Ava Pics

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We found out today that Ava was really getting a kick out of us winking at her at the kitchen table. The first photo is Ava's attempt at copying us.

Still Sick But Getting Better

Ava seems to be getting better. She hasn't thrown up since Tuesday morning and is more active and happy. She still has diarrhea, but the doctor said that is ok as long as she continues to drink and eat, even if it's only a little bit. Ava is taking her bottle more often again, although isn't drinking a full bottle quite yet. Thankfully, it's more fluid than a few days ago, and today was better than yesterday. She also discovered mango today and ate a ton of it. We were reading that mango can be introduced as early as six months, so we thought we would try it out. She just loved it, and ate herself full, along with a bunch of veggie puffs, another favorite.

She was very smiley with us this evening before bed, which was at about 6:40 tonight. That's a little earlier than we would like, but she was exhausted from playing with us this afternoon. Naturally, we're exhausted (and still sick) also, but found a sliver of time to watch television after Ava went to bed. All in all, today was really the first day that we felt like we were setting the foundations of her new routine. It's just been so difficult defining "normal" for her with the jet lag, sickness and our first attempt at parenthood, but I know we'll get there.

We mentioned the secret poop society in an earlier post, well now there's the "It's never gonna get done" society, an organization of parents dedicated to obsessing about the small things, such as taking the stinky garbage out, going to the bathroom, washing off the kitchen table, UNPACKING!, picking up mushed bananas off the floor, wondering where there may be other food hiding, endlessly scouring bottles, nipples and assorted baby paraphanalia, and of course, finding time to lose the sweatpants before 2 in the afternoon. Now THAT's an accomplishment.

We have been just overwhelmed with support from everyone, and we are so happy to know that so many people already care deeply for her and worry about her when she is sick. Seeing our parents and their happiness around Ava was extremely satisfying, and we can't wait to find out what the future brings with family outings, holidays and visits.

By the way, the two pictures above are from Grandma Randi and Grandpa Al's camera when they visited us earlier in the week. Ava's expression is so cute looking up at Grandpa on the couch.

And... We're Back

We arrived in Madison Saturday evening after a whirlwind 24+ hours of excruciating travel. It's not that the flying was bad -- except for the Space Mountain flight between Minneapolis and Madison ("This is your captain. We're going to ask that the flight attendants not serve beverages and remain securely belted." Terrific.) -- it was the marathon of sleeplessness while we tried to keep Ava comfortable. Ava slept for the majority of the three flights home, and for that we were very grateful. Our legs were numb by the time we landed and our stomachs a little wonky, as Ava was sleeping in all manner of positions across our bodies and we were just downright air sick. We told ourselves not to move, less we wake her. All in all, that strategy worked out well for us.

Saturday night we all slept long and hard, and Ava only woke up once for her bottle. "This is going to be easy," we said. WRONG!

Ava has had a cold since we welcomed her into our family. She's mostly had a runny nose and a sneeze. Her cold still lingers, but now you can throw in some serious diarrhea and occasional vomiting, some of the projectile nature. Bleh! Bleh! "Nice shot, Ava!" She has been up 2-4 times a night now.

As a result of her sickness, Ava has been slow to eat and slow to drink, but fast at becoming dehydrated. Ava was down about 20 or so ounces of fluid from her usual routine. She was also weak and just not the playful and smiling Ava we had come to know. We also had a difficult time waking her, another sign of dehydration. Needless to say, we were worried about her, so we brought her to the doctor (for a second time in two days) and they recommended we hydrate her intravenously. We spent about 6 hours yesterday at the doctor and hospital. Scott's brother, David, stopped by the hospital and helped us to pass the time while we tried to keep Ava's attention away from the needles stuck in her hand. The few times she saw them, she wanted to yank them out. It was a long day.

Today Ava seems to be feeling a little better, and is eating/drinking more than yesterday, but still nowhere near the level in which she should. The doctor said to keep trying and even a little bit is better than nothing. We hope the virus passes soon.

Meanwhile, we are on poop collection duty for the lab. Just throwing that little tidbit in there in hopes that you are reading this over your lunch hour.

In between all of the ugly stuff, Ava has been a sweetie. We've had visits from both sets of parents and our neighbors, and she was just a little ham. We're happy that she enjoys the company of others, although we are keeping that to a bare minimum for a while as we try to establish strong bonds with her. Today Anne carried her around in the snuggly for several hours and Scott played with her on the floor. She especially enjoyed sitting on a sweater and being pulled along the hardwood floor. It was nice to see her laughing and smiling again.

If we look tired in some of these photos, we are.

See You When We Get Back

Well, that's the journey of Cheese In China. It's our last afternoon here, and we'll be visiting the U.S. embassy and getting Ava's passport this afternoon. Then we're up REALLY early local time for the long flights home (5 done, 3 to go). Thanks to everyone who has been following our journey, and we'll see you when we get back.

Thanks also to everyone (including Bethany, our agency) who has helped us in so many different ways -- mowing our lawn, picking things up, driving us to and from the airport, words of encouragement, baby advice, etc. -- it's been terrific.

We plan to continue our posts on the blog as Ava grows up, albeit not quite as often, so stay tuned!

Love, Scott, Anne, and Ava

Group Pictures

Can you spot Ava? She's the one in blue with the most hair!





Ava is falling asleep. Ten seconds after this picture Ava was sound asleep. She is still asleep in her crib. Let's hope for a looooooong nap.

Guangzhou Free Day Part 2

Wow, check this out. Three posts in one day! This afternoon the three of us went shopping near the hotel. We picked up all kinds of things for Ava, including some traditional Chinese dresses in many sizes. Everything costs peanuts, except for the gift we bought for YOU, of course.

Another cool thing we bought were some chops, which are basically hand-carved stone stamps in Chinese characters, one with Ava's name and one with Bogen. You'll be seeing those stamps a lot in the future if you get any snail mail from us. It turns out that "Bogen" translates into "Expensive Kiss" when reading the Chinese characters. Ava means, "Lovely Strong," or another translation we heard was "Lovely China." She truly is lovely.

The White Swan hotel is actually located on an island, Shamian Island, so we are right on the water. The island is full of old French and British colonial buildings in varying states of decay. We strolled down to the waterfront where we soaked up some of the tropical warmth.

It's been fun getting to know little Ava, although we are wanting to keep her in the calm environment of our room more and more. We are really trying to figure her out still and trying to find her "natural" routine, which is pretty much impossible in this whirlwind environment of changing hotel rooms and the mix of free time and appointments. It's about 5:30 p.m., and Ava just settled down for her second nap. (Yeah, kind of late, but what can you do?)

Videos

Look what we can accomplish during nap time! Click the play button to watch each video. Hopefully this works for most of you. If you are using a slower Internet connection, you may have to wait a bit for the videos to start. Make sure you have your speakers on!

Ava's First Bath, Sept. 18


Summer Palace Singer & Erhu ("Chinese Violin") Players


Music & Dancing at Beihei Park, Beijing


Cable Car Ride to Great Wall, Badaling


Bustle in Chongqing, City of 30 Million

Guangzhou Free Day Part 1

Ava slept very well last night, about 9 hours of solid sleep. We did, too. Yes!! It's 10:30 a.m. here and we've already took showers, washed bottles and went down for breakfast. Ava had some grilled sweet potato, banana and watermelon and about half a bottle after that. The first time we tried to put Ava in a high chair she totally freaked, but the last two times have been a charm. We learned that we need to make sure she is not too full when we sit her down and we have to begin feeding her right away. After eating a while she just sits there and observes all the activity.

The thing that struck us about the White Swan breakfast buffet is the sheer number of couples and babies. The place was just overflowing with new families. It was also fun to see Jim, Juleen (and now baby Marie) again, as we have not seen them since Beijing. (We picked up our babies in different provinces.)

We just exchanged some more U.S. dollars for Yuan. It's always a good feeling to get 11 one hundred "dollar" bills back for one U.S. hundred dollar bill and a fifty. Okay, it's time to do some shopping.

Guangzhou

Ava had her first flight ever this morning, and our fifth on this trip. She definitely has had some mood swings lately, but they tend to happen most often when there is a lot of activity and noise around her, basically in crowded areas. Since she seems so naturally curious, I think she just becomes overwhelmed. Fortunately, we've learned that it is usually nothing a good bottle of milk can't handle as a nice distraction. Sort of like how we are with cheese n' crackers. Man, could we go for some serious cheez n' cracks Wisconsin style.

Anyways, back to Ava. The flight was fairly short between Chongqing and Guangzhou -- only about two hours -- but Ava ran the gamut of emotions. She was happy looking out the window for a while, but then went totally bonkers (one person in the group has dubbed it "the Ava siren"). It's sort a very loud sustained yelp, like a siren. Do you remember that scene in Dumb & Dumber when Jim Carey asks, "do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?" Yep. Kind of like that. Of course, if you really think about, adults are just about in the same frame of mind on crowded, noisy airplanes, only that screaming you're hearing is inside your head. After a bottle and some serious mojo by an old Chinese woman next to us, Ava took a little nap on the plane. The bus ride to our new hotel, The White Swan, seemed to take forever. Needless to say, we are little worried about the VERY long flights home. We also can't wait to get her onto a normal schedule.

Guangzhou is humid and tropical, and was formerly known as "Canton." It's smoggy here, too.

Here at the hotel and the surrounding areas there are lots of people walking around with their recently adopted Chinese babies. There are several other groups and couples besides our own.

After Ava took a much needed two-hour nap this afternoon and a bath (which she still likes, thank goodness), we strolled down to the medical clinic as a group for Ava's exam, a U.S. requirement. Basically they are making sure the babies aren't carrying something nasty, like SARS. Ava checked out great and weighed in at 16.4 pounds.

After the clinic, the three of us visited a gift shop with lots of great "squeaky shoes" for Ava and other fun Chinese trinkets. We also hung out in our room, and took a stroll down to the waterfall in the hotel and to see the goldfish. Ava also played in the room this afternoon and was very happy. She had lots of smiles for us, and even played independently off and on with her "toys." Her new favorites today are the tiny flashlight I brought, the little box of shampoo, the phonebook, and her shoes. Forget about anything that's in primary colors -- you know, her actual toys.

Right now it's 6:30 p.m. and Ava is winding down. Anne and I just put on her pajamas, which has been a struggle. She absolutely does not like her clothes to be changed. Ironically, she does just fine (most of the time) with the diaper changes, but she just loses it anytime we need to change her outfit. Thankfully, she quickly snaps out of it.

That's all for now. Anne wants to wash some bottles. Scott will watch Ava. Then it's bottle time again and time to think about how to find some supper for ourselves. Whew.

Another Day With Ava

Today was our second full day with Ava in Chongqing. She is just such a little honey. Full of smiles for everyone, although she’s starting to react to Scott and me better than for other people.

She’s so active – constantly exploring. She has to take everything in – when we were on the bus this morning she would whip her head to look outside, then whip her head to see if Scott was still there, and back again. Back and forth, back and forth – people laugh because it is so dramatic. She definitely keeps tabs on both of us at all times.

Just yesterday evening we saw her crawling skills – she finally felt comfortable going away from us a bit. She’s probably going to be walking quite soon, as she can walk holding one or two of our hands only for balance. Too funny – she looks way too tiny to be walking, but she almost is! She’s actually wearing 3-6 month overalls today, and they’re fitting perfectly.

She also seems as smart as all get-out. Scott did the “more” sign when feeding her, and after two takes she did it back with a big smile, although she hasn’t done it again since. We also waved goodbye to Scott when he was leaving on one of his many shopping excursions across the street for drinking water and the like, and the next time he said goodbye she waved before we did. Note to self – don’t do anything you don’t want Ava to learn!

Everyone comments on her hair, asking what we are fertilizing her with. She definitely has the most hair in the group. Actually, a couple of people have said that she has Scott’s haircut, which is pretty funny. Scott’s spiky hair, no gel necessary.

One thing that’s been hard is that she really resisted falling asleep last night and before naps. She’ll stay up until the last possible minute, rubbing her face and making little yippy shrieks until she basically passes out. We think that there are so many new things to take in, and that also she’s afraid that we’ll leave. She keeps trying to stay awake to keep an eye on everything. She just now went down for a nap at 3:30 p.m., and she normally has a nap at noon.

Also, last night it was obvious that she was wanting her normal caregivers and her normal routine. I’d hold her and she’d push away and be anxious, but if we put her in her crib she’d want up. I guess a lot of the babies had a more difficult time sleeping last night – hopefully it will be easier for her tonight. We just feel bad that she’s confused about the new situation. Hopefully the more she trusts us, the easier sleep will become. When she’s out, though, she’s definitely out – must be used to a lot of noise in the orphanage.

Today we had our first group outing after having a free day yesterday. We all boarded the bus to go to visit the Chongqing Zoo. We were a bit apprehensive about going out in public when she’s just getting to know us, but it worked out well and the zoo wasn’t busy. We strolled around, taking in the pandas and the local banyan trees. We also visited an art school at the edge of the zoo, and bought a few crafts to remember her town.

Right now I’m typing this as Ava is sleeping her long-awaited nap. Scott made a foray into town to take some photos with another dad, so we have a better sense of the city for Ava. We’re here for such a short amount of time – about two days less than typical – so we want to soak in the city as much as possible to tell Ava about it later.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Guangzhou. We actually need to have our bags ready for the bellboy at 5:15 and be in the lobby at 6:30 – ouch. This is quite the off-road adventure version of new parenting – how often do new parents have to board buses and planes just a few days after meeting their new baby? Not to mention starting out in a hotel room where you can’t get any sort of routine down and where you have to use bottled water. But we wouldn’t trade it for anything, because we have Ava!

By the way, if you have a moment take a look at the blogs of some of our fellow travel mates. You may spot us in some of the photos, and it’s a good way to better experience the journey all of us are making.
http://littlepinkboots.blogspot.com/
http://journey2china4gracie.blogspot.com/
Jim and Juleen at http://whallofchina.blogspot.com/ are currently in a different province, but we’ll be meeting up with them soon!

Well, it's 10 p.m. here, Ava is sleeping, and we have to get up at 4:45 a.m. tomorrow, and probably a few times during the night. No time to post pictures. As always, we do not know what the Internet situation will be like when we get to Guangzhou. Thank goodness our laptop has been working here and we've been able to post directly from our room during Ava naps.

Talk to you later, and thanks for all your comments.

Thoughts on Family Day

While we posted photos of receiving Ava, we didn’t have time until now to write about the experience. It was one of the most magical, surreal experiences of our lives. We all boarded the bus, and drove to the orphanage about 45 minutes away. We took the stairwell to the third floor, hearing the sounds of the other children while we looked at the photos of some children lining the walls. We walked into a room between the playroom and the crib rooms, and the babies were there! All of them were in the playroom with the nannies. The parents stood outside the little fence and Scott spotted Ava immediately – she was looking right at him while playing on the floor.

They called the families’ names alphabetically, so we were the third family called. They called our name, and a nanny stepped over the little fence holding Ava. She went into Anne’s arms without crying. She just looked at us trying to figure us out. It was quite chaotic as most of the other babies were crying and people were trying to hand cameras to each other. One of the other dads pointed out he had spotted Ava’s crib, as it had the photobook we had sent weeks ago. It was on the blanket, opened up with the picture of us.

It was obvious that the nannies cared about the babies and the families so much. They presented us with a care package of Ava’s formula and rice cereal, and also a little scrapbook with a few photos of Ava when she was younger and stamps of her little footprints. There is some Chinese written in there, too, so we’ll have to get that translated. They also took photos with the disposable cameras we sent in the care package, which will be priceless. Some of the nannies had tears in their eyes, which made sense as they had cared for these 16 little babies for the past 10-15 months.

Half an hour later, we were back on the bus. All of the parents stared at each other in awe, trying to comprehend how quickly our lives had changed….for the better. And then we had to scramble to figure out what to feed them!

Free Day

Ava has been just wonderful. She seems to be taking to us quite well so far, although it's difficult to say for sure. Adopted children "act out" in many different ways, some being excessively friendly, while some being excessively withdrawn. Ava seems somewhere in the middle, but a little more on the friendly side. Thankfully, she doesn't appear to favor one of us over the other, which can be hard on some couples. In other words, she doesn't fuss when being handed over to one another. She watches each of us if one moves into the bathroom or to another part of the room. She doesn't really fuss about it, but is definitely always looking around to see what we are up to.

Last night was our first night with her. At night, Ava didn't want us to sit down with her for some reason, so Anne and I shared the marathon walking-around-the-room routine until she conked out. This took a good hour or so. She went to bed around 8:45 in her crib and slept straight through until 4. Not bad at all. A couple of times she fussed for about 5 or 10 seconds, but Anne talked to her and Ava went right back to sleep. At 4 we fed her a bottle and then she went back to sleep until about 6:45. We are so pleased with how she is coping with being away from the orphanage and all that activity. We are also thrilled that we were able to get some serious sleep together as a family.

Ava is just a little explorer. She is curious about everything, and especially enjoys looking out onto the big cityscape outside our window. It sort of mesmerizes her, and we think she likes watching the yellow taxis appear and disappear between the buildings below. It's also more space than she's probably ever seen.

She also has a little head cold/allergy going on, as when she sneezes, it is an explosion of mucuus! (We have her on some cold medicine we had with us, and it appears to be helping already.) I think we've just resolved to be full of snot 24 hours a day. Interestingly, none of this seems to matter when she is finally here in our arms.

We think Ava is also the resident "class clown" of the babies in the group. Yesterday afternoon at the official fingerprint and adoption finalization appointment -- which was tricky to have the same day we got her -- she let out a siren-like noise. Really loud! Everyone was laughing and smiling at her. We haven't heard the noise since. She is also quick to laugh and smile, traits that will fit so well in our family.

Ava is really strong and can pull herself up independently and stand. She shuffles along the edges of the table, chairs, and of course, us. She also holds and picks up toys very well, and her favorite is a bottle of gum, which we purchased because it looks like a prescription medicine bottle, and it's safety sealed like one, too. Too funny. She loves to shake it. With bottles of gum, who needs toys?

As I write, Anne is holding her on the couch, where Ava just finished a bottle of milk/rice mix from a bottle, a staple here with Chinese babies. Ava is sound asleep. We are gradually transitioning her to American formula, adding just a scoop or two to her regular routine. We also introduced her to applesauce, which she seemed a little tentative about. Prunes are in order for later today, as she has not had a bowel movement yet. Yes, we're already members of the secret parent society that talks about poop.

Talk to you all again soon. Today is a free day, and we're just enjoying the privilege of bonding with our daughter. We love and miss you all, and are looking forward to coming home.

(Oh, and here's a quick link to a blog by Lisa, Ed and Josh in our group. It has a few pictures of us and other families in our group, and a few things we did one night while in Beijing.)

Our New Family. Meet Ava Li Juan

Great Wall & Cloissonne Factory

Day 6. Great Wall & NEW Picture of Ava

Hi, All! We don't have much time, but we made it to Chongqing last night.

We'll tell you more about the Great Wall and post pics later in the day, but for now, we have to share this more recent picture of Ava we received on the bus while traveling to the hotel. She is just so sweet. We leave in 20 minutes now to pick her up! Can you even believe it? The crib is set up in our room - what an amazing thing.

Well, down to the lobby to travel to the orphanage.