Emotional baggage

I'm leaving on August 7th to take Jack to see the Great Wall, the Imperial Palace and Tianamen Square because I want to add a little jet-lagg-adjusting-Cultural side-trip to this whole adventure and I just can't get enough of this roller-coaster ride. So now I'm running around town like a chicken with its head cut off wondering what happened? Our rendez-vous with Makena is August 15 and time is running out on me like water escaping through my fingers. It's not like I didn't have an entire year to prepare, it's just that most of that time was taken up by denial. Well now "denial" is knocking at my door asking to play connect-the-dots with my face. I'm stressed and my skin has decided that now is the time to "break out" and shout it out to the world. No one is ever too old for zits, apparently. The plus side to all this is that the acne-faced checkout clerk at Ralphs carded me when I was buying wine! At least he didn't ask me when I was "due." So sweet.

I love traveling. I hate packing. I just reviewed the list of things our agency recommended we take with us and it's numbing. My eyesight was blurry by the time I finished reading the second page because the type was so small.

It's two pages long and filled with a cornucoppia of infant medicines and it doesn't even seriously address what to wear. They recomend that we pack two suitcases. One for the first five days in Chongqing when we are hooking up with Makena and one for the remainder of our stay in Guangzhou. Do I pack a third for the pre-trip to Beijing? Jack even gave me his own packing list which included his PSP, swim goggles and Cup Noodles, in case he didn't find food he liked there. I had to remind him that Cup Noodles are made in China and that he should have known this. It's written right next to the MSG content on the list of ingredients, "Made in China" and he's only been eating it his whole life. Jeez Louise.

My dreams of taking carry-on are insane at best but I am determined to try -- especially know that I don't have to take the instant Ramen.

I'm also beginning to suspect that the amount of baggage one brings on one's travels is directly related to the amount of emotional baggage you drag around with you wherever you go. If you are emotionally secure, you will travel with very little and if you are the opposite, you will travel with a lot. The fear of the unknown makes us want to be prepared for anything and everything. But then we are so busy lugging the "preparedness" around that by the time we've paid the bellhop and gotten the ball and chain up to our room, we don't have the energy nor the inclination to check out the vast unknown. You just order room service and fight for control of the TV remote and hope they offer CNN.

I'm preparing to be "unprepared." I'm buying the stroller in China. I'm buying most of Makena's clothes in China and I'm personally going to wear the same thing several times. I'm told the hotel laundry service is extremely cheap and fast. So as long as I don't bring clothes I'm super attached to, I'll use the service and have them washed often. I'll also try to avoid certain people in my group on certain days so that they don't notice. It's a brilliant plan. I'll also have to avoid my husband on days two, six and twelve. He won't notice. He'll be hiding out in our second room with his Blackberry and jar of Skippy peanut butter trying to avoid most of China. When you're slightly agoraphobic, Asia does not top your list as a travel destination. And I am absolutely taking concealer and waterproof mascara in case I happen to be in the shot when we take pictures of Makena.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if can you be secure and vain at the same time?

Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? I'm in the dark here.

Isabelle

Count down!!!

I just got off the phone with our point person at the agency and our group is scheduled to fly to Guangzhou and then Chongqing on August 12. I'm speculating that we will either get Makena on the fourteenth or fifteenth of the month. They are faxing us the itinerary this afternoon. This actually means that I am leaving for China on the 7th because I'm planning on seeing Beijing and the great wall with Jack before I get the baby. OH MY GOD!!!

Isabelle

Shotgun Shower

How long have I had to prepare for Makena's blessed arrival? Too long. And now we could literally be three weeks away from leaving for China and I still don't have a crib or furniture in her bedroom. So right after her referral photos had circulated among my group of friends, they all started asking me the normal questions one would ask a mother-to-be. "Do you have a theme for the baby's room? What color is the crib, the bedding, etc..?" And my answer to all of the above was, "uh, I don't know." In my defense I did have new closet doors and a storage window seat installed in May and the color is "leaf green" (my husband and son weighed in on the color decision because I couldn't.) The walls are white. I also had an old chair that belonged to my grandmother recovered in a fushia fabric and that came back last week. Really practical stuff.

"What does she really need, though? Other than food, dry diapers, clean clothes and a bed to sleep or co-sleep in?" I said. My zen outlook on child rearing got shot out of the sky like a lame duck. "What about the car seat, the stroller, the Baby Bjorn!?" Duh. "I just thought I would get those things myself and then have a "meet the baby" shower after we got back." "You know? No fuss," I said. "You can get a stroller for $18 in China and they work great." "Right. Whatever," they said.

My friends had a panic attack and threw me a shotgun shower in less than ten days and totally pulled it off. I couldn't believe it (not about how quickly they could throw a party together but about how poor their expectations on my preparedness as a mother were.)

(Shower hostesses with the mostesses.)



I scrambled to put a list together thinking everyone was going to be out of town and wouldn't make it to a midweek lunch, but they proved me wrong. A dozen girlfriends showed up and we had a blast. They had flower centerpieces spiked with pictures of Makena, party favors for my guests and a really cute piggy-bank that was hand-decorated by all our kids, as well as the friends who attended. The best part? Other than the great gifts, was being showered with Chardonnay. The perk of not being pregnant is having a nice cold glass of white wine to celebrate! At lunch, no less. I needed it.



Just before the shower I stopped into a local store to buy a dress I thought I would look nice in. The saleslady walked up to me and asked me what the occasion was and I said that it was for my shower. But before I could even explain what kind of shower I was having, she literally bent down and patted my stomach and cooed! COOED. Who's more embarrassed in a situation like that? The person who asked the question or the person who apparently looks pregnant enough to have a shower, but isn't!? Okay, I have a sense of humor. I took a step back, wryly composed myself and told her that she was patting "my femininity" and to kindly remove her hand and give me the dress in a size that would fit me. I actually stayed in the store, bought the dress and promised to come back and show them the baby when we returned from China.

The Chardonnay was just what I needed. The shower was a blast. I ended up with great things I could use, namely: An Ingelsina Trip stroller, a movement sensor monitor (which alerts you if there is not movement in the crib form ore than twenty seconds!) A Britax Decathlon car seat, a baby hip-sling, amazing comfy baby clothes in non-pink colors, an Exersaucer, a high chair, baby-proofing and even kid-size riding stirrups so that I can take her riding with me when she's older (yes, I have a horse.) My girlfriends even thought of my number-one son and gave him travel toys. Jack was psyched.

So, who says I'm not ready? And just for the record, I'm still going to buy the $18 dollar stroller in Chongqing.



Isabelle
(PS: This was me the day before the shower looking pregnant!)

The Magical Mystery Tour

As June unfolded, I began to panic when it became clear that we weren't going to get Makena's referral, let alone travel to China. I was depressed even though I had huge work obligations to keep me busy. I wasn't giving Jack my 100% and now he was about to graduate from second grade and I had made zero summer plans for him. I was a hostage to the China adoption process. I was addicted to China Adoption Blogs and I had even stooped and tasted the Crack of all blogs, RQ (I am not posting the complete name to protect weak people, like me). This is a blog that is not for the faint of heart. Do not go there. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Here's the thing I've just begun to realize, and I don't even have my daughter yet, is that even though we are not physically pregnant, we are "virtually" pregnant. The internet provides us with an umbilical cord that provides us with more informative nutrients we could ever need on how to prepare for a Chinese adopted child. From the whack to the sane, a cornucopia of philosophies are available at the click of a mouse. Sick. All this information can become an obsession and really unbablance us and take away what natural instincts we have to mother/parent. Exhibit A: me.

The reality is, that as I hit the third trimester of this referral waiting insanity, I became hormonal and irrational. PMS from hell. My husband litterally sat across from me at the dining room table and had an "intervention" with me. He told me I had a blog reading addiction. He was right, of course. I did. So what did I do? I started writing one. He never said anythin about writing. Ha!

SO, when my crazy (in a lovable way) neighbor told me that she was thinking of taking her nanny's three-year old son to Guatemala and did Jack and I want to go? I said, uh, let me ask my husband -- certain that he was going to react by having me institutionalized for even thinking about taking such a trip. Wrong. He said, "Go for it." "Really?," I said. "Yeah, you're fluent in Spanish, what's the big deal? Besides, you need to get away." "O--kay." So I rush back to my neighbor and tell her we're on. We decide to travel the last weekend in June and I rush back home to book the non-refundable air and hotel tickets. I call her a couple of times. There's no going back. I even book a ticket for my housekeeper's daughter so that I, too, can take her to Guatemala to visit her relatives. I'm set. Except for one thing, my neighbor stops returning my calls, leaves town and does not make ANY plans to travel with me and the children to Guatemala. Yes, sir. Several thousand dollars worth of change-of-scenery-last-minute-purchase-get-rid-of-my-anxieties-vacation and I'm on my own. So my husband serves me a shot of Tequila and tells me to do it. To go. To make it a last hurrah for me and Jack before his world is rocked forever. Two shots later, I'm committed to the trip (not the institution) and I'm packing for my mommy-and-me adventure. So then I'm four days away from going and I'm returning some sweatshirt to another neighbor and bragging about how I am going to Guatemala BY MYSELF and she's so impressed with me, too. And I say off-handedly,"You wouldn't want to go to Guatemala with me, would you?" And she thinks about it. I give her the travel dates and tell her all the exciting things that I have planned to do and she says,"Sure!" Four hours later, she's booked on the same trip as me!!! Who's crazy, now? This could have been a disaster. This was a new friendship. She had a son the same age as mine and, other than that, I really didn't have a clue as to how she might be to travel with.

Bottom line, we had a blast. The kids had a blast and we had one adventure after another. The first one being that we traveled to Guatemala in the middle of the rainy season. We did pack raincoats but somehow managed to always be without them when it rained. I'm talking flooding in the streets, biblical deluge amounts. When I hear about mud slides in Guatemala, I know what they are talking about. Would I change any of it? No. Everything was perfect, down to the crocodile who could have eaten my friend's son (but never moved from his sunny spot), and the corral snake I almost stepped on (I have video to back me up). Why?

Because I'm practically eighteen months awaiting my referral and when does the CCAA decide to match our child to us and share that information with us? When I'm out of the Country, that's when. But you know, what? I would not have been any other place. Jack and I were in La Antigua in the middle of a rain storm when my husband called me on my cell phone to tell me about our daughter, Qian Li Han. We're crying with joy. It's raining cats and dogs. Jack wants to know all the details and the phone cuts out. I'll never forget it. My friend won't forget it. It will probably be one of the memories that flash across my brain when I die. That's how amazing and memorable the moment was. Jack was perfect. When we finally saw her picture a few days later, the first thing out of his mouth was,"She's beautiful." He's beautiful. My brave jungle-trekking junior adventure seeker. And my husband rocks for having encouraged me to go on what my friend and I dubbed "The Magical Mystery Tour," even if it was so that he could have full control of the remote for a week and watch ESPN 24/7.

I feel calmer now.

Now when the heck are our Travel Authorizations going to arrive?


Isabelle

8 is enough!

Jack turned 8 last Friday and I had a major epiphany in the party planning sector. Why? Because I guiltily did virtually nothing and somehow managed to pull it off. Let me preface this by saying that I have usually anticipated his birthday well over a month in advance. I've prided myself on coming up with cleverly themed invitations that I personally hand-crafted and I have spent countless hours imagining ways to make his day more special and original.

Does Jack care about the bloody paper cuts I have endured in the past or the time I have spent making the layout imperfect in a perfect way? No. Neither does my husband (who has had yearly "birthday planning" interventions with me to make me change my ways) and neither have the hoards of kids showing up for the distraction and the cake. I suspect they don't even care about the party favors. Ingrates.

So who did I do this for? Jack or me? Shut up. I know you know the answer. That's not the point.

I came into motherhood with serious birthday issues related to past perceived injustices that I meant to set straight with my son. All this to realize that what Jack only cares about is having a present to open, preferably electronic or alive (anything in the reptile, amphibian or arachnid family will do) and that he wants to be surrounded by his close friends -- or better yet, his Canadian cousins, eating junk food he loves, being entertained (as in, not bored) and being the go-to-special kid for 24 hours to 72 hours (because he knows how to milk the occasion.)

So back to my turning point, I left the country with Jack on a special mommy-and-me trip to Guatemala the day school was out. My husband saw it as another sort of intervention: to get me away from Chinese adoption blog sites and clear my head( I'll blog about Guatemala next). Anyway, I was so busy trying to stay alive in Central America that I came back sick and followed that up with another week recovering. Before I knew it, Jack's birthday was upon me and no time or serious thought had been spent planning it. Why? Because of Makena. The referral we were almost eight months anticipating finally arrived while I was in the jungle and the news that we had finally been matched with our daughter hit me like a two-by-four across the head. I was stunned and, I admit it, I stopped thinking about my elder son's birthday for a couple of weeks... Is this what life has in store for me now that I am a parent with more than one child?

I felt bad when Jack asked to see the invitation. When none was forthcoming, he asked to see the e-vite. What he ended up settling for was confirmation that I had sent a regular e-mail to his guest list and that I had followed that up with calls confirming that his friends were coming. Miracle of Miracles, six of his friends were still in town and could attend (A far cry from the 25 + invitees of years past).


All it took was a couple of boogie boards on a public beach with a thousand people (greasy with Banana Boat lotion), two free parking spots, some sunshine, some waves and a cooler full of store-bought sushi. That's it. I did follow it up with a melted ice-cream cake and sleep-over and Jack was thrilled. He had a blast. Nobody drowned and they all had fun in a Lord of the Flies kind of way. My house is trashed. I did get a post-party massage and I need to see a chiropractor - which may have something to do with the fact that I joined the little Neanderthals in the bouncy pit.

Now that the festivities are over and I look to our future with Makena, my thoughts will inevitably be drawn to her first birthday in October. Is the 28th really the date she was born? Or should the day she joined our family be celebrated with more fanfare? Is she truly eight months old (now)? Will her biological mom remember her smell or the blue grey of her newborn eyes, or the curve of her upper lips? What kind of birthday would Makena have had were she still living in China? And does it really matter as long as Makena knows that she is loved and wanted?

Just wondering...

Isabelle

In the tall, tall, grass...

We love the sweater Makena is wearing in this picture. After looking at all the referral pictures from the group that will be traveling with us to China, we noticed that five or six of the babies were all posed wearing this identical sweater. Either there was a special at the Walmart in Chongqing, or all these girls have the same foster mother. More unanswered questions. In the meantime, I want that sweater!

Letter to an unknown mother

I sent a care package to the Qianjiang orphanage this week in care of Qian Li Han. Since she is in foster care, I addressed a letter to the director of the orphanage asking her to deliver the package along with a personal letter to Makena's foster mother. Our agency translated it into Mandarin. This is what I wrote.

Dear Foster Mother of Qian Li Han:

Words cannot express the gratitude we have for the love, care and compassion you and your family have shown toward Qian Li Han. I realize that saying goodbye to her will be a very emotional and sad day as well as a great act of courage on your part to remain strong. Please know and trust that Li Han will be deeply loved and that we will do everything that we possibly can to ensure a very bright future for her. He American name will be Makena Rae Lihan (loosely translated to mean: our beautiful gift of sunshine) - which she is. She will have a brother (Jack) who is eight years old, a father, a mother, two aunts, two uncles, two cousins, one grand-mother and two grand-fathers, all of whom await her with open arms and boundless love.

I am sending you two cameras that I would ask you to take pictures of yourself with Li Han and your family and her environment so that she can have a memory of her early life with you, which will be so important to her when she is older. I am enclosing toys for Li Han and some clothes, as well as a small gift to show my appreciation for all that you have done.

Sincerely and with the utmost gratitude,


Isabelle
Li Han's new mother.

Mak and Jack

As of June 27th of this year, I officially have two children. A hilariously funny and extremely empathetic soon to be eight-year old biological son, Jack, and an eight-month old little stranger living on the other side of the world in Chongqing, China. She is Qian Li Han, soon to be known as Makena.

Jack is a walking encyclopedia of animal facts who loves sushi, ramen and chicken nuggets. He likes to tell jokes, laughs easily, and is a laid back kid and world traveler. His favorite subject in school is Math. His favorite sports are baseball, karate, ping pong and bowling. He is devoted to his friends, adores his cousins and works the remote control on the television set better than me. (No surprise there.)

On the other hand, I know very little about Makena. I know that she was abandoned at a gas station when she was about five days old and that she was found wearing old clothes and with a nursing bottle and a bag of powdered milk. I believe that she was loved for five days by her biological mom because she was left in a place where she would be easily found.

I suspect that she probably has an older sister, or two, or possibly even an older brother. (Because of the current "family planning" restrictions imposed by the Chinese government, if the first born child is a daughter, a couple is allowed to try for a son. But if the first born is a son, then they are not allowed to have any more children.)

I know that Makena was placed in an orphanage the day she was found and that at four months of age she was transferred to a foster home. I'm told she eats rice porridge, meat soup and mashed fruit. She likes to go out and watch people in the street and she likes toys that play loud music. As the director of our agency put it, "She a party girl!"

Good thing. "We party parents."

When we finally travel to Chongqing in August (hopefully) to adopt her, we will be afforded precious few minutes with the director of the orphanage to ask as many questions as we can about her first eight months of life in China. It's a terrifying and heartbreaking prospect. Aside from the fact that we will all probably be sobbing with the joy of finally holding her in our arms, we will have to compose ourselves and shoot off a list of questions we hope to get answers to.

I can't imagine what it will be like for Makena to deal with so little information and so much mystery surrounding her start in life.

I simply hope she will be okay and that she will learn to feel secure with our love.

Last, I know Jack will protect her.

Isabelle

Jack

Makena