A Little Better...

Today has been a little better . Hadley slept all night and finally drank a bottle this morning. We all woke up this morning at 4:30 again. We just can’t seem to get on the right schedule.

Hadley’s temperament is improving although still pretty fussy. She seems to do better when we are out an about than when in the hotel room. It is evident that she is spoiled rotten. She wants to be held all the time. Which is okay most of the time, except we have 2 other kids that want our attention too. Both the boys are really enjoying Hadley. Aiden is a great big brother and so helpful. Liam is warming up to her and starting to be affectionate. Hadley took a bath today with Liam and she seemed to enjoy playing in the water.

After breakfast we went to Lotus Lake and visited the Tiger and Dragon pagodas and a temple. We all really liked it, except it was so hot. Today was the first day that hasn’t been cloudy. The sun was beating down on all of us. It was over 90 degrees with 100% humidity. We lasted just over an hour and headed back to the hotel for naps. However, on the way all three kids fell asleep. When we arrived at the hotel we realized that having 3 kids was not going to be easy. How do 2 people carry 3 sleeping kids and all our bags. UGH! Fortunately the doorman helped carry Aiden in.

At 2:00pm we headed to our agency to meet the foster mother again and give her our gift. As soon as we got there, she latched on to Hadley. Hadley was immediately smiling. We told her that she wasn’t taking her bottle or eating much. Her foster had brought her some food and just shoveled it in. She wouldn’t take a bottle for her either though. She told us that she was very sad and that she didn’t sleep last night because she missed Hadley so bad. She held her and cared for her for about 45 minutes. We gave her our gift and then she left.
At about 3:00pm the birth mother arrived. She looks very young (even younger than 17). She is petite and very pretty. She brought gifts for Hadley. One was from her, one from Hadley’s father, and one from Hadley’s great uncle. It is very special to be able to have those for Hadley. She also brought a letter for us and two for Hadley (one from her and one from her birth father). The agency made copies of them and is translating them for us. We sat and talked for about 45 minutes. We had a list of questions for her that we thought might help Hadley know about her when she is older. She gladly answered all of them. At the end we asked her if she had any questions for us. She told us that she wanted us to raise Hadley as our own daughter and she wants her to learn to speak Chinese and learn about her culture when she is older.

We then let her hold Hadley and took several pictures of her as well as one of her with our whole family. After that we gave her our gifts. She first looked at the St. Louis photo book and asked about the arch. Next she looked at the photo album that we made for her with pictures of Hadley, our family, and our home. She burst into tears as she looked through each photo and asked about them. At that point tears welled up in all of our eyes (even the agency representatives). Finally she opened the necklace and we explained the meaning behind it and she sobbed even more and then hugged Chaunta. We let her hold Hadley one more time to say her final good byes. As she got up to leave, Aiden ran up and gave her a hug. She bent down and gave him a big hug back. She thanked us and then left to go to work.
It was the most amazing experience to meet her birth mother. We feel so blessed for the opportunity. We agreed to send regular updates and photos to the agency for her. The agency also copied the photos from our camera for her. When they did that, I noticed that they had some baby pictures of her that we hadn’t received so they gave those photos to us. It is great to have more photos of her as a tiny baby. Included in them were photos of her birth mother feeding her a bottle at about 1 month old.

After leaving the agency, we went straight to dinner (TGI Fridays). We were starved since we hadn’t had lunch. It was a nice break from McDonalds and Subway. She was great the entire time. However as soon as we got back to the hotel, the waterworks started again. We are having trouble getting her calmed down and settled in for the night. It looks like it will be a long night!

If the weather is nice tomorrow, we plan to go to the beach.

What a Day!

Wow, what a day. We still haven’t quite adjusted to the 13 hour time difference and so we all woke up about 4:30 this morning. When it finally reached a decent hour, we spent the morning walking around exploring the city. We found the Kaohsiung Cultural Center nearby our hotel. It was a great place to “people watch”. Lots of people doing Tai Chi, dancing, and other traditional Chinese arts. The boys enjoyed watching everything, especially the martial arts. There was a group of about 25 ladies line dancing. We watched for a while until Chaunta’ dared me to join them. Of course, I never turn down a good dare…so I joined in. They all seemed to enjoy watching me try to do their dance.

About 12:30 our agency representatives arrived at our hotel with Hadley. She immediately went to Chaunta, but was pretty fussy. The only lady who speaks English was giving me all of the instructions about her sleeping and eating. We received all of her belongings, including a teddy bear from her birth mother, her clothing, bottles, diapers, and formula. Hadley was becoming increasingly fussy, so we decided it would be a good idea to feed her. She loved the Cheerios we brought and let the boys feed them to her. Of course they loved being able to help. They explained that tomorrow at 2:00we will go back to their office to meet Hadley’s birth mother. Then they left. FINALLY, we had our baby all to ourselves. Once they left, the uncontrollable crying began. Nothing seemed to help! We tried a bottle and that didn’t work. We tried food, and that didn’t work. After about 45 minutes of crying, I did what any man would do in the situation…I got the boys together and took them to lunch (so that mom could have some quality time with our new angel.) It was McDonalds…again (picky boys). While I was gone, Chaunta got Hadley quieted down and off to sleep. We brought back lunch for her, but unfortunately Hadley woke before she was able to eat it. Again, the uncontrollable sobbing began. I took the boys in the other room and got them quited down and off to sleep while mommy got her quieted down. After the boys drifted off, I came back in and Hadley and Chaunta were playing on the bed. She was smiling and having fun. She loves to play peek-a-boo. Unfortunately, the fun only lasted about an hour and the waterworks began again – it took almost an hour to calm her and she drifted off to sleep.

About 30 minutes later, the phone rings. I rush to answer it (not to wake any of the 3 sleeping children). It was LiLi from our agency, she was in the hotel lobby and needed us to come go to the government office and take a Chinese name. We had no clue what she was talking about, but we rousted the kids out of bed. Chaunta carried Hadley and I carried our two sleeping boys into a taxi and off to the office. When we arrived they explained to her that since we were not Chinese that we must adopt a Chinese name. I thought to myself cool, can I be Jackie Chan? But unfortunately, they just gave us names that sounded like our real names, my name is now some really cool Chinese Characters that sound something like “Tie way Es” (for Davis) and Chaunta’s is now “Tie Shan ta.” I think for her that took part of my name and put it with her name. So we are now honorary Taiwanese citizens. They had us sign a bunch of paperwork, and I think we may have actually denounced our US citizenship (just kidding). At the end, the told us that Hadley was now officially ours (by law). OH YEAH, I almost forgot…Hadley was happy and playful the whole time.

After we finished signing the paper work LiLi told us the other man in the waiting room with us was Hadley’s grandfather. Because her birth mother is not 18, her father must sign all the legal paper work. We asked if we could meet him. She ran over to the other agency ladies and they spoke a lot of Chinese back and forth until she came back and said that she would ask him. She asked and brought him over to talk to us. He looked young, maybe 40, and was handsome. He came over and shook my hand. LiLi introduced him to everyone. He spoke first to Hadley, he touched her head and said something we didn’t understand. He looked a Chaunta and said in English, “Thank you. I am very grateful. My daughter is only 17 and doesn’t have power to raise a child”. He eyes were glassy as if holding back tears. Of course, Chaunta didn’t do a good job of holding hers back. They welled up in her eyes as she told him, “Thank you.” He looked at me and said “thank you” again. I asked if we could take a photo of him for Hadley and he agreed. He stood next to Chaunta holding Hadley and I snapped a couple of photos. We all said goodbye and then left. It was a pretty emotional moment.

We then took a taxi back to our hotel and decided to go for a walk – because everyone was so tiered and it was too early to go to sleep. Earlier this morning, we had found a huge department store, but it was closed. We decided to go back there and check it out. The boys were in heaven because they had a toy store. We bought them both a new toy and shopped around for about an hour. We grabbed dinner and headed back to the hotel. Hadley was doing great for about 2-3 hours and then fell asleep on the way home.

Unfortunately, she woke up and started her hysterical crying again. Chaunta tried to calm her but it just wasn’t working. I finally took her and put her in our sling (thanks Nikki) and walked around the room with her. It helped quiet her down, but with the boys it was too noisy for her to fall asleep. I took her out into the hall and walked her up and down for about an hour until she went to sleep. She cried as soon as I laid her in her bed, but stopped as soon as I picked her up. This went on at least 2 more times until I finally took her to my bed and snuggled her. She seemed to love it. She finally fell deep enough asleep that I could get up. When I did, I found that Chaunta and the kids were already passed out in the other room. Now with everyone asleep, I finally had time to update our blog.

Please pray that tomorrow goes more smoothly. She is really having a rough time. She has eaten some solid food, but refused any formula.

Some Random Thoughts About Taiwan So Far:
1) We haven't seen one other caucasian person since arriving in Kaohsiung two days ago.
2) Almost no one speaks any English, and the ones who do, don't know much.
3) People make over Aiden because he looks different (quite the opposite of home where Liam is usually the center attraction. I don't think Liam likes it...but Aiden sure does.)
4) Do you remember Sesame Street? There a part of the show called "One of these things is not like the other." While it seems that the locals are trying to figure out our kids and why one of them is not like the others.

Kaohsuing Comes Alive at Night

When we arrived in Kaohsiung yesterday, we both thought that is was much more subdued than Vietnam. The traffic was so organized and the city was so much less crowded. But then we realized that city comes alive at night! And no wonder...it is far too hot and humid to be out walking around during the daytime.

We Meet At Last!

First of all, I have to brag on our boys. They were absolutely excellent the entire trip here. From the time we left our house until the time we arrived at the hotel in Kaohsiung, it was just about 30 hours, most of which was spent in the air. They were so well behaved and weren’t even cranky from the lack of rest (like I was). They didn’t sleep as much on the plane as we hoped, but they were still great.

We arrived in Taipei on Monday morning at about 6am. We immediately took a bus to the train station and caught a bullet train to Kaohsiung. We were completely on our own (no one to help) and I am proud to say that we had no difficulties.

When we finally reached our hotel, we were all so tired. We took showers and napped for about 3 hours. After our naps, we had McDonalds for lunch and headed to our adoption agency.

When we arrived at our agency they were so excited to see us. Hadley wasn’t there yet, but arrived with her foster mother within about 10 minutes. She is even more beautiful that her photos. She has a very pleasant demeanor. She is smiley and happy. Her foster mom says that she rarely cries. She was really reluctant to associate with either of us…she is very attached to her foster mom. She cried as soon as Chaunta tried to hold her and stopped as soon as she got back in her foster mom’s arms. She played with us and let us feed her Cheerios and was happy (as long as she was on her foster mom’s lap). Liam was immediately jealous and tried to climb up on Chaunta’s lap... Aiden on the other hand was in love with his new baby sister. She actually let Aiden hold her for a minute or so. Her foster mom told us that she has two little boys also in her care, ages 5 and 7. She loves playing with her “brothers” and her foster mom was so glad that she is going to have new brothers to play with. Aiden loved on her the whole time.

Finally after about 45 minutes she let Chaunta hold her for about 1 minute before she realized that she wasn’t with her foster mom. I think we are going to have a difficult transition while she gets used to her new family.

Her foster mom is great. It is obvious that she is being taken very good care of. Her foster mom told us that she loves her like her own daughter and is very sad to see her go, but very happy that she has a good family.

Tomorrow she is going for her visa medical exam in the morning and then we will get her at about 1:00 – 2:00pm. She will officially be ours. Then on Wednesday we are supposed to meet her birth mother.

Please pray that things go smoothly with the adoption and that she adjusts to her new family quickly.

Our First Glimpse

Mommy Gets a Smile

As Close as She Let Me Get

Aiden Showing His Sister His Toys Aiden Holds His Sister -She really likes him! Liam's Jealous FaceSaying Good Bye for the Day

Headed to Taiwan!

It has been a long time since we updated our blog and much has happened. Most notably we received our final adoption ruling and are leaving for Taiwan on Saturday (9/26). We will meet our daughter (Hadley) on Monday and take custody of her on Tuesday. The great thing about adopting from Taiwan is that all the work is already done. We just have to show up for the Visa interview on Monday October 5th (unlike Vietnam were we spent four weeks getting the paperwork together and getting the Visa interview).

We will be taking both of the boys with us. I know it will be a little crazy, but our boys are great travelers and have been out of the country a number of times. This however will be the longest trip they have ever taken. Liam is so excited to meet his sister and experience the process of adoption. Aiden is even more excited to get 1-2 weeks off school (but seeing his sister is OK too).

We have spent the last week making all the preparations. Lots and lots of shopping to get travel stuff, bottles, diapers, baby food, etc… It is kind of scary starting all over with a baby…I’ve grown rather accustomed to not changing diapers.

We will likely meet our daughter’s birth mother, so we have spent countless hours trying to find the perfect gift for her. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can buy that communicates “Thanks for giving us your daughter!”. Somehow nothing seems to be enough… We finally decided on a gold necklace/pendant in the shape of a teardrop with 3 diamonds. We want her to have something that she can keep forever. Additionally, we picked out some small gifts for the adoption agency and her foster mother. Now if we can just figure out how we are going to get all our stuff packed (so that we can managed it while corralling our kids in the airports).

We will be arriving back in St. Louis on Wednesday 10/7 at 8:25AM on American Airlines flight 407 from Chicago. We invite everyone to meet us at the airport and celebrate Hadley’s arrival to her “forever” home.

Your thoughts and prayer are appreciated during our travels. Check back for regular updates and pictures of our travels in Taiwan.

ONLY A FEW MORE DAYS AND WILL HAVE OUR DAUGHTER IN OUR ARMS!