10/30/11 - Our First Two Months Home

I am so sorry for not getting the last 2 days of our trip posted until now. Our first 2 months home has been a whirlwind of adjustment and activity. From pediatrician visits, lab tests, pediatric ophthalmologist visits, and retinal scans. To completing various kinds of paperwork for health insurance, SS card, MO birth certificate, and other items. We are happy to report that Jacob is a perfectly healthy 2 year old. They had done the ultrasound with the retinal specialist to rule out any tumors behind his eye that we might need to be concerned about. Praise God there weren’t any.
Having a new member in our family is a joyful experience, but has been and continues to be a big adjustment for all of us, even our dog Lucy. I know it must be difficult for Jacob to be taken from all he has known his whole life and the only people he has loved to live with a “momma and baba” he doesn’t know that well, and to a totally different environment from what he is used to. There were a lot of temper tantrums and yelling (really squealing) in the beginning. Even more so than what is normal for a 2 year old. One of our friends told us that this could be his way of grieving since he didn’t really cry when his foster family left. I think this could very well be as boys tend to grieve differently than girls do on the whole. It also has to be frustrating for him as he can’t talk yet to tell us what he wants or what is bothering him. But, he is good about pointing to what he wants and communicates in that way. He is also still having issues sleeping all the way through the night without waking up and coming into our room. There more nights that he does this than not. He also has had some night terrors on occasion.
He did not care for Lucy at all in the beginning. He yelled at her each time she came near him. She didn’t understand why someone, especially a child, didn’t like her. I think she sort of got depressed because after awhile she would just go hide in another part of the room. This eventually passed though and now he loves on her, tries to ride her, and lies on top of her when she is lying on the floor. He even likes to put the food in her bowl and give her a treat when we leave to go somewhere. They are buddies now. He still lets her know about it when she gets in his way though, LOL.
I think the adjustment has been the most difficult for big sister Ellie. I know many times she just sees Jacob as an annoyance even though she loves him. She doesn’t understand why he has to follow her around all the time, get into her stuff, and play with her stuff while she is playing with it. She also doesn’t understand why he has to take up so much of mommy and daddy’s time. We have tried to reassure her that it is because he is 2 and all 2 year olds are very needy. And, he is also insecure and unsure about us still. But, there have still been many emotional breakdowns with tears because she feels like “we don’t love her anymore” or “don’t love her as much as Jacob.” Even with all the reassurances I’m sure she is still thinking “why does this newcomer have to come in and mess everything up?” This is evident in her attitudes sometimes when she just yells at Jacob.
By the grace of God we are slowly adjusting and it gets a little better every day. Most days Jacob is a silly little boy who likes to act goofy and entertain us. We have had many fun and joyful times for which we praise God. We also praise God for His sustaining grace to make it through the more difficult times. Next week we have our first post adoption visit with our social worker. In a couple of weeks Jacob is going to St. Luke’s to be put under anesthesia while they do a more extensive scan of his left cornea and behind the eye to see if there is any possible repairs that can be done to restore the sight in that eye. In the meantime the doctors have given him a pair of protective glasses to wear to protect his right eye and preserve his eyesight in it. To put it in his mom’s words “they are a cute blue pair of glasses that make him look quite handsome.” We have also had fun cheering on the St Louis Cardinals to the World Series Champs!!! Jacob loves the Cardinals. He can say Albert & Cardinals. He had lots of fun jumping up & down cheering during the games with Mommy & Ellie. Daddy doesn’t do much jumping only cheering. Mommy had a feeling we would win the World Series this year…we won in 2006 when we adopted Ellie & now have won in 2011 after adopting Jacob. Just a fun piece of trivia for our family.

Day 14 – Flight Home from Hong Kong! 9-01-11

We got up and got ready as quickly as we could this morning. We dragged all of our bags back down to the lobby to check out (we weren’t inclined to wait around for the bellboys this morning.) Fortunately, it didn’t take nearly as long for me to get checked out as checked in. We grabbed a luggage cart by the sky bridge and headed for the airport. We went back to Burger King for breakfast, (since I already knew where it was), then we headed for the departure area. It was a good thing we got there when we did as the line to the United Airlines check in counter was already very long. By the time we got to the front to get our boarding passes and check our bags, the line had tripled in length. Before, going through customs Trish went into this toy store she had spotted. She wanted to find some more toys that might keep Jacob entertained during our 14 hour flight back to Chicago.
Next stop was customs and security and again another line to wait in, but at least this one was moving fairly quickly. Once inside the gate area we had to still find our gate. Mercifully God guided us and did not allow us to get lost. We just followed the signs which took us to another set of escalators which went down. We opted for the elevator instead. When we got to the lower level we followed the signs again which took us to a train that said it was going to our gate area in Terminal 1. We get on the train which made a couple of stops before arriving at our gate area. There was a nice Chinese man on the train who spoke English and was on the same flight as ours back to Chicago. He helped us to get off at the correct station. Again, there was another escalator going up to the gate area. Again, we opted for the elevator. After making it up to the upper level we again followed the signs to our gate area. It was still a long walk before we got there, but we finally made it with enough time for all of us to go to the bathroom. I also had time to track down some snacks for Jacob and momma to have on the plane. For Jacob that meant some sort of crackers and fruit chews. For momma, that meant some sort of chocolate. I made it back just a few minutes before the plane started boarding.
The boarding lines for the different airplane sections were very disorganized. A lady motioned us over to the business section loading side because we had a child. We showed her our tickets and thought we were supposed to go ahead and board. We started down the gang plank and she started hollering at us and got all irate because had left the front. Apparently we still had to have the boarding clerk at the podium check our passports and tickets again. She made us stand there while the rest of the business folks loaded and then they checked our passports and let us go on down. We are thinking, so why did you call us on over? We get to the end of the gang plank and they are checking everyone’s carryon bags again. We had to open all of our bags for them to look through again. So that’s 6 total bags (2 each) they looked through. We finally get on the plane and our seats are almost all the way back in the tail of the plane. I was not having fun trying to get all of our carryon bags to our seats and in the overhead. We settled into our seats to await take off with Jacob in the seat between us.
The flight home was very long and went smoother than I had anticipated. Jacob only had a few squealing/crying meltdowns from being contained in the seat. None of us were able to sleep very much on the way home. So it was a challenge keeping Jacob entertained. Jacob enjoyed putting the lap trays up and down. He finally layed across all 3 of them and fell asleep for about 1 ½ hrs. This was a little challenging for Trish & I go to slide out to use the bathroom or do much of anything. We were very happy and grateful when it was time to land in Chicago.
As soon as we had departed the plane and set his feet on U.S. soil Jacob officially became a U. S. Citizen praise God! Yeah!! We celebrated briefly but had to move on as we were blocking the walkway. The first stop after departing the plane we had to go through Customs. Customs went smoothly and the next stop was claiming our luggage. Next we were off to Immigration with our luggage to give them our prize USCS brown envelope. We had to sit and wait until they called our name. They eventually called Trish up with Jacob. They processed his citizenship documents and we would receive his official citizenship certificate in a few weeks through the mail.
We moved on to recheck our bags for the final flight from Chicago to St. Louis. By this time we only had a couple of hours left to kill of our 5 hour layover before the final leg of our journey. We were so tired we really just wanted to sleep. And, of course our flight got delayed by a half hour. We were so close to being home, but still so far away. We finally boarded and settled into our seats exhausted. We all 3 dozed off and we were only about 10 minutes away from landing when we awoke. We couldn’t wait to get off that plane when we touched down. But, we waited for most of the people to get off before we got our bags out of the overheads so that we wouldn’t bang people around with them on the small commuter plane. Trish got a little emotional when the flight attendant welcomed visitors to St. Louis & then said “welcome home” to those who call St. Louis home.
After making a brief pit stop at the closest bathroom we made our way out to the main terminal. It was such a glorious sight to see our Ellie there waiting for us!!! And of course all our other friends and family too! We grabbed Ellie and hugged her tight! I think Jacob was a little overwhelmed by all the people crowding around to see him. I think he recognized Ellie, grandma, his cousins, and aunt and uncle from Skype because he seemed to warm up really quickly to them.
After much conversation, many hugs, and congratulations we were off to our vehicles to head home. But, before going all the way home we had a stop to make first at one of our favorite places. We stopped with our family for dinner at Culvers for some good old fashioned “American” hamburgers!! They tasted really, really, good. We had really been looking forward to this!! Trish started talking about Culver’s when we left Hong Kong.When we got back to our home we were so grateful to be there. Lucy our Golden Retriever was grateful to see us too. Jacob was not sure what to make of her. I don’t think he had ever been in close proximity to a dog before. Jacob yelled at poor Lucy anytime she was near him. He didn’t even want to be walking on the floor when she was near! We eventually made it to bed totally exhausted. All of us slept in the same bed as a family that first night. We just praise God again for His provision and His help in completing our journey! We were finally home with the son he has given us!

Day 13 – Visa Day/Depart on Train for Hong Kong 8-31-11

Today was an exciting day as we were able to pick up Jacob’s Visa and depart for Hong Kong, the first leg of our journey home. After breakfast I made another trip to the Trust Mart to get more Pull-Ups for our trip home. It only took 10 minutes this time since I now knew where it was. When I returned I took Jacob for a walk around the hotel so Trish could finish packing everything. We visited several of the floors we hadn’t been on yet. One of the floors had a really nice restaurant. One of the other floors had the Sauna/Spa, the health/fitness area which also included an indoor pool, a reading library, a wine tasting bar, and squash courts. Unfortunately we were not here in this province long enough to enjoy any of these things. Next, Jacob and I went outside to explore the outdoor garden. This was a beautiful peaceful area with a waterfall, a stream, several coy ponds, and several sitting areas. There was also a building that looked like it was used for having private dinner parties. The garden was so peaceful that Jacob fell asleep about ten minutes into our walk.
When we returned to the room momma had everything packed and we still had about an hour and a half before the bellboys would be picking up our bags at 2:30 pm. We played for awhile and Jacob finished off his little cartons of milk he still had. Once they picked up our bags we went to the lobby to meet up with Simon and the other two families in our group who were taking the train to Hong Kong that night as well. We stopped by the American Consulate on the way to the train station so Simon could go in and pick up all the Visas and U.S. Immigration packets for us. We all waited on the mini-bus while Simon went into the Consulate. The police kept making the driver move so we circled the block about four times. We were starting to get worried that the paperwork wasn’t done yet, or that there was something wrong with one of our packets. Finally Simon appeared and everything was fine with the Visas and our immigration packets, praise God!
Next stop was the train station, and little did we know of the adventure that was still awaiting us there. We get off the mini-bus and we have to pack all of our bags and our kids ourselves. For us that meant 2 large suitcases, 6 smaller carryon bags, a stroller, and Jacob. We had to cross a busy road (which we did as a pack to avoid getting hit by the taxi cabs) to the station entrance where we waited in the lobby while Simon got our tickets for us. Then we had to take all of our bags and our strollers up this really long and steep escalator to the next level. If one of us had slipped and fell, we all would have gone down. Thankfully, we made it safely to the second level waiting area. We had to wait for awhile before we could go through customs. Simon had us check all of our children’s Visas and other paperwork while we were waiting. The brown immigration envelope though had to remain sealed unto we went through immigration in Chicago. Jacob had a photo op with Simon before it was time to say goodbye and go through the security checkpoint and customs. Everyone made it through without issue and we entered into the waiting area for boarding the train. Of course our train was delayed about twenty minutes, so more waiting.
The train was supposed to depart at 5:56 pm, but didn’t board until about 6:17 pm. There was a huge line for boarding so our group decided to let the big line go on through first before we tried to go through with all of our bags. And, guess what we encountered when we go up there. You got it, another long escalator down to the train platform. We made it down without incident and located our train car. We thought there was supposed to be compartments under the train we could put our bags on, alas there was not. So after feeling like I had wrenched my shoulder out of its socket I managed to get all of our bags onto the train and down the aisle. Fortunately, the 2 seats behind our group were not filled so the first two families were able to stack their luggage there. Then one of the other guys helped me to get ours into the overhead compartments.
Finally, we were underway. They passed out bottles of water to us which we gladly took. Later they also handed out what looked like chicken legs from a large plastic container. We declined those even though we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were starving. Jacob had his snacks and drinks so he was doing okay, Mom and I, not so well. We were thinking at least the train ride was only about an hour and 15 minutes so we would just get something to eat when we got to our hotel in Hong Kong. We were wrong again. The train ride was over two hours long so it was after 8:30 by the time we got there. There wasn’t a whole lot to do or see other than run down industrial buildings and farmland along the way. It was very hard to keep Jacob entertained when he just wanted to get up and run down the aisle.
We finally arrived in Hong Kong; at least we hoped it was Hong Kong since we didn’t see any signs that said it was. It seemed to be the last stop as everyone was getting off the train. Again, we waited for the other passengers to get off before we tackled getting all of our bags off. Since Hong Kong is not part of mainland China we had to go through customs and security again when we got off the train. After that we went to the currency exchange counter to change our Yuan into Honk Kong dollars to pay for our cab and for food that night.
One of the other families was staying in the same hotel next to the airport that we were. So, we were hoping to get a van type of taxi we could share. However, we were told that there weren’t any of those available. But, there was a large taxi boarding area outside and we could each get a cab easily. The other family got their cab first and we eventually got one too. We had been told that all of the cab drivers spoke English in Hong Kong. This was not true. Our driver had to call his dispatcher and have us tell them where we needed to go, and they then translated it into Chinese for him. The driver finally finds a brochure he is looking for, all while he was driving, to show us and points to the name of our hotel in English and Chinese with the address by the airport. We both expel a sigh of relief and we are soon on our way towards the airport. By now it is almost 9 pm. We are thinking we will be there soon and in our hotel room. We were going to meet up with the other couple when we got there and get something to eat and see how the hotel was connected to the airport so we could easily get to where we needed to go in the morning. Again, we were wrong. We managed to get possibly the only cab driver in Hong Kong who didn’t seem like had ever been to the airport. We got to the airport just fine in about a half hour. But, when we got there he couldn’t figure out how to get to our hotel. We could see it and passed it several times. We must have circled around the airport at least six times. He even stopped and asked 4 or 5 people, some of them other cab drivers, how to get to the hotel. We took some of the same roads more than once. I guess he thought there would be a different outcome the second time. Eventually, he stumbled onto the correct road and we made it to the hotel.
There was what we presumed were bellboys outside the hotel who took our bags and put them on a cart. They gave us a receipt with a number on it and told us our bags would be in our room when we got there. So, I was trusting that these really were the hotel bellboys (they had tropical shirts on and not uniforms), and let them take our bags. We step inside and I asked the concierge where we needed to go to check in and whether our bags really would be there in our room. He assured me they would and said we needed to take the elevator to level two to check in. Of course, when we get there the line is extremely long and we have to wait about 15 minutes to get checked in.
We finally get up to our room and our bags are not there yet. This was a little disconcerting. We waited another 5 minutes or so, still no bags. Trish is really troubled by this so she calls the concierge who again assured her they were just busy and they would be there shortly. We wait another 5 minutes and then I went back down to talk to the desk clerk who had taken my luggage ticket when I checked in. I also needed to get another room key since they only gave us one and you have to have one to operate the elevators. She called the concierge to check on our luggage as well, she gives him the number, she laughs a little while talking to him, then tells me our bags will be to our room within the next 10 minutes. I go back to the room to tell Trish the good news to find that our bags had arrived about 2 minutes after I left to go down to the front desk. Now I get the desk clerk’s private joke. I’m sure it included the phrase “stupid American’s”, LOL. My next mission was to find some sort of fast food as it was now after 10pm and we were starving to death (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration.) I was told in the lobby that there wasn’t any fast food in the hotel but if I crossed the sky bridge to the airport there was a Burger King in the airport. That sounded really good to me. On my way over I ran into Bill, (the husband of the other couple we were to meet at the hotel, and his new adopted daughter) scouting out the airport situation. I was able to let him know what happened to us. He said they were worried about us and thought we had been kidnapped or something. I assured him we were just at the mercy of an inept cab driver. Anyway, I finally found Burger King, took the food back to our room, we ate, and then crashed about 11:30 pm. All we wanted to do was just get up the next morning, get checked out, eat some breakfast, and find our gate area at the airport.