First Day in Guangzhou

PICTURES: At the medical exam, my the water fall in the hotel, the fish on the pond in the hotel.

Well our flight was pretty uneventful. We were about 1.5 hours late in boarding and then sat on the place for about another 30 minutes but at least the air was on in the plane. Yanzi did great in the plane, she did not want to put her backpack under the seat, after she refused me two times I said fine, lets leave and grabbed her hand as if we were getting off the place. She immediately stopped an complied. I am starting to stand my ground more especially now that we are in Guangzhou. She gets the "mom stare" and understands that I mean business. She tries to push to get what she wants but as I stand my ground she has been folding pretty easily.

She also did great regarding NOT getting sick on the plane. I explained the special bags and even took a few for the car later, but there was no using them on the plane. She was not even scared on the place, except for the landing, which I was a little concerned. We did not land until about 9:15. We met our guide and another family and off to the hotel. Yanzi ended up sleeping in the car but did not get sick( I think that is her defense mechanism in the car). THings went smooth for check in and the kids got cleaned up and off to bed. I finished getting things ready for the morning because we needed to leave by 9:15am for the medical. THe room is great! WE have a suite and have lots of room so that we are not on top of each other.

I really like being here on what they call the island. It is more like a little outlet of land on a river that goes through the city. Once we got on the island, I felt like we were in a resort area. Fewer cars, the streets remind me of walking around in Savannah GA. THe hotel we are staying at is called the White Swan and is beautiful. It is big and fancy. THe breakfast buffet is the best yet, there is sooo much. THey also have a great pool that Dominic is dying to get into. THen there is a little river that runs through the hotel that has these amazing coy fish. I am sure that Dominic would take one home if he could. As for the weather..... it is HOT! THe humidity is very oppressive. The little walk we took to the medical appointment today made us sticky and sweaty before we even got to our appointment. They sky is overcast but I am not sure if it is the weather or smog. THe high today was 93 degrees F with about 150% humidity.

THe other great thing is that there are so many adoptive families. We have seen all the families from our agency and then the two families that we met on the plane here. We also met a family at breakfast who is from the Cincinnati area, I think we are going to have dinner with them.

So our activities for today were to get her visa photo taken and the medical exam. Photo no problem, except for no AC and we were all very hot. The medical exam not good for our little girl. First, there is some AC in the building but there were sooooo many families I could not even begin to guess. Every area we went to there were more families. We took care of the the payments first. They had said that Yanzi needed 3 shots! Yea that is pretty good (Chicken pox, FLu and DTaP). We then went back to the really cool area and had her weight/height, eyes checked, ENT and a doctor take a look at here. All went very quickly a pretty smooth. She weighs 16 KG which is about 35 pounds and about 3' 7.75 inches. ANd she know how to say AHHHHHH when looking in ther mouth. THe doctor kept checking out her spine about her scar and even asked another doctor to check it out and then they went on. Don't know what that is all about but we will get better answers when we get home. THen it was shot time, we were the first in our group and really thought she would be ok. You could tell she did not want to do it but I thought she would be tough. But once she got the TB test done, she started wailing and crying the entire time. THe thing that was so frustrating is that the nurses were so slow. Back home, if the kids get shots, the nurses get things set up and you are done just like that. I could not believe how slow they were between each shot. THen after is was all done and we got her to calm down( which see reached for me to comfort her---YAAAA!) I realized she had 4 bandaids. She had 4 shots!! What? I was so busy trying to calm her down that I did not even realize she had 4. Going back to look at the records she also got MMR. Well at that point it was over so what could I do. We will go back on Monday to have the TB read. SHe has has a BCG vaccine that usually causes a positive TB test so we may have to get a chest xray but we will see.

After a nap for Yanzi and unpacking, it was raining. Dominic really wanted to go swimming so Russ took him down while Yanzi and I went to the really nice play room here at the hotel. It is just as nice for the parents because we can all talk while the kids play. We then went to dinner with two families that we met just today. One was the family we met above and the other was a family that they had just met. We got a long great and had a wonderful evening eating at a Thai restaurant called the Cow and Bridge. It was great food and what was even more amazing was that both of the kids ate great. I am so amazed how God gives you little gifts that you are not even expecting or even asking for but tonight was one of them. Tonight we ate dinner with two other families that are all very strong Christians. We had so much in common and one only lives a few hours away from us. To think that when I woke up this morning, I did not even know these people existed. And then to have a wonderful dinner with total strangers.

I know that each day I say that Yanzi is getting better. But today she made really big strides. She ate more today than I think she had all week. She seems more ok with things in general. I am also starting to lay down a few more ground rules on how things need to be and even if she is not pleased with it, she doesn't get too upset about it. I think that being around other families that look like ours has really helped her understand that it is ok. She is not the only one that this is happening to. It is hard for me to believe at times that she is mine and she gets to come home with us, it just blows your mind away when you really start to think about it.

THank you all for your prayers again. I just can not say that enough. I have been through an adoption where things just always seem to be going wrong and it has been a blessing beyond imagination how things are going on this trip. Just seeing my little girl in bed with her eyes closed and hands together as I pray something that she does not even understand just melts my heart. Please continue to pray that things go well with Yanzi's TB test. Here arm looked ok tonight but you never know. I like this place but not enough to stay here a few more weeks.

Blessings to you all.