Journey to Mei Mei: Memories

In the wee hours of the night, I sat and looked through all the photos from our trip to China to bring our Noey home. I sat and cried as I looked at Noey's face in the photos from when we visited the orphanage. It broke my heart. You could see that she was afraid we were going to leave her there, like "what am I doing back here?" She pushed her lower jaw out and clenched her teeth. Bless her heart. While looking through the photos, I also then thought, "Where is the little T-shirt we kept that Noelle was wearing when we got her?!" We gave all the clothes back to the orphanage (they badly needed them) except for the little shirt. Emma's little onesie that she had on we put in a bag and didn't wash it - it is with her things from Vietnam. I feel so terrible - I have NO idea where that little shirt is, except I do remember on going through clothes seeing an article of clothing and thinking "where is that from?" Shows how cluttered up my mind is right now. I think the shirt is put away with old clothes, but I am not sure. I just feel so terrible that I didn't think of that shirt - I probably took it out of the plastic bag thinking it was "just" dirty clothes. I hope we still have it at least. Poor Noey, she is getting second best a lot. I have empathy for her as I was a second child - a middle child. Noey at least will not be a middle child! Whew!

I will try to get some more photos posted of our trip soon. These are photos of some of the other families. Years ago most all adoptive families stayed at the White Swan Hotel on Shamian Island. It is closed down for renovations and I have heard that it will no longer cater to adoptive families even when it does reopen. Anyway, in the White Swan there was the "red couch" - a traditional photo-op place where the families and babies would be subject to a paparazzi craziness and the babies would cry and wail. We stayed at the China Hotel in Guangzhou and since there is no red couch in their lobby, we did the "red stairs" instead.

We were probably the oldest parents in our group. There was a couple who adopted their first child, a little girl who they named Caydence. Wayne and I guessed this couple was right around 50. They live in California. Only one of the couples in our travel group was from Colorado - they live in Denver and it just so happens the guy is the one who Emma had/has? (she has not mentioned him in a while) a mad crush on. Sadly I did not get a photo of their whole family on the stairs as well as a few other families. The group has a photo sharing site somewhere but I haven't had time to look if you can believe that!

We started our journey to Noelle about 7 years ago! Then China slowed way, way down and of course our story is history. We have been blessed with 2 beautiful girls. Because China slowed down (the wait is now up to 6 years for a nonspecial needs child), a lot of the couples switched over to special needs. Our social worker advised against that so we stayed in line and waited and waited 5-1/2 years for our referral. Most of the young couples in our travel group adopted special needs children so they wouldn't have to wait so long to have a child/another child (the wait for a SN child is around a year, if that), some with heart issues, a little albino boy, some with cleft palates that had been repaired. We had none in our group, but a lot of special needs children are born without a limb. When you adopt a special needs child you can "pick" your child out from a list -you can see photos whereas with nonspecial needs referrals, they match you and you don't see your child until referral day. A lot of people ask us "did you go there and pick her out?" We say, noooo, God did. :D I admire these young parents so much who take in children who have a challenging special need. Some even adopt Down syndrome children. A few of the recently adopted children in our group broke my heart, beautiful children but they had had cleft palate repair, you could tell they have heavy emotional issues probably due to being neglected in the orphanage because of how they looked. If you have seen a cleft palate baby before a repair, you know what I am talking about. Anyway.....here are the photos from our "red stairs" photo session and the outside of the hotel.

I will post a lot of photos from our adoption day soon and more photos of Noelle. I don't want her to grow up to be called "Noey" but when I practice calling her Ella or Elly, it just sounds so funny!!! So right now she is called Noelle or Noey. I do hope she will grow into being an Elly or Elle or Ella soon - at least before she starts school. lol

Loved this family! Their little adopted boy is so much like Charlie - very high energy and a character - he has some sort of heart condition, that is supposedly minor.

How gorgeous is this little one? I don't think she was a special needs child. I had the nicest conversation with this father while we were waiting in line at the airport to leave China. He said he lost his mother before he was 30 and he wouldn't have had it any other way....he loved his mother no matter how long he had her for. I hope and pray my girls will feel that way also.

These are the 2 beautiful baby girls this couple adopted - one had cleft palate repair and I am not sure about the other one, but they were both just so frightened and crying a lot. This young couple who adopted them iuto their family....God bless them.

They took family with them to China.

This beautiful boy had a hole in his heart - very common in babies and most the hole grows back together. He sure looked healthy! I don't know the names right off hand of the family members, but this gal had her mother along with her. She had other children at home/was married. This gorgeous child had cleft palate repair, a very good one - you would never know by looking at him.

This is the other "mature" couple and their gorgeous daughter - she has the most beautiful eyes. I cannot wait to see updated photos of all the kids. Caydence was not a special needs adoption.

This young couple is from the SE US. She recently sent an E-mail to say hi to all and they think their daughter is not full Chinese. I thought that when we were over there upon seeing her. She said her skin keeps getting lighter and she does not have the Asian eyes at all. She is beautiful, though!

This little boy you might just think was a towhead on first glance. He really is a pretty boy and again what selfless and wonderful people his parents are. His dad was so in love with his new son and always had tears of happiness in his eyes.

Chaos on the "red stairs!"

Noelle immediately started to bolt and then she realized she didn't know where to go. :( You have to remember, these babies had already been several days in their parents' loving arms and then to be put down in the midst of all the people, it was pretty scary for them.

My darling little polka-dot Noey - bless her heart.

This was another travel group that overlapped with us - I did not know them at all, but honestly we did not become friends with any of the other parents although the older couple we felt a kinship with for obvious reasons. I remember in Vietnam thinking a couple who had brought their older daughter along as they adopted a baby girl, were stuck up. Now I understand they were just too busy to socialize....and I got sick on top of the business. Everyone is just busy with their own child although some of the younger couples were still socializing quite a bit.