Things Looking Up

***I found a second post that did not make it from China. I couldn't see Blogspot to check my posts. China had social networking sites blocked. So I thought I had shared our first sign of good news about our paperwork when really it didn't make it to you at all. Sometimes I'd figure out I had trouble posting and e-mail my dear friend Beth who would tell me if it showed up on the blog or not. But toward the end I was too busy to do that and thought I had fixed the problem which was obviously not the case.

So this post is from Monday, May 5th after we stayed up half the night because it was Monday morning at home, and we had to make phone calls to get our paperwork crisis resolved. Here I tell you how we attempted to do that. I also love the first photo of Abigail, so I had to share.



Monday, May 5th

Our paperwork issue seems to be taking a positive spin. The National Visa Center replied to an e-mail saying they had cabled our approval to the U.S. Consulate. But now we have to wait until morning here in China to make sure they got it. Getting it from place to place seems to be the issue.

After repeated efforts to contact somebody at Louisville CIS, we kept hitting a dead end and couldn't talk to a human being.

So, after being fingerprinted in Louisville four times, we know from experience that Mitch McConnell's Louisville office is three doors down from the Louisville CIS office.

For backup, tonight we got hold of Mitch's office staff and a very dry but nice guy named Matthew Brotzge said he would check into the situation today and get back to us before he leaves for the day (which will be about 5 a.m. our time).

Anyway, so for the moment, we are counting on Matthew to go next door and "rattle some cages".

Hope we hear something good in the morning. We are one business day away from our consulate appointment here.

Doug sure was rubbing on the make-a-wish ball in the mouth of the lion statue at the Folk Art Museum (a former temple) today. He said, "Oh, I know what I'm going to wish." I probably do not have to explain that it was to go home on time!

Meanwhile, the other adoption preparations, appointments, go on. Tomorrow morning, Tuesday a.m., we take the babies for their medical exams.

Abigail is doing great! Everyone comments on how happy she is and how much she smiles. Tonight Allison put a big flower in her hair, and she was causing lots of oohs and aahs and smiles.

She is grunting in between spoonfuls of food and between bottles. I accidentally only packed 4 oz. bottle liners and must stop in the middle of her feeding to prepare the next bottle much to her chagrin. She wants food, and she wants it now!

Natalie loves hanging out with the other big sisters. She and five-year-old Kaylee, spent much of the evening jumping on the hotel beds, which was big fun!

The girls have a common thread, we learned tonight. Both Natalie and Kaylee were born in Guangdong Province where we are now. We are back together with the other two families we traveled with in Beijing also.

In just about every picture I have of Nat from today she's holding up a peace sign. She's picked it up here in China. When we see the Chinese taking pictures of each other, they flash this sign. We asked our guide about it. Evidently they don't think of it as a peace sign, but 'V' for victory. We asked the meaning of that, and she said it's just popular. I got the idea it was a fad, but we're still trying to figure out what victory they are referring to.

We love Guangzhou, but we were here today for the hottest day of 2010 (most humid too, I'd say). I can't tell you the exact temperature because I still can't convert Celsius. But I can tell you that all of us were dripping with sweat. We only have a couple of shorts packed for each of us, but we'll make do.

Well, we're hoping for a middle of the night phone call or e-mail with good news. I'll post when we find out if we're all clear to go home on time.