Our last two days in Guangzhou

Well, we thought this week was never going to end and now we are 24 hours away from leaving Guangzhou and heading to Hong Kong for our flight home on Saturday. The last two days with Natalie have been better. She is better-emotionally. She has been eating very well, and pretty much sleeping through the night.

Yesterday we had to stay in our hotel in case our guide had any questions from the US Consulate, as they took our paperwork to the Consulate for approval to enter the US with a foreign child. The nice thing about the Hague Convention for Adoption is, she will be a US Citizen as soon as she enters US soil. In the afternoon we all boarded a bus and went to the consulate for the swearing-in ceremony. It was a very short oath we took on behalf of our children. We had to raise our right hand as we repeated after the US Official. I wish someone could have taken a picture, because Natalie raised her right hand right along with us! It was the funniest thing! In the evening the majority of the families got together for one last Chinese meal together. I will truly miss them all.

Each evening, after returning from dinner, we have allowed Natalie to run around the very big hotel entrance to run off some energy before bed and to help her get better balance. Throughout the week we have discovered that she was very spoiled by her Nanny. She never fed herself, never walked very much, and got whatever she wanted. In the last week she is now feeding herself (by fingers), and even tried holding a spoon (we need to work on that), and her balance has improved significantly. She is feeling more secure-as she will not hold my hand and will walk quite a distance away from me. Brad and I will let her go away from me and then I would slip around a corner, as he walked beside her. She always made her way back to me, on her own, but never got upset. It has been a few minutes of freedom for me as I let Brad run after her-and she's not clinging to me like Velcro. In the hotel Lobby is a display with red rabbits. This Chinese New Year is the Year of the Rabbit. She LOVES these rabbits-and we have been trying to find one for her, but with no luck. (Thus one of the pictures here.)

Today was our last day with most of the families. We went to Yuexiu Park in the morning. This park is one of the oldest and the largest in Guangzhou. It features the Five Ram Sculpture, which has become the identity of the City. There is an ancient myth that thousands of years ago the people that lived here were very poor and starving to death. They prayed to the God of the Heavens to save them and he sent down 5 Ewe and 5 Ram. With these animals they could make milk and plow fields thus saving the peoples lives. We took a picture of the sculpture. I also included a picture of our National Guide, Maggie, (the one on the left), who met us in Beijing and has been here in Guangzhou with us all week. (Her helper, Becky, is on the right.)

The other night after putting Natalie down, I laid down to watch a movie called "Something the Lord Made". I had never heard of this movie before, but here is a bit of irony for you. The movie is about Dr. Alfred Blalock and his Lab assistant Vivian Thomas, of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It was these two men, during WWII, who discovered how to save the "blue baby". They were the first to attempt to repair the heart defect, Tetralogy of Fallow. Natalie's heart defect! Had it not been for these two men, babies born with this particular heart defect would not live to adulthood-mortality rate was 100%. I found it ironic that we would see a movie about our child's heart condition, in China! See it!

Well, this will be my last blog entry until we get home and settled. Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey and prayed for us. Your prayers got us thru some very rough days! We can't wait to get home and see everyone and EAT lots and lots of homemade Dutch Food!!!!!!!!!!!