Gotcha Day Confirmed

We will be meeting Mia on the very day we arrive in Nanchang, which is 4 days before our 10th wedding anniversary.

About Colors and Clothes, Fingers and Toes

Red is the color of celebration in China, and white is the color of mourning. Thus, one should avoid dressing a child in white while traveling in China. In other words, white may go with anything, but it doesn't go over too well in China. Guess we'll have to leave at home all those 6-12 month size onesies (white) we bought from the Carter’s store.
As you can see from Mia’s first photos at the bottom of the page, the Chinese believe in dressing their children in lots of layers. Those photos were taken in April, which is plenty warm where Mia lives. We’ve been instructed to let her slowly adjust to wearing fewer clothes, and to keep her arms and feet covered as is considered proper. Mia may show quite a fascination with her own fingers and toes at first, largely because when one is dressed like the Michelin Man, one doesn’t get a close-up look at one’s fingers and toes too often.

Travel Dates Confirmed

For security reasons, we're not listing our departure date, but friends and family will know what it means when I say we'll be leaving exactly 1 week before our 10th wedding anniversary, and Mia will join our family 3 or 4 days before our anniversary (her exact arrival date is still TBD).
We cashed in over 10 years worth of Northwest Worldperk miles yesterday for 2 business class seats. As I spoke with the airline, I was glad my [Donna's] father had impressed on me the value of "delayed gratification."
We couldn't get the ideal routing, so we'll be taking some long flights and lots of 'em. If anyone has book recommendations for me, please leave them in the Comments section.
This week we've corresponded with 3 other adoptive families whom we'll meet up with in China. In a couple of weeks, I'm sure we'll be fast friends. Fortunately, there is at least one experienced mother in the group. I can hear it already - "Hey, it's Donna again. Do babies usually do this, or do we need to call the Dr.?"
Now, back to that packing list!

Today's Chinese Culture Lesson: Split Pants

The Chinese have a custom of dressing babies in what they call "split pants", instead of diapers. These are basically regular pants with open seams in the crotch. I can't imagine how that would work, but I guess we'll find out. Fortunately, the adoptive families are allowed to diaper their children.

Next Steps and Timing

A few families who are working with other adoption agencies received their travel authorizations today. Our agency is hopeful they'll receive the TA's for our group fairly soon, which would make it likely that we'll travel in mid-September rather than November. Here are the steps in the process:

1. The drop-dead date for receiving the TA's is 8/31. If they don't arrive by then, we'll travel in November.
2. As soon as the TA's are received, the agency will contact the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou to make the necessary appointments to complete the adoption.
3. Assuming they are able to book the appointments for late September, we'll leave mid-September. We'll get our baby on the 4th day of the trip. We'll probably meet her in a hotel lobby.

By the way, we'll be meeting our baby in the city of Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province. We will not be able to visit the orphanage, which is 3 hours away. If you'd like to learn more about Nanchang:

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/jiangxi/nanchang/

Still Waiting for Travel Authorization

We are not sure yet when we'll be leaving for China. By 8/31, we'll have a better idea whether we'll be spending Mia's first birthday with her or not. At this point it is out of our hands. In the meantime, we are gathering documents (How many pieces of paper can this possibly take?) and trying to figure out what to pack. The Internet isn't all that helpful. Too many opinions, too many packing lists. Combine that with first-time parent jitters and it is a recipe for confusion. Luckily, we have a couple of friends who have agreed to be our packing consultants.

Take a look at Mia's Playard. (Yeah, the one with Some Assembly Required, Batteries Not Included.) Isn't it cute?

I think she'll be a little old for the mobile, but we set the whole thing up just to get the full picture.

Some Assembly Required, Batteries Not Included

Every couple of days, something happens that makes us realize, "WE'RE REALLY GOING TO BE PARENTS!!" This weekend it was setting up Mia's new Graco Playard (that's the modern version of a playpen, in case you were wondering). Donna's family sent us the play yard, and it is really cool. It has lots of attachments, including a bassinet, changing table, mobile, and a unit that plays music or nature sounds. Donna did OK at first. She got the base unit up in no time, then she got to the bassinet, which has several different sized metal poles. The instructions have those lovely black and white line drawings where all the parts look the same and you can't tell which end is up. Fortunately, there is a Daddy in this house who is a bit more mechanically inclined than the Mommy. Plus, he has a Ph.D., so you KNOW he knows how to figure stuff out. Well, eventually Daddy got it all put together. (All the while Mommy was saying, "Don't force that, you might break it!" and "The supplies caddy should be next to the changing table, not on the opposite end. You can't take your hands off the baby while you are changing her!").
But then we couldn't figure out why the sound and light show didn't work. Daddy said it must need batteries, but Mommy argued, "It doesn't SAY you need batteries." (Don't ask Donna exactly how she thought this thing was powered. Solar panels, maybe?) Well, you guessed it, eventually Jeff figured out where to insert the batteries, but I assure you it was NOT obvious. I might add that the music maker has quite a classical repertoire, including Brahms' Lullaby and Debussy's Claire de Lune. We're sure Mia will like it a lot.

Drumroll, please...

And the new middle name is..... Lin!

At the suggestion of my sister Lisa, we searched for a Chinese girl's name to replace "Lu" as Mia's middle name. We found a great list online, but when you eliminate all the names that have a negative meaning in English ("Rong" comes to mind) or Chinese, those starting with X's and Z's, those with too many vowels in a row, and all otherwise undesirable names, we came up with a very short list of names for consideration. Eight to be exact. Jeff and I immediately agreed on Lin, which means "beautiful jade."
And, yes, my middle name is Lynn, but that was just a coincidence!

No Lu for You

You may already know that I consider myself bad at naming things. When I got Sam (that was well before I got Jeff), someone else came up with her name and I merely approved it. Clearly, naming a child has more significance than naming a poodle. Over the past 5 days, we received 2 new bits of information that led us to conclude that "Lu" is not the right middle name for Mia.

1. We received the translation that explained "Lu" means "hut" in Chinese.


2. Today, I discovered that Lu is a male name in China. In fact, one website said it is the 10th most popular name for boys.
   

We have decided to look for another Chinese name for Mia's middle name.

Mia's Room

It is starting to look like a baby lives here. The nursery furniture arrived last Friday. We also got a high chair and play yard from Donna's family. Donna has been buying baby clothes in 9 and 12 month sizes, since we can only guess how much Mia will have grown since her 6 month checkup on April 30.

Our Little Apricot

We received the translated document called the growth report. The 2-page report explains the meaning of Mia's Chinese name, and provides a window into the first 6 months of her life. Part of her name is the same as other children in her Social Welfare Institute (SWI). The unique part of her name is Xing (pronounced sseeng), which means apricot. When we look at her photos, we can see the resemblance.
The report also says Mia sleeps through the night, is not a picky eater, and likes watching TV. They said, "She will become particularly excited when seeing animals on TV." We hope that means she and Sam will get along well.

Mia's Best Friend?

Ya gotta love the worldwide web. We put a link to our blog on another blog that is a resource for families adopting from China. I got a message from a woman who just got a referral last week from the same orphanage where Mia lives. Her daughter is one month younger than Mia, so it is entirely possible that they are living in the same crib as we speak.

We returned our acceptance of the referral to the adoption agency today. A very official-looking document in English and Chinese. I also talked to the agency's travel department. They say it is touch-and-go as to whether we'll be able to leave on September 13. If you are a praying person, please pray that our travel authorization comes quickly!

The Doctor says... "Fantastic!"

We've had an interesting weekend. On Friday night at 6:30, I got a call from the pediatrician's office informing me that the physician that I'd thought was lined up review the baby's medical report on Saturday would be unavailable with no access to phones, faxes, or email until August 13. (You may notice that that particular physician's name no longer appears in my last post. Probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.) I was unhappy. The nurse offered to give me the name of another physician who could review an international adoption report. "Well, please give me the name of some doctors on the West Coast, because nobody else is going to answer their phone at this hour." They gave me a few names and numbers, and I got lucky on the first try. We agreed to scan and email the report to the new doctor on Saturday. Assuming there were no serious issues, we'd breathe a sigh of relief and accept the referral.

The baby's medical report arrived on Saturday. Physically putting our hands on it was more difficult than it should have been, but that is one story that is better not shared on the World Wide Web. A few hours I got a call from the doctor, a wonderful man in southern California. He reviewed the translated report with me line by line, summing up with, "If this report is true, this is fantastic!" (He quickly reassured me by saying the reports are usually pretty accurate!) As of April 30, the baby was very healthy, well fed, and developmentally right where she should be at 6 months. We're thrilled. We've signed the papers and will send them to our agency tomorrow. Mia Lu will be ours soon. Next step is to wait for our travel approvals from China.

When are we going?
We hope (and expect) to leave for China by September 13. That date is quite significant for at least two reasons:

1. If we don't leave by Sept 13, we have to wait until Nov 1. A national holiday and 2 trade shows in Guangzhou make travel in October impossible.
2. If we do leave by Sept 13, Mia will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary with us.
   P.S. The customary gift for one's tenth wedding anniversary is tin or aluminum. I don't see anything about babies.

Meet Mia Lu

In Italian, Mia means "You're mine". Mia is also a common name in Sweden, where Jeff's maternal grandparents emigrated from. We've decided to use Mia's given name, Lu, as her middle name.
Mia's medical and growth reports are currently being translated into English. We hope to get the report by email today or Monday, then we'll forward it to a local pediatrician who is a specialist in international adoptions.

The Stork Has Landed!

We just got the call. Below is some information about our daughter-to-be.
She was born in November, 2006. The report describes her as follows: Moderate sleeper, sits on her own pretty well, can locate the sound and direction of your voice, laughs readily, eats biscuits without help, active and restless, ready smile, fond of playing games.
The agency will be emailing her picture in a few hours, but they say she is a cutie with chubby cheeks, "obviously a good eater." I'll post the photo when we receive it.

August 1 - All's Quiet on the Referral Front

No word on when we can expect our referral. Timing of previous months' referrals suggest it could come any day now, but probably sometime next week. No guarantees, of course. People keep asking me how I can stand the wait. My response is that I try not to think about it too much-- our adoption agency has all of our phone numbers, and they will track us down when the package arrives at their office. (Ok, I do admit that I check the "Rumor Queen" blog about twice a day to see if anyone else has heard anything.)