Tuesday, August 29, 2006: Visa Application, Physical, and Red Couch Photos

This morning we got off to a late start-- admittedly my fault. I stayed up until 11pm last night so I could call China Southern in the U.S. (which is only open Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm Pacific time) to confirm our tickets back to Los Angeles. We have to confirm at least 72 hours in advance. But when I tried calling last night, it turned out we only had four minutes left on our calling card, and we were on hold for those four minutes. I was completely frustrated. This morning, I tried calling the local Guangzhou number for China Southern three times. Each time a woman answered and I explained (in English) what I wanted to do (confirm tickets) and she said something in Mandarin and hung up. The fourth time, Jason called and asked if anyone spoke English. He got an earful, in Mandarin, and then hung up with them. We rushed down to breakfast, where there was a long line to eat the buffet. I guess 140 families with their newest members is a lot to feed in a short period of time. I scarfed down a bowl of rice krispies before we headed off to get Marcie's visa photo and physical examination.

The visa photo place was right next to a 7-11 (they are all over the place here in Guangzhou), so I bought a new calling card. After we had Marcie's visa photo, we followed everyone over to the office for physical examinations. My favorite part of the walk over there was watching Cassidy put herself to sleep in her stroller. I thought it was a riot-- she refused to lean back in her stroller, even though her parents tried.

Once we all arrived at the clinic, we moved through three separate stations. In one station, they measured Marcie's head, listened to Marcie's heart and had us remove her diaper to check things out. Another station was the ENT station. This doctor was the roughest with the kids. Kathy, one of the guides, told us the ENT would be checking the girls' eyes, noses, and teeth. We thought this was amusing. . .

In the third station, they took her temperature (with a thermometer under her arm), which was 97.6 and they weighed her. Marcie weighed in at around 21 pounds. I think she's lost a little weight since we took custody of her. Catherine comes in a close second, weighing around 19 pounds. It's hard to believe Cassidy (in the stroller in the photo above) only weights like 4 pounds less than Marcie (she was around 17 pounds)-- because Marcie is such a big girl in comparison. Then again, when you are under 2 feet long and weight only 17 or 21 pounds, 4 pounds is roughly between 20 and 35% of your body weight. That's no small thing.

We did a little shopping along the way back to hotel. When we got back to the hotel, Jason went off to complete nearly two hours' worth of visa and adoption paperwork for Marcie and I went to the concierge to have them help me confirm our flights on China Southern. Thankfully, they were able to help me. Back in our room, I tried calling United to confirm our L.A. to San Diego flight, but without luck. Every time I called, I got this message about the TSA restrictions, then nothing-- and it went dead. I didn't even think to say "agent" or anything-- or to consider the fact that the U.S. phone system might not recognize the tone from overseas. Instead, I called my brother Bryan and asked him to call United for me. I don't think we really need to confirm a domestic flight, but I do think we need to inform them we're traveling with a lap child. This ticket confirmation business was a real pain, so I'm glad we're done with it.

After Jason completed the paperwork, we headed off to Lucy's for lunch. I had the sweet and sour pork, which was very sweet. Jason had Malaysian fried rice. My mom had a noodle dish. The most remarkable thing (to me) about the place was the trees growing up through the restaurant. That's a tree trunk to Larry's right in the photo. . .

Mom, Marcie, and I went back out in search of a little Chinese outfit for the red couch photo and were able to successfully locate one we liked. We also bought these cute little Mary Jane shoes that Jason fell in love with. All the kids shoes here have squeakers in them- so when the kids walk around, they sqeak every step they take. I find this incredibly irritating, and there is no way I'd purchase squeaker shoes for my kids. I don't even really like buying squeaky toys for the dog! Fortunately, the nice woman at the store showed me how to remove the squeakers! This greatly pleased me-- I know there are parents out there who think the shoes are super cute and note that children just get such a kick out of jumping around on them, squeaking as they do. Those parents have very lucky children. My kids are apparently not as lucky. I'll just leave it at that.

Anyway, we all met up with the kids for family photos and a group photo and a photo of the girls on the red sofas a the White Swan. This is a big tradition-- I don't know if every agency does it, but CCAI does. And the photos are just so cute.

Here is our "family" photo. I put "family" in quotation marks because it's not really our family photo since Casey is missing. I wish they'd told us we'd be in a family photo-- I would have put on some make up-- combed my hair-- and perhaps not worn a shirt covered in formula stains, Marcie spit and stretched out of shape. Oh well, I guess this is the real me. . .

Here is the group photo. I haven't checked anyone else's photos to see if I can swipe a better one. This is a nice group photo because the travel companions are in it. We have a professionally taken group photo from Beijing. Well, we had one. Apparently I left ours in Beijing. Oops.

We also took some photos of the girls-- they didn't turn out very good-- I picked this one because it came out the best, but it's missing several of the girls. Like Alexandra, who was put into the photo right after I snapped it. Again, I'm hopeful someone else got a better shot than we did.

These next two photos are probably my favorite photos of today. Marcie, Cassidy, and Ava went clothes-shopping together with me, Kyndra, and Joia today. I think the girls look totally shocked --or perhaps frightened by the faces Gene is making at them?

And I just like this one-- still Marcie, Cassidy, and Ava.

After our photo session, we went to dinner at the Japanese restaurant in the hotel, and then to buy some diapers and water. If I haven't mentioned it, the hotel is absolutely beautiful. Here is a photo of the lobby. And one with my mom in front of the waterfall.

Oh, yeah! And I almost forgot-- though I thought the clothes we had laundered in Chongqing looked cool, all packaged in the plastic bags, they were kind of stiff, and looked like they'd been scrubbed by rocks (which they probably had), and they didn't get any stains out. So Jason has been hand washing his laundry tonight. (Well, mostly his laundry- I did toss in the shirt I was wearing this morning, which Marcie threw up prunes all over. Blech.)

Poop Watch 2006
If you're still following our adventures in poopville, we have some happy news to report! Today Marcie grunted and groaned and squatted-- but no tears. Yup-- she pooped on her own. And it was normal poop, not all hard and abnormal looking. Apparently all the prunes and apple juice helped. Today she had another half a jar of baby food prunes and four ounces of apple juice. We are hopeful this will maintain our momentum. In the meantime, we have decided to withhold the rice cereal from her diet until we get back to the U.S.

Tomorrow there is an optional afternoon tour, which we may or may not go on. In the meantime, here are some more photos of beautiful Marcie. There were a lot of photos on the blog today-- hope they didn't take hours and hours to download. There's just so much to drink in here-- and sometimes a picture just tells a clearer story than words do. . .