Tuesday, June 8th: I don’t know if a solid night’s sleep cures all, but it certainly did wonders for us. We are both feeling so much better, although Debbie is now struggling with her allergies. We have nothing going on today except hanging out with Sam. I was right about us connecting the night before. Sam allowed me to pick her up, hold her, feed her, and then sing her to sleep this morning- all without Debbie. She laughed wildly as I tickled her and genuinely enjoys playing with me. She seems more willing to be with both of us today, however, there is definitely a very solid bond developing with Debbie, as I think should be between mother and daughter. I carried her with us down to breakfast while she slept in my arms. About halfway through breakfast, she woke up, and was very excited to see the food (as in flapping her arms, bouncing up and down, and squealing with excitement). She loves to eat, so we got a bowl of congee, a cup of peach flavored yogurt and some steamed egg. She ate quite well, and has a very normal appetite. In all, we spent about 3 hours together before she went to Debbie. She is also working on her hand to mouth coordination. She can grab the food- she’s just not quite sure what to do with it yet!
We are also working with her today on some developmental issues. Although she turns 11 months old today, she cannot crawl, can stand with help but not on her own, and cannot hold the bottle herself. She’s never been allowed to do these things at the orphanage, so we were aware that this might be an issue. She still doesn’t like to be out of human contact, and throws a fit if you try to put her in a high chair, stroller, etc., so we’ll be working on those issues as well, as the car seat will probably get the same reaction. When we try to get her to crawl, she pushes herself up, makes a few noises, then lays back down. She also starts crying, but is kicking her legs and trying to move, so that’s a good sign. She likes to grab things, however, she only looks at them and doesn’t put them in her mouth. She has no teeth, but you can see the bottom teeth almost emerging. She chews and sucks on her fingers, as well as a pacifier. Some of these are typical issues for Chinese adoptions where a baby is confined to a crib the majority of the time, and we are told by other families that the babies catch up quick. So, that’s what we’ll be working on the rest of the week (and year). As for everything else, she has fair skin with no birthmarks, brownish hair, and a very sweet disposition. She is interested in everything she sees, and smiles at everyone. Actually, it was kinda funny that the update we received on the way to our hotel in Beijing said she was "afraid of strangers." We questioned how many strangers she could have possibly encountered in the orphanage. As it turns out, that was completely wrong: Sam is a little ham who loves to giggle, chatter, and entertain everyone in the restaurant. Afraid of strangers? I don’t think so! The more people around, the happier she gets- a real party animal!
We concluded Tuesday with dinner out at a local restaurant. Our guide orders about a dozen dishes and always does a great job- something for everyone. It’s also dirt cheap which no one complains about. Of course Sam grinned, giggled, and flapped her arms with joy whenever someone talked sweet to her, and before long she had most of the staff tooling around saying hello to her. All of the American families draw attention here. Other than some of the students at the University of Lanzhou trying to practice their English on us, everyone speaks Mandarin, unlike Beijing and Guangzhou where many spoke English. One couple was asked to stop for a photo, and within a minute about 6 other locals jumped in to be included in the picture with the Americans. We have cards we wear around our neck that explain we are Americans adopting abandoned babies, which always gets a smile when someone reads it. Everyone says hello to the babies, and the local people are very warm and friendly.
Highlights over the last couple of days: (1) A healthy baby! (2) A happy baby!! (3) Pepto Bismol. (4) Learning each day to be parents and soaking in the wonder of it all. (5) Shopping at a local market and discovering Skippy peanut butter & grape jelly for days we grow tired of Chinese food. (6) Lullabies. (7) Hotel business centers, Email, and sharing our experience with others. (8) Rest days- it’s great to have a few days to enjoy Sam without running around doing paperwork and tours. (9) An afternoon nap, a good nights sleep, and babies who sleep through the night. (10) A $7 gourmet Chinese dinner for 2 people. (11) Watching "A League of Their Own" in Chinese on local TV- a whole different experience.
Non-highlights: (1) Food poisoning- uuugghhhh! (2) Cigarette smoke- on the elevator, in the restaurants, and even in our room should someone smoking pass our door in the hallway. (3) Allergies: We’ve managed to find something in the room, area, or hotel that is wreaking havoc on our allergies. (4) Diaper changes - wow! (5) Being so far from home with such longing to share Sam with all of you.
As the rest of the week is scheduled to be uneventful, we’ll limit the next emails to a few photos. Thank you all again for the many prayers on our behalf, as well as the love and support for such a wonderful journey. We can’t wait to get home and introduce you to our little girl!
Thursday, June 10: Over the past two days, we decided to hang out at the hotel, except for a tour to a park which required some climbing up a large hill so we could see the entire city. We would much rather spend the time here with Sam learning about each other and helping her work on some of her developmental needs.
This has nothing to do with Sam, but it was really weird so I have to say something about it. We took a walk to a local park with a fountain to get some fresh air. On the way, we saw what we thought was a street vendor getting arrested. This guy was arguing with five police officers (perhaps the first indication that he was making a HUGE mistake), who then responded by knocking stuff off of his cart. When they’d had enough arguing, one whipped out a billy club and took the guy down in two hits, one behind each thigh. Two officers grabbed his arms and kept smacking him in the back of the head as they drug him off, another officer took his cart and followed, and the last two officers followed behind. We stayed out of the way, and tried to act like we hadn’t seen anything. (I didn’t want to be glared at again). When I told our guide about this later, she said this was not getting arrested. She said if the vendor didn’t have a permit or littered, the police would require him to pay a fine immediately. If he didn’t have the money to pay the fine, or argued with them, they would take him immediately to the court to be sentenced, and they would probably take his cart if he didn’t have the money to pay. Okay; if that’s the fine for littering, I’d hate to see what a "real" arrest looks like!
When we got to the fountain, we made the mistake of stopping in one place for too long. I think I’ve mentioned before that Americans are very rare in this part of China, and once you stand in one place more than two minutes, you tend to draw a crowd. So, before you know it, we have about two dozen people standing around us, all reaching in to touch Sam, and all reading our cards about why we are in China. The locals are very friendly and never pushy or rude, and this time I happened to back away and get a photo. We also had a student journalist from the University of Lanzhou stop us and two other couples on the way back to the hotel and ask about our adoptions. He said he wanted to write an article for one of his classes, so we talked to him for about five minutes.
One thing all six babies from Zhangye share in common is blowing raspberries! They do it a lot, and then giggle about it. None of the other babies do this, but all the Zhangye babies do. So if the first thing Sam does when she meets you is go Thhhuummpphh, (consider yourself warned- she sprays)!
Debbie reminded me to mention the journey to the restaurant last night. On some ventures, we take a large bus. Sometimes we walk, which we did last night. In front of our hotel is the main drag through Lanzhou; a six lane highway with a large tree filled median in the middle and a never ending flow of vehicles. To get to the restaurant, we had to cross this street without the help of traffic signals in a country where driving apparently involves seeing how close you can come to something without actually hitting it. When I say "traffic," it includes motor vehicles of all types plus about a million bicycles. The cyclists are everywhere, and tend to weave in and out between the pedestrians. Traffic signals mean about as much as the dirt on the ground here, and it’s a wonder there isn’t a wreck every five minutes. So, crossing a large highway like this was a bit scary, but when an opening in the traffic started to emerge, our fearless and tenacious Cindy marched out into the street and held up her hand then waved us across. Not sure if the traffic was going to agree with Cindy, we were all a bit hesitant, but started cautiously into the street anyway. Sure enough, the cars stopped, honked, but stayed at bay while Cindy held her hand up. As soon as the last stroller had passed, the vehicles all started turning sharply to go around us. Please do not try this at home without a very tenacious Chinese guide!
Friday, June 11th: Sam is running a slight fever today, and drooling a lot, which makes her a bit more fussy than usual. We hope this is related to teething, and wish there were more we could do. We have a small arsenal of baby medications we brought with us, as well as a baby medical reference guide.
This morning we took a trip down to the Yellow River to see a water wheel (still in use) as well as rafts made from inflated sheep skins. Some of the members in our group were bold enough to actually get on the raft and float around in the river: I was wise enough to stay on the bank and take pictures! Afterwards, we stopped at a monument by the river where a group of women were practicing a dance for the Moon Festival. This followed by lunch at the "Noodle" restaurant. This area is known for it’s regional specialty, noodles. We enjoyed the food and video taped the demonstration of how the noodles are made. I don’t think that Sam had ever seen a noodle before today, however, she caught on really quick, slurping them down as fast as we gave them to her!
Unfortunately, Sam’s fever continued to rise, spiking at about 102 this afternoon which made us more than a little nervous. So, we went on to the doctor today instead of waiting until tomorrow. Following Sam’s afternoon nap, she woke with a very raspy cough, and seemed a lot warmer than usual. We took her temp which had spiked to 102.5, so we called our guide who agreed we should go ahead see a doctor today. Cindy had the doorman of the hotel flag down a cab and off we went to the hospital. This was not a planned experience, but one worth writing about all the same. The Medical University Hospital is here in Lanzhou, so Cindy took us to the pediatrics department.
To begin, medical care is provided by the state in China, so there is no cost to the people who come to the hospital. Thus, if you have money to pay a "donation" to the different departments, you get to go ahead of everyone else. So, that’s what we did; actually, Cindy did that for us. I had taken out insurance for medical emergencies, plus brought a few thousand dollars plus credit cards with me, and felt that we could handle most emergencies; this wasn’t a real emergency, however, just a precaution against Sam getting worse. Anyway, Cindy just told me, "I’ll take care of everything, and you can pay me back when we return to the hotel." Within about 10 minutes of arriving at the hospital, Sam was already being examined despite the long lines we magically circumvented.
A pediatrician (professor at the medical school) examined her quite thoroughly and discussed her medical history with us. As he tried to examine her, no one could get her to open her mouth. The doctor said something in Chinese which Cindy translated; "He wants her to cry so he can look in her throat." At that moment, Cindy, Debbie, the doctor, and his assistant all looked at me! Okay, I’ll be the meany: I just hope she’s too young to remember this. I stepped forward and said her name really loud with a mean look on my face: That did it, and I felt horrible! As she began to cry and open her mouth, the doctor determined that Sam had an acute infection in her throat. He’d also determined that her lungs were clear, so the doctor gave her an I-V antibiotic with an oral follow-up antibiotic. We now believe that maybe her low grade temp and drooling over the past couple of days may have been the beginning of this, and perhaps not teething as we had suspected. We’ll also have a follow-up visit in a couple of days with the doctor in Guangzhou. Yet again, our guide Cindy proved astonishing. The doctor was very nice, and came by to check on Sam while she was receiving the I-V.
A word on the hospital: Sterile isn’t a word I’d use to describe it. One brief example: A little boy wearing split pants stopped in the middle of the hallway while Sam was being examined initially and peed on the floor. About two minutes later, a woman came down the entire length of the hallway mopping the floor. When she got to the puddle, she just sloshed it around and kept going! Disgusting, but true.
We were gone about two hours total, and Cindy stayed with us the entire time. What is even more astonishing is the fact that the total for medical care and taxi rides between the hotel and hospital was 130 yuan, or about $16 USD. We are thankful that Sam is alright and will be healthy again soon, and even more thankful for our guide Cindy. By the time we went to dinner, Sam was very close to her usual self, and we certainly felt better too! I told Debbie that since the cost of medical care was so cheap, we should go ahead and get Sam a boob job for later: Debbie was not amused, but most of the other families fell out laughing.
On a more difficult note, there was another abandoned baby in the treatment room where Sam got her I-V. This baby was only about a month old, and was born without a rectum. They are caring for her, but need to perform corrective surgery, and will not do so without a sponsor. Cindy picked up her cell phone while Sam was getting her IV, and called our adoption agency office in Beijing to ask if Great Wall China Adoptions will sponsor the operation. (Great Wall has a special program to help children with special needs). I asked Cindy later what would happen if they didn’t get a sponsor, to which she became very stone faced and simply said, "I can’t talk about something like that." I’m not sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. Soon thereafter a nurse came and moved us into a room. It’s hard for me to accept that the newborn baby I’ve just seen may die before we leave China; I wish there was something we could do.
That’s all for today, and not a lot of photos (it just didn’t seem right to take my camera into the hospital). Tonight we start packing up, as we have to get ready for an early start for our flight to Guangzhou tomorrow. I’ll send another update tomorrow night when we reach the hotel. TTFN
