Call us lucky

When we received our referral for Amelia we though we were lucky in that we would travel straight to Guangzhou from Beijing instead of heading to the interior of the country before going to Guangzhou. All families must travel through this city in order to complete the necessary paper for the adoption with the US consulate. As we have spoken to other families that we met in Beijing or elsewhere in our travels we have started to realize that we are extraordinarily lucky to be here for the majority of our trip. We have heard of 10 hour bus rides, 5 hour delays at airports, unsafe conditions of the hotels, endless wait times waiting on government appointments and food poisoning. We were told a story today about a family that met their 21 month old special needs child who was staying in foster care. When the time came the foster mother refused to give her up, the child had to be physically removed from the foster mothers arms…I could not imagine having to go through that. We on the other hand, have a personal guide who gets us in and out of every appointment, a great hotel, decent food and we never fear for our safety. Our time is spent shopping, going to the zoo, playing at the pool, nursing sunburns and getting nails done (yes, Sue got her nails done).

Amelia’s transition is going quite well, she is starting to attach to us and puts up a fuss when one of the 3 of us walks away from her. She laughs and giggles with us, she plays with Madi and protects her toys if she thinks Madilyn might take them. This evening I put my hands out to pick her up, a gesture I have done a thousand times with Madi, never expecting a reaction fro her but she lifted her arms as to say ‘yes, please pick me up’. A simple thing, yes, but to me it meant that she is starting to understand and embrace us as a family which is an amazing thing for such a short period of time and for such a young child who has undoubtedly been though some trauma. She has yet to hug me and still does not quite understand a kiss but we will get all that worked out in time.

Amelia has a long road to travel before she will be what we would consider a normal 11 month old child. She eats nothing but formula and rice cereal from a bottle, she winces when she is presented with food on a spoon. She never puts anything in her mouth so she cannot self feed and she is quite a ways from having the strength in her legs to stand. Intellectually though she seems to be quite in tune with her environment, she watches us intently and is very curious, she will play with anything we give her and is a happy baby.

We are very fortunate to have all things on this trip go as well as they have. Very fortunate.