Just 7 More Days

Wow, our life has been a whirlwind since we got home last month. I have completely failed on my promise to post an update on Bean's heart. We are now just seven days from open heart surgery. Craziness! But I'll get to that in a minute. First, here's a little sneak peek into Month #1 as a family of six.

Last fall we booked a Florida vacation with an amazing organization called Pastors' R&R. Their mission is to provide time in a vacation home - free of charge - to families who serve in full-time Christian ministry. (If you're in a nostalgic mood, check out this post from our last vacay with Pastors' R&R. Li'l Miss looks ssssooooo tiny!) When we booked our vacation for this June, we thought we'd be starting our adoption at the beginning of this year (which we did) and traveling this fall (not so much). 

I have to confess that there were a few thousand times during our adoption process that I was 100% convinced we should just cancel our vacation. I was sure that it would end up falling right when we got approval to travel or right after travel or during Bean's surgery or...

On the other hand, Jeremy was 100% convinced that we should not cancel - that the time away would be really special for our family (and for Bean if she made it home before our trip). He was right; we had a blast. My younger sister, Jessica, even got to join us for part of the time. (She wins the Aunt-of-the-Year Award for braving the 17-hour trip in the back of the minivan. In the middle seat. Between two boosters. She's a rockstar.)

If I had to pick one picture to sum up our vacation, I think it would be this one.

Our kids made it into the water pretty much every. single. day.

They floated down creeks...

...splashed in the ocean...

...lounged by the pool...

...and hung out by some incredibly gorgeous springs.

We also made time for a little of this...

...and a whole lot of this.

(Why, yes, Bean has gained two pounds in the month she's been home.)

We were a little nervous about taking Bean somewhere new so soon after arriving home, but the intense together time turned out to be really special. Jeremy was thankful for the chance to be away from work to bond with our li'l sweetie. Bean showed her adventurous side and braved lots of new experiences.

All in all, it was a really fun time with just a dash of chaos and puking. I am super grateful we had the chance to make some special memories as a family before Bean has her surgery. On that note, here's a quick update on what's coming next for Bean.

This Friday afternoon, Bean will have a heart cath. During the cath, Bean's doctors will insert a catheter into a blood vessel in her thigh. They will thread the catheter up to her heart. This allows the doctors to do many different diagnostic tests on Bean's heart. They can test pressures and see detailed images of her anatomy. 

One of the main things they are looking for is a view of Bean's left pulmonary artery. They were unable to see this artery during her echo last month, so there is a chance it is not properly connected. (The doctor mentioned that it may be arising out of a duct.) Hopefully they can get a clear picture of this artery on Friday. If it is not there or is not connected properly, it will make her surgery more complicated.

Bean and I hope to come home Friday evening, but there is a chance we'll have to spend one night in the hospital. Jeremy, Bean, and I head right back to the hospital on Monday for pre-op. We'll meet with Bean's surgeon, learn the time of her surgery, and possibly have some final tests done. We'll spend the night near the hospital, and then Tuesday is surgery day.

Bean will be hospitalized for 5-14 days after her surgery. I should be able to post lots of updates while I hang out with her in the hospital. Jeremy is able to be at the hospital for pre-op and surgery, but then it'll be the girls (with lots of visits from friends, we hope) for a few days.

Please keep our sweet girl in your prayers as she faces a lot of big stuff over the next few weeks. It's definitely scary to think about what she'll be facing, but we know there are lots of people supporting her and lifting her up to the Lord. I'll leave you with one more Bean smile.

One Week Home

We have officially been home a week, and I have a few quiet minutes to write while one child sleeps and another one builds stacking cup towers on the keyboard of my laptop. I have to head out for school pick-up in a few minutes, so here's a super fast recap of our week at home.

Our bigs kids are over-the-moon in love with their little sister. They were so, so, so excited to finally meet her. My sister was visiting when we arrived home, and she has the cutest video of them watching for our car out the front window and then running screaming out to the front yard to greet us. Li'l Bean is not quite so sure about her siblings (you mean, I have to share Mom and Dad with those kids?), but they are growing on her.

Li'l Miss pretty much thinks Bean is a living doll. She wants to feed her and carry her around everywhere. When I come in the room, she scolds me for taking Bean's attention. I think she'd happily skip the rest of school (just four more days!) and do this all day long.

Bean is warming up to Li'l Miss pretty quickly. How can you not love someone who is ever-so eager to meet your every need, wish, or whim? It's so fun to imagine the special memories they'll make and the relationship they'll have as sisters.

The boys are pretty excited about Bean, too. (Although one of Li'l Dude's first comments was, "I thought we were buying a girl and a boy!" LOL!) Li'l Man has been very helpful. He's my routine guy who always makes sure things get done correctly, and the past week has been no different.

I was most worried about Li'l Dude's adjustment. He's used to being the tiny one around here and getting ridiculously spoiled a little extra attention. So far, he has been a real trooper. Even though Li'l Bean isn't so sure about him yet, he keeps trying to win her affection. He brings her toys and treats her very gently. 

Before naptime time today, I was helping him in the bathroom. Bean was sitting on the carpet just outside the doorway. She was mad about the situation because I was giving Li'l Dude more attention than she was getting, so she started crying. Li'l Dude turned to me and said, "Mom, I can wash my hands by myself; you can pick her up." So stinkin' sweet.

I'm sure there will be bumps as the big three adjust to Li'l Bean, especially when things get busy with her surgery. So far I'm super proud of all three of them, and I'm loving watching them adjust and bond. How awesome to think that the sweet girl they've been praying about for months is really home - playing with their toys, sleeping in her crib, and giving them High Fives!

Yesterday was Bean's second birthday. It was one of our wishes to have her home with us for her birthday, and we were really excited to celebrate with her. We had a very low-key "party". Li'l Dude picked a cake at Walmart, and we ate one of our favorite summer dinners (burgers, brats, watermelon, and sweet corn - yum, yum!). 

Li'l Bean wasn't too sure about the whole cake thing...

...until she tried it...

...and decided she's a big chocolate fan after all. 

She was into the presents.

As far as the big people over here, we are doing well. After the shock of going from one child to three in eight days last time around, this three-to-four thing can't be all that crazy, right? There have been some rough moments...like when Bean decided after nine hours that she was absolutely done with the plane ride or when jet lag totally caught up with me and I crashed for 18 hours straight, but we're hanging in there.

I do have some updates on Bean's heart, but I'll save those for a separate post (which I promise to write by the end of the week). Now I'm off to enjoy a few more moments of quiet. Thanks so much for being a part of this journey!

What Day Is It Again?

Yesterday and today have been relaxing. After our crazy adventure Friday night, Bean and I both slept in yesterday. She didn't get up until after 10:00am!

Shortly after Bean and I dragged ourselves out of bed, Jeremy went out to get dumplings and potstickers for lunch. Our diet the past few days is making me a happy girl. How can you not love these veggie-filled spheres of dough-y yumminess? Plus they cost $1, for all of them.

After lunch we spent some time being silly in our room. Bean is coming out of her shell more and more. We still haven't heard her talk at all, but she's giggling, laughing, and using some sign language. Here are a few of my attempts at catching her smiling.

Bean and Jeremy squeezed in a nap before our dinner date with our friends. I read while they slept. At one point I looked over, and they were sleeping like this. Be still, my heart.

After nap time, we met our friends on the island for dinner. We had a really fun time, and Jeremy was not complaining about more sweet tea and other cheeseburger.

This morning (Monday), we had our appointment at the U.S. Consulate to apply for Bean's visa. We got Bean all dressed up in red, white, and blue. After grabbing a quick breakfast at our hotel, we hopped in the van for our ride to the Consulate. Monday morning traffic in Ch*na is not fun. In the middle of the bouncing and stopping and honking and swerving, Bean puked all over the van. Ugh.

Here she is in her super cute outfit with an I-just-puked look on her face. Poor girl.

Our interview at the Consulate was short and painless. And it was our very last appointment in Ch*na! Tomorrow afternoon our guide will pick up Bean's visa, and then we can head to Hong Kong. We'll spend one night there before we fly home Wednesday morning. (For those of you who have asked about Bean's size, she was officially 10.5kg/23lbs at her medical for the Consulate. Her cute little red, white, and blue dress is size 18-24 months, and it would not stay on both her shoulders.)

We got really brave for lunch today. We just headed out by ourselves in an attempt to find a restaurant with a picture menu. On our way to lunch, we stopped to check out the pet market near our hotel. You can buy kittens, puppies, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, lots of fish, and turtles. Check out the turtle selection!

They also had blue crawdads for sale.

And these creepy-looking creatures. I'm thinking they are salamanders...or baby Loch Ness monsters.

We decided to eat here (mainly because their menu was displayed on their front wall in gigantic pictures).

Everything was going well until Jeremy looked a little too closely at his soup.

Any guesses on what this is?

So there's a chance that we might have been a little too brave in our dining selection. 

After lunch, Bean and Jeremy took another nap. The sun finally came out today (it's been pouring since we got here), so we decided to try to pool this afternoon. We were pretty sure Bean was going to hate it. She screams bloody murder anytime we get her near the bathtub, so we didn't think the idea of a giant bathtub was going to go over well.

But she surprised us. She loved it! She splashed and splashed and giggled like crazy. Instead of just sitting on the edge with me, she let Jeremy take her in. (I have the cutest video of her in the pool, but our internet is C-R-A-W-L-I-N-G and it would probably take about 57 years to upload.)

After swimming, we went back to the island for another cheeseburger. (I guess I can't blame Jer after the soup he had for lunch.) Now Bean is sound asleep, and Jeremy is reading. We are looking forward to seeing our friends one more time tomorrow morning and then heading to Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon. Two more days and we will be home!

Days 8 & 9: Bean's First All-Nighter

We are still having internet issues, so I'm way behind on posting. I'm going to quickly share about the last 24 hours (because they've been super eventful and involved way too little sleep), and then I'll do my best to catch up on the rest of the week when I can.

Yesterday was our last day in Bean's city. We got up early to meet some amazing ladies for breakfast. Our adoption agency's Ch*na team is in Ch*na visiting partner orphanages right now. They happened to be visiting Bean's orphanage yesterday and were able to meet us for breakfast. These are some incredible ladies who work so, so hard for little ones in Ch*na. I really feel like they are my friends, and it made my day to meet them in real life.

Here Bean and I are with Stefani, our agency's waiting child advocate. This is the awesome lady who sent Li'l Man and Li'l Dude's files to us and who works tirelessly to find families for waiting children every. single. day. She's pretty much an adoption superhero. (Check out Bean's grouchy face; she had a major diaper explosion while Stefani and I were talking, so that might explain her look of displeasure.)

We knew we'd be up late for our flight to Guangzhou last night, so we headed back to our room for quiet time (and diaper explosion clean-up) after breakfast. How sweet is my little thumb sucker?

We were able to check out of our room and grab a late lunch at McDonalds before heading the airport for our 6:30pm flight. Here we are in the airport, saying goodbye to our wonderful guide. (The couple on the left are our new adoption buddies.  Their daughter is in the peach headband.)

Right after this picture is when the adventure really started. Our guide casually mentioned that our flight was delayed about 15 minutes or so. No big deal, right? We found our gate easily and settled in to wait for our flight. We quickly noticed that the computer screen at our gate listed 4-5 flights, several of which were already supposed to have taken off. Not a good sign.

We were doing our best to keep up with the flight announcements that kept crackling over the PA system. (Trying to catch your flight number in heavily accented English on bad speakers in a loud airport is challenging. Understanding what is actually being said is pretty close to impossible.) After we'd been waiting a little while, we managed to decipher an announcement saying that our flight was delayed until 7:30pm. Shortly after that, our gate was changed. We found ourselves in the "basement" of the airport, waiting on a bus to take us to a plane at some unspecified location.

Time slowly ticked by. 7:30pm came and went, but all the screens still showed our flight was scheduled for 19:30. We were on the same flight as 7-8 other adoptive families, and the little ones were starting to get tired and restless. 8:30pm came and went...then 9:30pm. At one point, a huge rush of Ch*nese people left our gate, and we were sure our flight was canceled. Thankfully, it turned out to be another flight scheduled for the same gate.

The one bright spot in our super long evening was that Bean was in a super silly mood. She apparently thought the airport basement was the most interesting place ever. She smiled and smiled as she watched all the craziness. At one point, she was sitting on my lap and she started throwing herself backward. I played along and tipped her backward and then back up. She broke out into giggles. It was the first time we'd heard her laugh. She wanted to do it over and over, and she laughed and laughed. It was so fun to see her opening up, and her sweet little giggle is pretty much the cutest ever.

Finally our departure time changed from 19:30 to 00:20. Ugh. Shortly after midnight, we loaded up on a bus and rode out to a plane in the middle of the tarmac. We were exhausted, but at least we were finally headed to Guangzhou. 

The flight was really full, and the some of the little guys were pretty much losing it at this point. We taxied out to the runways and stopped. Apparently Air Traffic Control had not released our flight. So we sat in our crowded plane full of crying babies in the middle of the runway...until 2:00am.

We finally arrived in Guangzhou a little after 4:00am. Amazingly, Bean slept through 95% of the airplane ordeal. As soon as we loaded the van with our guide, she fell back to sleep. We got to our hotel around 5:30am and took a nap from 6:00 - 8:00am. At 8:00, we had to drag ourselves back out of bed for Bean's medical. (This is an appointment required for her U.S. visa.)

The medical went well, and we enjoyed our morning with our guide and our friends. We are staying in a really fun area that our guide calls "authentic Guangzhou". She helped us buy a delicious lunch a couple blocks from our hotel, and it ended up costing $2 for all three of us!

We had a leisurely afternoon (which involved a very long nap for Bean) and then spent the evening walking around. We visited "the island", the area where we stayed when we were in Guangzhou for the boys' adoptions, and ate dinner at Jeremy's favorite restaurant in China. (They serve double cheeseburgers and sweet tea in Mason jars; he's a big fan.)

Bean was a big fan, too.

(When you're the fourth child, you get to do really crazy things like drinking sweet tea before your second birthday.)

Tomorrow we have a day off. We are going to sleep forever and then just enjoy a relaxing day together. The only thing on our schedule is meeting friends for dinner. This sleepy girl is excited. 

Alright, I need to sleep. I'll leave you with one more picture of Bean from our walk tonight.

Days 4 & 5: She's Ours!

We were having internet issues yesterday and the day before, so I'm behind on blogging. I'm going to squish Monday and Tuesday into one post, and then hopefully I can get caught up tonight and tomorrow.

Bean slept well Sunday night (horizontally and in the middle of our bed, of course). Monday morning we gave her a quick bath and got her all dressed up for a long day of appointments. (Here she is before I learned about the whole white-flowers-for-funerals thing.)

Our first appointment Monday morning was back at the Civil Affairs Office where we met Bean. We had to fill out some paperwork and complete a short interview. Then we signed documents making our adoption final. (WOOHOO!) Here's Bean adding her footprint to make things really official. 

Naturally, we had to take an Adoption Day selfie.

We had a delicious lunch with our amazing guide, Sherry, and then headed out for another appointment. Our afternoon stop was at the police station where we applied for Bean's passport. Her passport takes all week to process, so the rest of the week is pretty open until we get her passport on Friday. Friday afternoon we head to southern Ch*na to complete the U.S. part of our adoption paperwork.

Monday afternoon we all crashed. We woke up at 8:00pm (oops!) and realized we'd better get out for a little while to at least try to conquer our jet lag. Bean's city is so fun at night. It's lit up, and there are vendors and people everywhere. We stopped for Bean's first Starbucks (decaf, of course), and then walked through a local market. There were lots of little booths, selling everything from shoes to kites to kabobs.

Tuesday was a free day. Bean and I went shopping with our travel buddies in the morning, while Jeremy got some introvert recharge time at the hotel. Bean was really sleepy and pretty blue. Tuesday night we were supposed to go to a show with music and dumplings. We ended up deciding to have a more low-key evening as a family. We got our own dumplings at a little shop down the street and walked back to the street market.

Bean eats everything. She may be tiny and tired, but she can eat. American food, Ch*nese food, she devours everything we put in front of her. Already this week we've introduced her to McDonalds, Dairy Queen, and Starbucks, and she's loved them all.

The market was lit up for the night and full of people again. We stopped for a mango and a few little souvenirs. (If anyone out there is dying for something specific from Ch*na, tell me now.)

Two of the well-known historic sites near our hotel are the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. They are lit up at night and look absolutely gorgeous.

Alright, I better post this while the internet is still working. I'll try to get caught up on Wednesday and today soon. Thank you so much for all your notes of encouragement and prayers. We really appreciate it!