New Year’s Day in China!

Hello to everyone back home! It is New Year’s Day here in China, and back home all of you are getting ready ready to celebrate New Year’s Eve. How we long for home! My sister wanted me to comment on the food (since I always do on our trips!) so here I go…

Dan and I have come to really love the Thai food restaurant here on the Island. It is by far our favorite! We have eaten there so many times that it is hard to count. The breakfasts in The White Swan hotel are amazing! They have a HUGE brunch selection of very good food ranging from french toast, eggs, various breakfast meats, fruits, baked goods, parfaits, cereals, juices – you name it! Picture a big brunch at like The Everett Pacific Hotel and that is what this is like. We eat a big breakfast everyday and then sometimes eat a light lunch out. Dinner we like to do close to home – here in the hotel because it is just easier with Chaeli (and by that time I am ready for pajamas and down time). We have spent many meals out too with other families too so overall our eating experiences have been really good. That is not to say that we don’t miss the smells and tastes of home though, because we do! The thing I find interesting here though is that everything we eat and drink is good. Neither Dan nor I have gotten sick anywhere from anything, and we have eaten a lot outside of the hotel. I was expecting to have to be more careful here (like in Mexico) but really it has all been great! The cokes taste a little flat compared to what we get at home but we tend to drink more tea here than we do pop anyways. Surprisingly the lattes are excellent! The Starbucks here has really got it right and there is even a Seattle’s Best Coffee knock-off shop just a block from our hotel that I have visited a couple of times with Chaeli. She sucks on her ba ba and I sip on my latte. We are two peas in a pod!

Last night Chaeli was fussy so I got very little sleep.

I think I was up like 3 or 4 times in the night with her. Laura get your beauty sleep now because you will need a storehouse of sleep to draw upon during the late nights when everyone else is sleeping and your baby is awake. I think Chaeli is constipated again, and wouldn’t you know there is no prune juice around here. She won’t take any solid foods or any other liquid other than her formula anyways, so I am not sure what good it would do us if we found it anyways. It could just be all the change that is doing this to her. When we first got her she was constipated and then appeared to be fine every day after that. It wasn’t until last night again that I began to get suspicious of bm problems. All of you Moms reading this will remember the times your baby pulled their legs in, and arched their backs straight out in pain…that is what little Yen Yen is doing. Please pray for her to get into a regular cycle again, especially before we board the plane for home on Thrs. We really do feel so lucky/blessed to have such a healthy, happy baby, but constitpation can really hurt and we don’t like to see her hurting. All of the new families we have met, since our group departed 3 days ago, have had babies with chronic ear infections and or fevers/colds. We are so thankful that Chaeli did not have to suffer through any of that. Her medical exam was excellent.

Yesterday, Cordelia took me to The Beijing Road which is a famous street of mega shops, where all the young people hang out in the hundreds.

She told me that today there would be a hundred thousand people on those same streets for The New Year celebration (thank God we were there yesterday and NOT today). The street is very old and very famous. In fact there were portions of glass that you could view down into that allowed you to see several layers below the city where the historic orads were first built int he 11th century and even earlier. It was fascinating to see the materials they used and what those ancient roads looked like. We stared and them for a long time and tried to imagine the Chinese people and what they were like 900 years ago. It boggles your mind. And then here I stand, in 2007, looking down at these ancient roads with one of their beautiful babies in my arms. What a moment in time.

Dan was asking me the other day what I loved most about Chaeli. I thought that was an interesting question so I thought on it for awhile. Oh there were lots of things that came to my mind. For example, I love the way Chaeli loves me and lets me love her as much and as often as I want to. I love that she looks at me with her black pearl eyes and really looks deep into my face. I love that she draws people in to her wherever she goes, as if she is a magnet pulling them close to her. But the more I thought about all of the things that I love about Chaeli, the more I came to the conclusion that the thing I loved most about her is that she came with a story. A magnificent, unforgettable story.

My good friend Anna wrote to me and told me that her daughters Ashley & Brittany were trying to understand adoption and to put their young minds around the concept of how a Mommy could get a baby from anywhere excet her own body. As I thought about that I realized that the greatest thing about Chaeli is her rich, heart felt story that came with her to me. I will never forget her story, so for all of the Ashleys & Brittneys out there this was written for you…so you can come to understand the story of Yen Yen…

Once upon a time in a far, far away land, many oceans away, there lived a very kind Chinese girl who had really beautiful eyes. This Chinese girl fell in love with a Chinese boy. It wasn’t long before the girl realized that she had something wonderful that was growing inside of her. It was a tiny baby. The girl did not know what to do becasue she could not take care of a baby in her country, but she loved her baby anyway and would secretly pray for her, not letting anyone know.

When the baby grew it would kick inside of the young the girl and make her happy. She already loved her child so much. It was like having a great treasure hidden inside of her that only she knew about.

After many months, the day came when the girl gave birth to the baby and she saw that it was a beautiful Chinese girl, just like her. She hugged and kissed her baby and carefully kept her hidden away because she knew that she would not be able to keep her in her country. For 8 days the young Mother held her baby and loved her baby, memorizing every detail of her precious face. She knew that very soon she would have to give her baby away because she could not afford to keep her, even though her heart wanted to hold her baby forever and ever.

After 8 days the young mother went to a secret place in the night where she knew she could leave her baby and she would be found. It was a special place that her people knew very well. It was beside the Pearl river. The young Mother dressed her baby girl in a white outfit and gently laid her inside of a basket under a Banyan tree, along the East side of the Pearl river. She then carefully placed a pink blanket over her baby so she would be warm. The young Mother hid herself and kept watch in the night until the people came and found her baby. The mother believed that if she prayed to the Banyan tree it would protect her daughter and would give her baby a good home and family. As the girl prayed to The Banyan Tree, the real God in heaven looked down and heard her praying and crying out. He called all of heaven together to listen, and promised to answer this prayer to protect her child, for the young Mother’s heart was pure.

On the other side of the world there was a mother who had always wanted a baby girl. She tried many times to have a girl of her own, but could not. Instead, this mother had 3 wonderful boys and she was very happy. She began to forget about the dream of having a daughter of her own. But God in heaven remembered her prayers too and He was working out a plan. A perfect plan, for both of the mothers.

This is the story of Yen Yen. She was made by a Chinese Mother who will never forget her, and has been given to an American Mother who will never leave her. Both Mothers will forever love her. Both Mothers will always care for her. One will hold Yen Yen in her arms, the other will hold her in her dreams.

This is why my favorite thing about Yen Yen will always be the story that came with her. Not everyone has a story like hers. Hers is unique and unforgettable and will follow her all throughout her life. She has two mothers, a banyan tree, and a miracle working God who have watched over her and the greatest of these, of course, is her miracle working God.