8000 Miles

Shhh - don't jinx anything

It's official: We're parents again.

Today, Zhu Fu Miao officially became our daughter.

And we ended our first full day together. I have to say, everything is going frighteningly well. Miao-Miao (pronounced "Myew Myew") so far has been the happiest baby I have ever met.
She has not cried at all. At all.

We had prepared ourselves for days of inconsolable tears, as was our experience with Bee. But so far, all we've gotten have been a few tears at a diaper changing and a few more when Mom is out of the room too long.

It has been crazy good, and I have been waiting post anything until the other shoe dropped so I could write all about the howling and sleeplessness and all the other things that unite adoptive parents in this experience.

She will go through it - there's no doubt about that. But so far, she is happy with us.

METCHA DAY

We met yesterday a little after 2:30 p.m. local time in the provincial government offices.

The offices are on an upper floor of a modern office building with marble floors and plate glass frontage. It was like Fifth Avenue, but much, much cleaner.

HSH, Bee, Smiley, Zee, our guide Lucy and I all went up to the fifth floor and into a conference room with a plaque near the doorway that read, "Meeting Room."

Lucy did a little rushing around and told us that we would be signing paperwork and then meeting Miao-Miao. Then she rushed around a little more and came back and said we would be meeting our baby first.

Seconds later the Zhuhai orphanage director and vice director were in the room with Miao-Miao, who was dressed in red and gold silks and pink shoes with a pink plastic bunny hair clip in her hair. She looked at us and opened her arms and went right to HSH, and I picked up Bee. Then she took the opportunity to come to me, so I handed off Bee to her HS Dad. And then Bee decided I needed to hold her, too. So I did.

All the while, Zee and Smiley were acting as our Ken Burnses, but with less fade-to action.

There were papers to sign and suddenly other babies were in the room meeting their families, and the Meeting Room got quite loud. One baby in particular was crying loudly, and I worried that Miao-Miao would be upset, but she just looked at the baby curiously, and looked at me and at Lucy and at the vice-director, and I guess we convinced her that everything was cool.

She was smiling and giving high fives all around and generally being as happy as can be.

The vice director of the orphanage brought in a large plastic bag and presented us with Miao-Miao's little pillow, one of her favorite toys, the blanket and toys and photo album we had sent to her, the disposable camera we had sent to her (which they shot), a separate small photo album/scrapbook with photos of Miao-Miao taken from the time she entered the orphanage through the end of November, and a fuzzy stuffed backpack that also held a handful of DumDum lollipops, which the vice director said is Miao-Miao's favorite candy.

They also gave us a touristy sort of photo CD about Zhuhai, along with two DVDs about Miao-Miao's daily life and her nannies and the orphanage.

I cried. The vice director also got teary-eyed, and got kisses on the cheek from Miao-Miao, and a photo with our whole family before she left.

I think the only one who didn't cry was Miao-Miao.

As American as sweatpants

Drafted in Word at 4:37 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2 (EST)/5:37 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 3 (Beijing)

We’re on the plane from Newark to Beijing. HSH is nodding off with his iPod drowning out the more unpleasant noises of air travel. Bee is sitting across the aisle in Zee’s lap. Zee and Smiley have seats next to each other across the aisle from us. They’re reading “Good Neighbors,” which is one of Bee’s favorite stories.

The trip so far has been a comedy. Of errors.

We fell asleep last night near midnight (or didn’t fall asleep). We woke at 4 a.m. and drove all bleary-eyed to the airport, where we discovered that our flight? To Newark? Was cancelled. Cancelled.

So we drove from Albany to Newark, where we arrived in plenty of time to meet the hotel bellperson, who had traversed the river to bring us the suitcase that his colleague had neglected to put into our car before we drove to Albany.

The good news?

Our passports and visas arrived safely at the Albany hotel, and we were able to eat that amazing Mexican food at what has become my very very favoritest Mexican restaurant north of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi.

They make their sangria with Cointreau. Also, their food is pretty good.

Face it: we’re going 8000 miles to meet our daughter – what’s a few hundred miles of driving back and forth to get on an airplane?

At the Albany airport, we met another family who was connecting to this Beijing flight for an adoption trip. They rented a car to drive to Newark.

There is a group of several families on the plane who are going to adopt, and we met another family who is flying on their own.

There’s a family sitting right behind us, and another sitting right in front of Zee and Smiley.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post flight observances:

- Our flight path was amazing. We flew north from NJ, over the North Pole (Hi Santa!), then south over the Arctic Ocean and Siberia to China. As we approached the North Pole, I looked out the window and saw miles and miles of frozen landscape punctuated by the Big Man's workshop, Reindeer Games Stadium, the Island of Misfit Toys and Herbie's dentist office.

- If you are given the choice between flying to Asia on an American airline, v. a Chinese airline, go with the U.S. plane. Those extra cubic inches in seat room make all the difference in whether you feel like taking hyour own life during hours 8 through 13.

- Continental's vegetarian Indian meals are delicious. Much better than the steak or salmon that everyone else got.

- The helpful guy just before the ticketing line in the Beijing airport is not an airport employee, and he will ask you for $10 a person to perform a service you could have done yourself. As a matter of fact, if my current career path doesn't work out, I may go into business "helping" dazed and sleepy Westerners queue up in the Beijing airport.

Metcha

This day has been amazing. More later.

T-minus 7 hours until take-off

Here's something hilarious. We left Manhattan today and drove a few hours to Albany, where we will get a few hours of sleep before waking dark and early to board a plane. Our first stop? Newark, just a few miles from the hotel we left earlier today.

Want to know something even funnier?

The hotel bellperson neglected to load one of our bags into the car, ad we did not notice until we got here to Albany and began to wonder where every single stick of our new daughter's clothes were.

Never fear, we're getting it figured out. Maybe.

Meanwhile, we're sleeping in a chain hotel that is some 20 times nicer (and cheaper) than the NYC hotel. And the walls look like they were crafted either by an ear fetishist or a climbing wall architect.

My next post will be from China.

If I can make it there

My girl does not enjoy the city that never sleeps.

Maybe it was the spaghetti with sausage she ate for dinner last night. Maybe it's the stress of being an overwhelmed 3-year-old extrovert. Maybe she just wants to be held a little more before her little sister enters the family.

Whatever the case, our Bee has not enjoyed the Manhattan excursion.

She woke up at 5 a.m. and threw up on me. Several hours later, she seemed to be feeling better, so her dad took her to get some breakfast. She threw up on him.

After I got out of my training class and walked all the way back to the hotel, Bee seemed to be feeling better again, so we decided to go to see the big tree at Rockerfeller Center.

I'm not going to say it was a bad idea, but it also wasn't an unadulteratedly good idea, either.

Bee liked the tree. Didn't like the taxi. Didn't like the crowds. Wanted a Sprite. Wanted to go back to the hotel.

We had some trouble getting a taxi, so we walked all the way back to the hotel. It's not a bad walk, unless you're carrying a toddler who seems to be getting 5 pounds heavier with every passing block.

Now she is asleep in our hot hotel room. She has kept down several cups full of Sprite, a few bites of pizza and a few bites of a white rice and cheese taco (shuttup, it's what she wanted).

I'm wondering how we're going to wash our bepuked clothes before we leave for China at 6 a.m. Saturday.

Speaking of clothes - I shopped at Anthropologie today, y'all!  And didn't buy anything.

Anyone out there know of a good place to eat in the general vicinity of Madison Square Garden. SOmeplace that won't make my daughter throw up at 5 a.m.? Someplace that has a few vegetarian selections? A place whose name does not begin with initials followed by the suggestion of sexual violence. B.T. Stuffers, KillAN BROTHERS FAMOUS FISTERS.

Also - how much does one tip a taxi driver?

The Entourage

Our tickets are in hand and, after we solve a costly last-minute visa rush issue, we'll be ready to go. Don't ask me to talk about the visa issue, because I can't do it. I just can't. Not without drying or feeling my eyes roll into my head.

So let's talk about the trip.

We leave on Saturday, Dec. 2 (stalkers - take note! Also, take note that we have a strapping housesitter and three junkyard guard dogs, any one of whom may just have a scorching case of herpes.) We will be in China until Dec. 16. We don't yet have all the in-China details, such as which hotel we'll stay in (probably the White Swan, with its sweet, sweet breakfast buffet) or when we will meet our new daughter and begin gobbling her cheeks forthwith.

We'll be travelling with a full entourage.

Buttercup the Contrarian

(aka Bee, Little Bee, Bebe) She's 3-years-old and 35 pounds of iron will. She can't wait to see Her Baby. And hold Her Baby. And take care of Her Baby. And push Her Baby in a stroller.

You get the picture.

Those of you who live with 3-year-olds will understand just how much love I have in my heart when I say I am dreading this much close-quartered contact with my daughter. She's an intense little laser of a girl, except that her trajectory is not so easily manipulated.

This will make for some fun stories. If we get through the trip without causing major international incident, I'll be happy.

My Hot-Shot Husband

I can't say enough wonderful things about his travel abilities or the way he brings totally unexpected and unequalled fun to experiences like this.

Also, he can drive like a sumbitch and swims a mile like it's walking the dog.

Zee

Two years ago, when we got our referral for Bee, it was unclear whether I would be able to make the adoption trip with HSH. My mother had been talking about accompanying HSH, but she had the unqualified nerve to die on the very same day that we received our referral.

I was sitting on my sofa a couple days later when Zee called and told me that if I needed her to go to China to help bring home my daughter, she was on board. She had already cleared the time off with her supervisor and made an appointment at the local travel clinic.

One day, after the evolution that comes from many lifetimes of suffering and learning, I might be half the person Zee is. But only if I'm exceptionally lucky.

She did accompany us on that trip, and I have since informed her that she will be required to accompany us on any and all international travel excursions. She was the perfect travel companion, and she's making a return engagement.

Smiley

The summer of our paperchase for Bee, Smiley got married in what may have been the only beachside wedding I've ever enjoyed completely without reservation. When she arrived at the reception - all aglow with sunset and pearls - she rushed over to our table and gave us a gift for the Bee to Be.

And she also had volunteered to come on that first trip. This time, we have taken her up on her offer.

In addition to being so enormously thoughtful, she is organized and a seasoned world traveler.

Basically, I have assembled the China Travel Dream Team, and we are going to kick this trip's ass.

At least she'll have some place to eat

We spent the day on our last-dash shopping excursion in preparation for our trip.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my baby has a high chair waiting for her.

I gave in and bought a very (I was going to say "yuppie," then realized I don't know what the modern equivalent to that '80s throwback would be) brand high chair. In my defense, I was not sold by the brand name, but by the supreme and wondrous functionality of this high chair.

Also, my brother and sister-in-law's first baby had better be a girl, because I had to get the pink model. First, it was on clearance for some $50 less than the more neutral colored model, and then we snagged an extra 10 percent off because they were out of stock, so we had to buy the floor model.

The sweetest part was hearing another woman looking for the same product just 10 minutes after I had bought the last one.

In your FACE, random other mom! In your face.

Meanwhile, our living room is becoming a staging area as we begin to arrange everything we're going to take to a.) Manhattan for two days and then b.) China for two weeks.

The part where you wish your referral would come and you plan the nursery and you talk about names? That part is much more fun than this part.

Get packing

The travel agency called today to let us know that we are leaving one week from tomorrow.

Everyone we tell squeals in excitement. Our stomachs hurt. Oh - we are so unprepared.

We do have an assembled baby bed now, though. So our little one will have a place to sleep without disturbing my dresser drawer full of novelty socks.

Tomorrow we travel to the Big City to load up on supplies such as saline nose spray, baby prunes and glycerine suppositories. We might get some stuff for the trip, too.

And we will definitely partake of some restaurants.

121 Days later

We got the word today: The Chinese government has approved our travel for the purpose of adopting. Now we wait for the date of our consulate appointment, and our travel dates will be slated.

The sound you hear - the shrill, maniacal, hysterical sound - is my head exploding under the crushing conundrum of how we could be so unprepared for something for which we have waited so long.

The agency doesn't like to have families travel over Christmas, so we hope to be there and back before then.

See how I'm not cursing? That's the mark of a seriously mature person - the kind of person who is allowed to adopt internationally.

On Wednesday, our local social worker will come for her second visit so we can get our homestudy updated in time to take it with us to China.

Meanwhile, I'm furiously writing the Big List of things that have to be accomplished before we step on a plane.

- Get visas
- Pack
- Collect DVDs
- Figure out the best way to post photos from Chinese hotel room
- Visit doctors for precautionary prescriptions

Oh, there are so many more things to be done. So many, many more things.