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| The following is the story of our preparation for and journey to China to pick up our daughter Maya Jun in July/August 1998.We include some pictures, links to websites specific to China adoption (including our packing list). We end with details of her first few months in Oregon and her extraordinary adjustment to life with us. Much of the detail is intended for those who will be travelling to China for the purposes of adoption. This is not intended as a complete treatise on travelling or adopting in China, and represents just a sampling of our experience. |
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China impressions
| We want to start by emphasizing that we came home with a sincere respect for China and the people there. For those who have not done much travelling in third world countries, there are certainly surprises to be found in China. At times China seemed like another planet, with such completely different language and customs. You may for the first time in your life know what it feels like to be a minority. You will be frustrated by your inability to communicate. You will see polluted water, dirty streets, smell things you'd rather not and eat things that you can't be sure what they are! China is prime territory for experiencing culture shock. If you are planning to go to China, we recommend that you learn to recognise the symptoms of culture shock. That way, when you feel it coming on, you can resist the temptation to blame others for your difficulty in adjusting. Be flexible, smile a lot, talk softly, be nice. You will be rewarded. We had taken with us some negative impressions of China that we had gotten from growing up in the communist phobic 1950's, and even from the adoption community and adoption related internet groups. Based on those impressions, we had resolved to look for positive things on our trip to tell Maya about our experiences in China. As it turned out we did not have to look very hard, because our experience was very positive. Everywhere we went the people were wonderful, the food was good and we never felt uncomfortable or unsafe. Our general impression of the Chinese people is that they are very sweet, serene, happy and always helpful. We plan to take Maya back there one day, when she can best appreciate it. |
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| The preceding six years of fertility treatments, then adoption procedures and paperwork, seem like a dream now. On May 28th, 1998, eight months after our dossier went to China (9/17/97) and after eight months of zero feedback about the status of our adoption, we recieved an email while working in Maui announcing the referral of our daughter, Le Jun. Le Jun was 10 months old at the time, with a birthdate of July 16, 1997. The next day we were FedExed her picture which we believe was taken when she was about 2 months old. She was adorable of course, and we were very excited at the prospect of having her soon. We were asked to sign and return the acceptance form, and were left with several pages of medical documents, mostly in Chinese. Our Taiwanese friend, Nora, translated them for us and concurred with the brief, typed in English statement that said she was "normal". She weighed 8.8 lbs at 7 weeks! You can see for yourself how that compares to other Chinese girls by checking out the growth charts for Chinese children at http://www.fwcc.org/growthchart.html. When we eventually got her on July 28th, her weight and height of 15 lbs and 25" corresponded to the same 5-10th percentile line on the chart when followed from her 7 week old weight and height that we had been given at referral. We were told to expect our travel dates to be in about two months. Now why do we need to wait any longer??? Although we had plenty to do to get ready to go, it was no easier to wait even though we were very close. Three weeks after our referral, on June 19th, we were told to reserve our tickets to China for travelling approximately July 23rd through August 6th! We were not to buy them as yet, because schedules often change. Usually you will hear at least about two weeks before departure to actually purchase your tickets. Apparently they go after the appointment for your exit interview with the US Consulate in Guangzhou (to obtain her VISA), and then work the schedule back from that. Le Jun is waiting for us in the Le Ping Welfare Institute, in the province of Jiangxi. All of the children from the orphanage in Le Ping are given the last name of Le. We were already thinking of the name Maya, so when the referral came we liked the sound of Maya Jun!! It is hard to believe that we have a daughter , and it is especially hard to wait another month or more to travel to China to pick her up! We pass the time working on our remodeling project, which includes Maya's room, and shopping for and gathering the necessary gear and bits and pieces that we will need for the trip and for Maya when she comes home to Oregon with us. I don't mention work, because even though we show up, we are not getting much done. We mostly run around in circles bumping into each other. If you asked Jane, she would say that I am running around bumping into myself, and she is getting a lot done. I guess its hard to argue with the truth. We also signed onto an "email list" (APC) of parents waiting to adopt from China. You can post questions, opinions, or ask for emotional support with over 1000 others in the pre-China travel phase. There is a lot of good information to be mined from this resource, if you can handle the volume. You can sign onto the APC list from this website -- http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1771/mailing.html. There are also many good websites about adoption from China. A good place to start is the Families with Children from China website -- http://www.fwcc.org/welcome.html. |
| On July 13th, 1998 we got the call from our agency, PLAN -- http://www.planlovingadoptions.org/ -- to purchase our tickets to China. We leave on July 22nd, just 9 days from now! We will go to Beijing for three days on our own to get adjusted and rested, before we join the group on the 26th. The flight will take us from Eugene, Oregon through San Francisco, Los Angeles and Tokyo to Beijing. We depart Eugene at 7 am and arrive in Beijing at 7 pm the next day! China is 9 hours behind us the next day, across the international date line, so the actual travel time is something on the order of 28 hours including layovers. We return from Hong Kong on August 6th with Maya, and fortunately flying west to east is easier on the biological clock! We are flying United the entire trip, with the exception of some internal flights in China. Our packing is going pretty well. We have checked our lists and done a basic trial run to see that all that stuff would actually fit in our two roller bags, our baby diaper bag/backpack, and one medium size suitcase. Our local baby resale shop has offered us a large batch of clothes to take as a donation to the orphanage, so we will fit that in somewhere too. We gathered packing lists from many sources, and a good one that I got from Catherine via the APC email group.Here is a compilation resulting in the packing list we ended up using http://www.chinookproperties.net/chinapackinglist.html. It is important to remember that these lists represent everyones individual situation, needs, fears and time of year traveled so take them, including ours with a grain of salt and make your own educated guesses. You can be sure that you will bring more than you need and yet you will not have everything that you need. Everything you need but have neglected to bring is available in China, and can be bought, begged or borrowed so don't worry too much. We tried to start buying early and did a few trail run packing efforts, just to reassure ourselves that the growing mound of supplies would fit in the limited luggage that we were trying to hold ourselves to. We spent the next 9 days running around trying to get so many things done. Looking back it was mostly to keep ourselves busy, because we were so excited we could hardly sit still. |
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Travel day - July 22nd, 1998
| It seems like we could have kept ourselves busy another two weeks with shopping, packing and changing our mind about what to bring. When the time finally came to leave, it was a great relief to get on the plane and know that if you forgot something it now doesn't matter. There is something about getting airborne and knowing that your feet can't touch the ground that allows you to relax and begin your journey. We passed the next 21 hours learning a little Chinese, writing in Maya's journal, and wondering outloud how our lives would be changed by the addition of our little angel. The descent into Beijing was the longest, bumpiest and cloudiest of my flying experience with cloud to cloud lightning! We landing in Beijing in the drizzling dusk at 7:30pm, the day after we left Eugene, having lost a day. We were greeted by Isbella, who escorted us by taxi to our hotel, the Poly Plaza. The Poly Plaza was very nice, as were all of the hotels arranged for us in China. For $75 - $125 a night these four and five star hotels offered incredible service and were very clean and comfortable. We were very happy with our arrangements and slept easily our first night in China, after our long trip. |
| We allowed ourselves five days of relaxing and sightseeing in and around Beijing before we started on our way to meet our daughter. We had a great time in Beijing! We spent the first day walking around town, taking in the new sights and sounds. After the stormy weather that we arrived in, we were happy to have a warm and sunny day with clear skies and clean air! The rest of the week it was overcast, hazy and very, vey hot! All through the city the cicadas provided a loud and pulsing backdrop. At times its seemed like they were announcing the heat, louder for hotter and softer as thanks for an occasional breeze. For a city of the size and population of Beijing, we found it very friendly and easy to get around. Thanks to the abundance of bicycles and the resulting smaller numbers of cars, we found the traffic and street noise to be quite bearable. We rented bicycles and joined the exciting and well choreographed chaos of cycling the streets of Beijing. Although not suitable for a timid cyclist, we found bikes to be the most exciting way to get around and see things. The subway was very efficient, inexpensive and worked great for going to the far reaches of the city for 10 cents per ride. Taxis are available everywhere, and for US$1 to US$4, we were able to get everywhere we wanted to go. We would point to the Chinese characters from our Lonely Planet guide book to go somewhere and use the hotel business card to get us home. Amoung other things,while in Beijing we saw Peking Opera, Chinese acrobats, Buddist temples, rode bikes, walked through hutongs(back alleys), rode the subway, saw Tianaman Square, Forbidden City, ate lots of good food, went to the cinema (A Time to Remember, world premiere of a movie made in Beijing about an American doctor in the 1920's who adopted a Chinese girl), and generally enjoyed very minute of it. One day we hired a car and driver for US$55, to drive us to a beautiful temple 100 miles SW of Beijing. The driver did not speak English, but at the end of the day we had picked up one or two words of Chinese, and shared a few laughs when we did not know what else to say. It was interesting to seem from of the rural, agrarian countryside that typifies much of China. |
| We had a few days together in Beijing to get to know most of the others in our adoption group, and acclimate to the time difference, heat and humidity. We were 7 families, travelling together to pick up our daughters in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. We were from several US states including Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Michigan and Oregon. Our group consisted of single moms-to-be travelling with a companion, one travelling alone, four couples and two women who were here to adopt their second Chinese daughters! The group was represented by several adoption agencies, all who had funnelled us to a China coordinator, Adam Wang, when are dossiers were ready. The adgencies guide you through the mounds of paperwork and waiting, and the China coordinator works with the Chinese government to assign babies and escort you through the China portion of the adoption process. We were to fly from Beijing to Nanchang late in the day of July 28th, and then receive our daughters on one of the next two days, according to the nebulous schedule, if all goes well. The summer 1998 flooding on the Yangtze had just about peaked when we flew over it. From the air it looked more like a huge lake than a river, with the brown expanse of water reaching in all directions, innundating many houses and roads. We worried about where our daughters were, and how they would get them to us. Nanchang is about 150 miles south of the Yangtze, upstream near the Poyang reservoir. Leping, where our orphangage was, was on the other side of the lake, reportedly a circuitous 7 hour drive from Nanchang. When we arrived in Nanchang after the two hour flight from Beijing, we boarded a hotel bus that would take us the 20 minute ride to the beautiful and luxurious Lakeview Hotel, where we were to meet our daughters. The 20 minute ride turned into on of the longest on record. They told us on the bus that our daughters were on the way to Nanchang and we would get them tonight!!!!!! It seems they had decided they should bring the girls early to avoid any problems with high water on the roads. Talk about speechless. Things are not supposed to happen early in China, things are supposed to take longer. We felt excited, tired, shocked, unprepared, nervous and very fortunate that our waiting was just about over. |
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| Our first five minutes with Maya, she had just woken up |
Meeting Maya - July 28th, 1998
| We arrived at the Lakeview hotel at about 8pm. Dazed and confused, we wandered into the lobby of this magnificent hotel to the sound of a classical duet. If nothing else, we could see that we were to meet our daughters in style. We were assigned rooms on the 10th floor with beautiful views of the lake. Our Chinese guides instructed us to "find your rooms, do not unpack, come immediately to dinner in the restaurant on the 2nd floor". The most interesting part of the instruction was "after dinner you will get your daughters". What ?! What did they mean? Were the girls here in the hotel? Where? Why do we need to eat dinner first? Remembering the earliest instruction from our Chinese guides "go with the flow", we showed up for dinner without the slightest interest in the delicious food that was spread out before us. Finally they admitted what we had suspected, the girls are at the hotel in room 909, and we were told to "finish dinner and then come to room 909 at 9:30 to receive your daughters"! It was now 9pm, we could care less about eating and we did not like the idea of waiting another 1/2 hour at this point. We negotiated for 15 minutes from now, went to our rooms to get cameras and agreed to meet as a group at the elevator so that we could all go together. The elevator was filled with a raucous crowd of parents-to-be, with the door held open and we waited interminably for 15 very excited people to gather in one spot. To say the least, it is hard to describe the emotion and excitement that goes with such a moment. Most of the stories we had heard, of groups receiving their babies in China , described scenes of chaos and wailing babies. Upon entering room 909, we could see that our experience was going to be more aptly described as hushed and sweet. Having travelled all day and it being 9:30pm, the babies were scattered around the room, mostly alsleep. As the fifteen of us filed into the hotel room, along with the four Chinese guides, six orphanage workers and eight babies, Jane and I began scanning the room , trying to recognize our Maya Jun from the only picture we had seen of her that was now 10 months old. We could hear in the background as the coordinator would call out names and a baby would be handed to them, unceremoniously making them forever connected. When our names were called Jane was handed a darling baby, our daughter Maya Jun. It was a lovely sight, seeing Janes' hopes, dreams and hard work in such a heavenly form sleeping in her arms. After we had both had a few minutes holding her, Maya woke up and quietly looked us over, holding one of Jane and my fingers in each hand. (photo above) We were given our simple instructions to feed her at 5 am and meet in the lobby at 8am for a day of legal work at a goverment office. That was the extent of our training. Our career as parents had begun, just like that! |
Getting to know Maya Jun
| We were warned that our daughter might find us quite distressing for the first day or three, with lots of crying, grieving and getting used to the big changes in store for her. We saw very little in the way of difficult transitions with her. When we got Maya back to our room, we laid her on the bed and hovered over her for the next hour as she calmly returned the admiring glances. She was very serene and not the least bit disturbed by this strange looking pair. She enjoyed playing with my moustache, andwe even got a hint of a smile out of her as she looked over her first toy, a cloth mouse we had named Chairman. Chairman Mouse was her constant companion from that point on. We nervously compared her to her referal picture and had trouble seeing a resemblence. Was this our baby? We had heard so many stories about people not getting the baby they were assigned it was hard not to fear that there has been some mistake. We felt that we had the right baby tonight, but what if we showed up the next morning and one of the other adoptive parents had a baby that looked more like our referal photo?! Would we have to switch? Would we want to? Looking back on the experience, its easier now to understand how difficult it was at first to let ourselves believe that she was it, and we could actually have her. The entire process of adoption requires lots of waiting, jumping through hoops and facing the realization that we don't have much control over the situation. After 10 minutes of sorting our those feelings, we decided that Maya Jun was Maya Jun and she was ours. It seems that several others in our group had the same anxious moments, wondering if they could relax and accept the incredible gift of a precious child. We changed Maya into a soft cotton sleeper and she fell asleep on the bed. We now stayed up until 1:30 am unpacking, locating Maya's things and preparing for our day out with a baby! We were tired but very excited At 5 am, just as we were told, Maya decided she was hungry and we watched her readily take to her first bottle of soy formula. For the first time in our lives, we had found a good reason to get up at 5am; to look at Maya! We felt basically clueless about what to do, but Maya did not seem to notice our incompetence, as we fumbled for our supplies and discussed each new procedure. One thing was certain, Maya had already decided that were keepers, and did not want either of us to leave the room without her. We got to breakfast by 7, ready for the day with our backpack full of contingencies, and spent the next hour watching with amazement as Maya proceeded to eat anything and everything we put in front of her. This girl was ready to thrive! When we got Maya she weighed 15 lbs and was 25 inches long. This was small for a girl of 12 months even by Chinese standards. Maya could hold her head up and sit up just barely. If she fell forward from a sitting position she could not sit back up unassisted. She could not crawl or walk, and she did not like to be placed on her stomach because she could not lift her head or roll over. She obviously had spent much of her first 12 months on her back in a crib. She appeared to be healthy and certainly not malnourished. Her hair had been cut only a few weeks before (as an institutional precaution against lice) so her appearance, to one who knows such things, was one of a 6-8 month old baby. However, Maya was exceptionally alert, a clue to her actual age, and very interested in this new world that we were assigned to introduce her to. She preferred to be carried facing forward (very convenient with the Sarah's ride that we used) so that she could watch the world go by. She took interest in everyone and everything, not showing reluctance or fear at any turn. We spared her no experiences over the next week of travelling, wandering the streets, back alleys and shops of Nanchang and Guangzhou. She grew quickly accustomed to 5 star luxury and always easily identified those bringing the food during meals, her favorite pastime. In the non-touristed streets of Nanchang, we usually were treated as celebrity. Often while stopped, we had 10 to 30 curious and smiling people packed around us. A laminated card written in Chinese and hanging from her carrier told Maya's name, where she was from and where she was going. This satisfied the curious and always resulted in an affirming smile and"thumbs up" sign. |
Our 9 days in China with Maya Jun
| We considered our last week in China to be a sort of parent boot camp. As new parents, having an infant handed to us while in a foreign country, with meetings or appointments scheduled almost everyday, provided a quick introduction to our new life with baby. The temperature was close to 100 degrees with 95% humidity. Some of our meetings were in un-airconditioned buildings on the 6th floor with no elevators! We had our babies, 8 lbs of documents, and a diaper backpack with food, formula, diapers and all the essentials for a day on the town. We moved slowly as a group, assisting each other with our burdens, minor mishaps and a sense of humor. We learned to change diapers in the most unusual places without the benefit of running water. It was not uncommon to wait several hours for "something to happen". We learned that you could wait all morning, only to be told that things were shutting down for lunch. We would need to return in the afternoon to complete our business. We did our best to remain flexible, focus on our lovely, delightful daughter and cherish the experience. For the five days in Nanchang, we worked with the local goverment officials to legally adopt Maya in China and obtain a Chinese passport for her. Although seemingly slow at times, the officials were friendly, charming and helpful througout the process. After 18 months of paperwork and close scrutiny at home, the Chinese "interviews" seemed cursory and simple. We took simple gifts for the officials and guides which they did not open in our prescence, and we were given simple gifts by them. We flew to Guangzhou for the last four days to run our last gaunlet, the exit interview and visa from the American embassy. We stayed next door to the embassy at the White Swan hotel on the Pearl River. Guangzhou is bigger, hotter and more westernized than we had seen so far. The area around the White Swan, on Saiman Island is very clean and upscale. You don't have to wander far off the island to see the real China again. With a little effort you can find cool antique shops, US $5 hour massages and a giant outdoor market within walking distance. Prepared to be shocked by the variety of the "produce" at the Despite the hardships, we had a very good time. The service at the hotels was outstanding. Before you could think of what you needed someone was usually there with it and you did'nt have to open the door yourself or push your own elevator button. It was great to have that since we were new at juggling a baby and all the paraphenalia. During our free time we would adore Maya, write or paste things in her scrap book, or go out shopping and exploring. Mealtimes were great fun, with the group at big round tables sharing experiences, shopping tips, or comparing baby bowel movements and many topics that you might never have imagined yourself interested in. Each day Maya seemed more relaxed , smiled more, slept a little better and ate a little more! We looked for signs of adjustment problems, but could not really detect any. Food, diaper changes or sleep seemed to be at the source of any fussiness. This was too good to be true. She liked us and we loved her! Everyone we met seemed genuinely interested in the children and considered them fortunate to be adopted by us. We felt like the lucky ones. The only glitches in our paperwork were sniffed out by the bureaucracy at the American Embassy. They did not like the date on our employment verification letter. They were not very friendly about it, and they did not want to discuss the fact that their printed information was ambiguous and misleading. I gently suggested that they edit their advice to provide clear instructions for those coming after us, but they did not seem interested. A quick trip to the business center at the White Swan and US $45 in faxes later, we had something that pacified them. With that they deemed that we were worthy of the daughter that we already had, and issued Maya her entry visa. Maya would for the time being remain a Chinese citizen with a green card. "A permanent resident alien" it the technical term. She will remain so until we apply for citizenship and have her naturalized, when we get home. We will also go through the process to legally adopt her in the United States. |
The long trip home
| We boarded a flight from Guanghzou to Hong Kong, happy to have our guides lead us through the maze of yet another busy airport and confusing checkin system. This would be our goodbye to them. They gave us another little gift and waved goodbye to us and eight more babies bound for America. The short flight to Hong Kong was on a brand new Boeing 777, and would be one of four flights and 27 hours that it would take us to land in Eugene. We ordered the basinett attachment and bulkhead seats, so that Maya could have a place to lie down. They did not want to reserve us the basinett on the phone because they said she was too big at 15 lbs. We insisted and it said on the basinett that we got that the weight limit was 25 lbs, so it was not a problem. Maya decided to sleep only about 3 hours of the 14 hours to LA, but she enjoyed sitting in the basinett watching the traffic in the aisle. She was very happy most of the time, only melting down during the last two hours on the flight from San Franciso to Eugene. She was only happy at that point being carried and held, not too convenient for takeoff and landings! Not bad though considering that 3 hours was all she managed to sleep during the entire 27 hours of travelling. And that was three more hours of sleep than we managed to get! We were expecting a small welcoming committee at the airport in Eugene, and thought it was too bad they would not see Maya in her usual happy state. She did not disappoint them however. When we got off the plane and were surrounded by her admirers, she admired them back and smiled happily. When we got home it was 4pm and we weren't sure what to do with ourselves. Maya decided she wanted to sleep, and we decided to wait until 10pm in an attempt to get back on schedule as soon as possible. We all slept well that first night and as usual Maya woke up for her early am bottle (between 5 and 7) and then went back to sleep for an hour or two. It felt really good to be home, and Maya seemed to think so too. It wasn't until our second night at home that Maya decided to have jet lag. She was not interested in sleeping, and she was not interested in watching us sleep. She was only happy if you were carrying her around, and that is dangerous when you are about to fall asleep on your feet. We got dressed and loaded her in the baby jogger, and walked the streets and the park near our house at 3 am. She enjoyed the tour of her new town, and it only took an hour of that for her to decide it was time to sleep. Although it took about 5 days for everyone to feel adjusted to the nine hour time difference, after that one bad night, she has always slept through the night, from 9pm to 7 am!!! Lucky us. |
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gy 8/12/99
