We're Home!

First of all, apologies for the lateness of this blog post!  The transition home has been quite challenging over the past few days.  Just an advanced warning that this post will be fairly long since we haven't written since just before our last bedtime in Hong Kong!

It was a huge blessing to stay at a hotel that was connected to the Hong Kong airport.  We woke up, packed our things, and 10 minutes later we had walked right up to the Delta counter.  After checking our bags, we made it through security with no issues and headed to our gate.  Several other adopting families were on the same flight, so Helen got to play with some new friends while we waited.

We boarded the plane on schedule and settled into row 31 for the long trek to Detroit.  We had upgraded to Delta's "Economy Comfort" section, and we even were able to secure the front bulkhead row.  What a blessing!  We had lots of legroom and Helen could sit on the floor to play from time to time.  Helen got a bit fussy throughout the flight, but nothing beyond what you'd expect from a typical one-year-old.  In fact, we're quite proud of how well she did!  She even slept for a five-hour stretch.  Mom and Dad, on the other hand, were awake the whole time.

Our flight landed at DTW and it was off to Customs.  We had to claim all of our checked luggage and go through the standard Customs line, and next we were whisked off to the immigration line to process Helen's documents.  Our family was third in line, and we thought, "this won't be so bad!"  Then we talked to the gentleman that was next in line.  He told us he had been standing there for 90 minutes!  They had one single agent working all permanent immigrations, and there were several adopting families now in line with us (and some kids screaming their heads off).  They finally opened up two more windows for all of the adopting families and we went through with no issues.

Next, it was off to another line to have our luggage rescanned and re-checked.  The agent asked us "What made you decide to adopt from a foreign country instead of the US?"  He was kind of gruff, so we thought it was a formal question.  We explained how we wanted to adopt a child as young as possible, which is challenging in the US.  We also explained that there are a lot of unknowns with domestic adoptions, and that there's a period of time where the birth parents can reclaim their rights and take a child back.  We also explained that we've always wanted to adopt and that there are millions of children out there that need a family.  The agent said, "Thanks, I always ask that question just for my own knowledge.  Congratulations!"  Turns out we weren't being grilled at all, but it was still a good opportunity to share with this gentleman.

We grabbed some bagels & coffee, and then it was off to our gate to head back to good ol' CID.... to the first assigned gate, that is.  A pretty huge rainstorm was covering Detroit, and all of the flight schedules were a mess!  Long story short, our flight to Cedar Rapids switched gates three times and got delayed twice.  We were on the verge of tears, because our flight was now taking off at the time we were supposed to be walking into the CID terminal!  After we arrived at the fourth assigned gate, we boarded our last leg home.

We must have had a good tailwind for the flight home, because it only took us about an hour until we were on the ground.  We walked through the terminal and were enthusiastically greeted by Ella and Myles!  What a wonderful family reunion!  We had honestly been pretty down in the dumps for the latter half of our time in China because we missed them so much.  People ask us what the most difficult part of the trip was, and we can answer with confidence that it was being away from our other children.  We were also greeted by some pretty amazing friends that came to meet us and Helen.  We'll let pictures tell the story:

That brings us to today.  It's Monday, July 30.  We've been home as a family of five for three days now, and as we said earlier, it's been a challenge.  We've been to Kenya twice, and Steve's been all over the world for work (Singapore, Paris, etc), but we've never experienced jetlag this bad.  So we've been dealing with two parents with jetlag, a toddler with jetlag plus adjusting to a 13 hour time difference after being on China time her entire 17-month life, and two other kids at home full of energy and bouncing off the walls!  Helen is having a hard time getting her days and nights switched around, but each night has been a little better than the last.

So, the past few days have been chaos, but it's a wonderful chaos.  Yes, we're exhausted.  Yes, we've had three nights with pretty much no sleep.  Yes, we just want Helen to sleep all night so we can get into the "new normal".  However, we're all safe, we're all healthy, and we're all together under the same roof.  We're HOME!  We know that Helen's sleep schedule will get on track.  We know that we'll catch up on our sleep.  Most importantly, we know that we're blessed beyond measure by a wonderful Creator that has brought three amazing welcome additions to the Adolphs family.

We'll end with a few pictures from Helen's first days at home as an Iowan. :-)

Bye-Bye Guangzhou, Hello Again Hong Kong (China Day 14)

We've spent our last night of sleep in Guangzhou!  Helen has been fighting sleep big time over the past few days, and it seems to be some sort of coping mechanism.  The poor little thing has been through a lot over the past two weeks, leaving everything she's ever known and being handed over to two complete strangers.  We can't say we blame her for being somewhat emotional.  This morning we went downstairs for our last hotel breakfast buffet, finished most of our packing, and decided to have one last adventure out on the town.  And where do you go when there's nothing else to do?

Yep, Chinese Walmart!  :-)  The Walmart here was about 20 minutes away via taxi, on the lower level of a huge shopping mall.  We entered the building into what must be the Chinese verison of Macy's; a six-story department store called Wanda.  We liked the warnings on the escalator:

After we "pleasa took care of kid", and again "took care of our children" (so important they made rules #3 and #4 on a 2nd sign), we made it out into the mall area and ventured up to the third level of the mall where the "food court" was located.  Hmmm, where to have lunch...  A good ol' US standby?

FruiteLife?  Happy Lemon?  Somewhere that seemingly promises "amorous feelings"?  An organic store ("Natural Is Best", they claim)?

Nah, we settled on this place.  It was pretty much the only place in the mall *without* any English on its name:

We ordered (well, we think we ordered) black pepper chicken, some kind of beef dish, and fried dumplings.    The meals even came with pickled mushrooms (not a fan) and a fruity drink that tasted like Sunny Delight...

Other than the beef being mostly tendons and fat, the food was delicious.  We even ordered a second helping of the fried dumplings, and our total bill was still under $10 US.  We've never had such hot (temperature-wise) dishes served to us in our lives!  Seriously, we would have scalded our hands on the bowl, and it made us sweat just sitting near them.  We ate too much food, but it was really nice to have one last authentic Chinese meal before leaving Guangzhou.  


Then came the moment we were waiting for!

We were greeted by the most popular children's character in China emblazoned onto backpacks, Pleasant Goat.  Side note:  Steve bought a Pleasant Goat DVD, and it's all Chinese with Chinese subtitles.  If anyone in Cedar Rapids wants to come over and watch it, we can talk.

Next we came to the... *ahem*... "fresh" meat portion of the store.  Mmmmm-boy, there's nothing like the smell of freshly deceased fish, squid, and various other animal parts!  Glad we had lunch first.

At this point a manager came out, and we'll just say he "firmly insisted" that Steve put the camera away.  Sorry to say we didn't get any pictures of the huge live frogs, prawns, squid, etc.; nor were we able to get any pictures of housewares, clothing, or other groceries.  Oh well, the dead animal section was definitely the most... interesting.

We finished packing our luggage in the afternoon while Helen protested yet another nap.  We received all of the final adoption paperwork and loaded up the van back to Hong Kong.  It was a little bit cramped, but it definitely beat the train station.  It took us just over three hours to arrive at our hotel, and that included our time at the border customs stop.  The driver handed them our passports & paperwork, they looked us over, took our temperatures with a remote sensor, and we were on our way.

It's 9:30pm right now (we started this post earlier in the afternoon; there's no way we'd have enough energy for all those Walmart pictures as tired as we are now!), and we just scarfed down a bit of Chinese food from a hotel restaurant.  We ate in the hallway to make sure we didn't wake Helen up.  :-)  We can't believe that we're about to go to sleep for the last time in China!  We'll head to the airport first thing in the morning to catch our much-dreaded 15+ hours enroute to Detroit.  HUGE prayer request:  pray that Helen does well on the flight!  Also pray the three of us transition back to Central Time quickly for the sake of the other two kids.  

We're not sure if we'll have the energy to post on our blog right after we return home, but we'll recap our last part of the travel adventure as soon as we can.  Thanks so much to each of you that's followed along with our journey to bring this wonderful little girl home!  The past 15 months have been a whirlwind at times and full of impatience/waiting at other times, but looking back we can see God's hand through it all.  He brought this little girl into this world to be a part of our family.  We are definitely blessed to have three amazing children alongside us for the journey we call life.

Final Appointment Finished! (China Day 13)

That's right, we had our very last adoption-related appointments here today!  We headed to the US Consulate early this morning.  The Consulate is located on the 5th floor of a building downtown.  We had to wait in line for awhile to enter, and it felt strange seeing so many American flags and hearing people speaking clear English.  All adoptive families present had to take a formal oath, followed by a paperwork check and a signature on one last piece of paper.  We turned Helen's Chinese passport over to the US Government so they can add her US Visa.  Cameras weren't allowed inside the Consulate, but we got a few pictures from outside the secure area.

Best of all, we have Helen's official adoption decree in our hands!  

We were back to our hotel by 10:00am, and at 11:00am we had an exit meeting with our agency in the hotel.  After our (hopefully) final Guangzhou McDonald's lunch, we just bummed around the hotel room for the rest of the day.  Helen pretty much skipped her nap, so she was more feisty than usual at times.  She learned quickly which things are no-no's to touch (computer, remote control, etc).  She holds out one little finger... slowly moves it toward the forbidden object... and slowly moves her eyes up to meet yours.  She kept getting into EVERYTHING today.  Digging bottles out of the garbage, throwing diapers all over the room...  Cute, but naughty.  That's our little girl.

We joined the two adopting families with from our agency that were also in Guangzhou the entire time for a pizza party this evening (takeout from a place called "Tomato's" and it was great).  After finishing up a bunch of pizza and spaghetti, the guys headed down to 7-11 to buy Magnum bars for the whole group.  Helen had her first taste of ice cream tonight, and she LOVED it!  In true Helen fashion, she scowled as the first taste hit her mouth...

The passport and other final documents will be delivered to our hotel at 4:30pm tomorrow.  We'll immediately hop in a van for the long drive back to Hong Kong.  Please continue to pray for a break in the bad weather down south, that we will arrive safely by van, and that we'll fly out on time Friday morning. We're 100% ready to get back home to our other kiddos.  We miss them terribly!  One more sleep in Guangzhou, one more sleep in Hong Kong, and then many more sleeps in our own comfortable bed with the five Adolphs family members under the same roof, right where we all belong!