This morning, we completed all of our registration and interviews for Alexander’s adoption into our family through the Shanxi provincial government in downtown Taiyuan. It’s a little comical that we’re here, because although he was found in Shanxi province, he was transferred to a foster home in Beijing and was there up until early yesterday morning. His caregiver and nurse both traveled from Beijing (where we just came from!) to Taiyuan to assist with the placement.

Because Alexander has a pretty severe cleft, eating is a major challenge for him. Up until about a month ago, the foster home used a naso-gastric tube for his feedings, but they were successful in transitioning him to a bottle before placement. Yesterday was a challenge, to say the least, in learning how to feed him and understanding our little man. Thanks to our agency representative and the Beijing nurse, we were all sitting around in our hotel room while we watched Alexander demonstrate how he likes to eat. Through trial and error, this morning, we came to the conclusion that he uses his pacifier as a tool to close his cleft lip in order to swallow. What initially seemed like a really stubborn boy who kept putting his pacifier in while we were trying to feed him was actually him trying to swallow after each sip. Once we learned his technique, we were in business. The foster home, nurses, and doctor all said that he was a fussy eater– but we’ve found out that he just has a very specific method. By the time we got back to Civil Affairs this morning, we had our routine down, and all the officials and staff seemed really relieved that we are starting to unravel the logic of this tiny boy.

Registration and interviews were uneventful. I fed Alexander (he needs to eat every 3 hours) while answering pretty hefty questions asked by the government official — why do you want to be this boy’s parent? Do you understand what you’re doing? Our answers were sufficient, and soon we were signing papers and sealing with our fingerprints. Little Alexander had to provide a footprint– which he was NOT thrilled about.

Now, we’re free to relax until our trip tomorrow to Pingyao.  Unfortunately, Taiyuan isn’t the most tourist-friendly city, and the environmental conditions are very unpleasant. I’m sure you’ve read about pollution levels in Beijing, and Taiyuan makes Beijing look fantastic.  Shanxi is known as the country’s supplier of coal– and Taiyuan’s appearance looks like Pittsburgh circa 1920. Yesterday after a big rain storm, on our way to meet Alexander, the sky was blue– everyone was standing around and pointing up; apparently they get about 2 weeks of blue sky a year!  Today, sadly it was back to a cloudy grey– with the smog making most buildings hard to see from our hotel room window.  We ventured out yesterday but realized pretty quickly that there’s very little way to tell what buildings are restaurants, which are pharmacies, and which are office buildings. The only buildings we can decipher are governmental ones, because they are massive and usually well-guarded.  We see room service and talking quietly while our little man naps in our future!

Brian showing Alexander a family album

It wasn’t quite as much paperwork as a mortgage, but we understood it even less.

Alexander makes his mark, with his foot.

Our family with two officials from the Social Welfare Institute

The kid zonked once we got back in the car.

I present to you, Alexander Thomas Kelly!

He enjoyed the car ride back to the hotel.

He liked his time in the baby carrier.

But you know what he doesn’t like? Eating and sleeping. Hates those. We’re figuring things out, but it’s certainly no easier than we expected. I foresee a long night and some difficult days, but we’re doing our best to welcome him into our family. Please keep all three of us in your prayers.

Greetings from Tiayuan, Shanxi, China! Our flight from Beijing was only about an hour, but it departed about two hours late. No worries. I just played more Plants vs Zombies.

We’re settling into our room, and preparing baby stuff. Extra change of clothes, a few diapers, etc. It seems all the lights and plugs are controlled by a Byzantine combination of various switches, but we at least got some water boiling.

Tomorrow, we meet our son, but today we met Bill, our guide from here on out. Bill works for our agency and comes with quite a reputation. He is a seasoned veteran of Chinese adoption. We really enjoyed our time with our Beijing guide, Chen, who left us with a gift for Alexander: a set of chop sticks emblazoned with a dragon, since Alexander was born in the year of the dragon. Now we’re looking forward to getting to know Bill.

We have a large room, but it seems much smaller, since there is also a crib in here. Seeing that as we walked in was striking. Oh yes, this is happening.

Here are a few random photos we took today.

The lobby of our hotel in Beijing

Ready for our ride back to the airport

Our flight was delayed, but our spirits stayed high.

We woke up yesterday morning to overcast skies and a much cooler temperature. We were quite grateful that our guide rearranged our schedule after looking at the weekend forecast to push most of the outdoor touring yesterday. I don’t even want to imagine walking the Great Wall in the rain…

at Tian’anmen Square

Armed with hotel umbrellas, we continued on our 2-day Beijing or bust tour. We started our touring at Tian’anmen Square, where guards were plentiful and the tourists even more so. We walked through the square past Chairman Mao’s mausoleum (which was open, a fairly rare thing) through the underground passageway to the Forbidden City.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Forbidden City, at one time it was the emperor’s private residence. To get to his residence, you’d pass through 9 very large gates. (Side note- the number 9 is very important in Chinese culture, especially to royalty.)  One of the distinctive features of the Forbidden City is that the doorway to most gates in royal architecture is raised so that you have to lift your foot up and over each threshold. This was a way that those entering the gates were forced to show deference to the emperor by bowing slightly in order to not trip when stepping over the rise. They’re also a great way to trip tourists who are being herded through gates– hypothetically of course!

Outside the Forbidden City

One of the gates with raised threshold

Passing through gates to the Forbidden City

Today’s lunch was at one of Chen’s favorite childhood restaurants– a very small restaurant tucked away on an upper floor in a Beijing neighborhood. We had fantastic fresh pickled cucumbers, various bao (steamed buns), and dumpling soup. It’s been really educational to eat lunch with our guide and driver, as we’ve been able to share stories and learn a lot about each other’s culture. For example– in Beijing, the government pays students to attend college– and larger amounts if they leave their home province. It was comical to explain to them that most American students have college debts for years after graduating! I also reached a milestone today in experiencing my first non-Western restroom of the trip. I won’t get into details here, but I am glad that I got a little practice in before we are in-province tomorrow.

We visited a silk factory, complete with silk worms, which was very educational but also a little too touristy for our taste. We’ve both noticed that Chinese vendors are persistent– very, very persistent.  It can be very difficult to firmly say that you don’t want to buy anything; we stayed strong and didn’t leave with any large, silk duvets.

Our final touring for the day was the Temple of Heaven, formerly the emperor’s temple and now a huge park mostly populated by retired locals and home to the iconic Temple of Good Harvest. Brian took some great footage of this– it’s very common to find strangers gathering together to sing folk songs spontaneously or others dancing with ribbons out in the open in this park. I’ll admit that it seemed a little unusual, but our guide said this is often where professional entertainers and dancers go after retiring so they can still show off their skills. As we moved closer to the Temple of Good Harvest, it was difficult at times because people would just start clumping and breaking out into song and blocking walkways.

At the Temple of Good Harvest

We capped our day by attending an acrobatics show. We were a bit skeptical at first, but it was incredible! Tonight, we actually stayed awake for dinner and found a great ramen restaurant. We had to resort to pointing and nodding quite a bit, but it was a good cap to Beijing. Today we fly out early in the morning from Beijing to Taiyuan in order to meet Alexander TOMORROW! It’s so hard to believe that we’ll be parents to a 15-month old in less than 48 hours. I’m a little nervous about our first Chinese domestic flight, but it’ll just be one more first to add to the record books for this adventure.

for Rachel and Jon- 8 girls, 3 bikes! Later, there were all 8 girls on 1 bike. Madness!

Waiting for the show to begin

Yesterday was the longest day of the year. No, really. I’ll begin with the end of the day– we were returned to our hotel, where we stumbled out of the car to our room. We didn’t even make it to dinner– apparently I passed out on the bed in my bathrobe with the television remote in my hand. So yes, it was a long day. A good day, but a long one! Continue reading →