has what they all
consider “big eyes” means they will all stare at her so intently and look at us
and point at her. She often gets
surrounded when we are out and about and they want to take a picture of her or with her- it’s quite
interesting to watch. I’m not
quite sure she knows what to think of it, but we have learned one thing- this kiddo loves to hold a Coke bottle!
We were blessed with a great day today and it was a
wonderful way to spend an evening with all of the adoptive families in our
group.
