We adopted our beautiful daughter Olivia in Feb/07 at 11months old. She is the absolute pride and joy of our lives. We are thankful that God blessed us with miscarriages and fertility issues, or we wouldn't have the beautiful daughter that we can't imagine life without. Just look at her, she was meant to be.
Thanks for stopping by to share our life with us.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
We are adjusting to life at home. Olivia loves all her new toys and the freedom of roaming around the house. Here are a couple pics from the last couple days. As you can see Nanny is pretty proud of her little grandaughter.
We did it!! Olivia is finally home. I must admit that I never thought the day would come. I remember the hours upon hours of stalking adoption blogs and thinking how lucky the ones with babies are. Well now, we are lucky ones too. Olivia is adjusting well with Nanny. She gives her lots of smiles and giggles but has yet to show her her screaming middle of the night fits. I guess that's because when Olivia woke up 1am this morning me and mudder got up with her and played. That's right folkes were were playing with all here new exciting toys from 1 - 5 this monring when she finally decided to sleep. Kirk was such a good husbande to me today and let me sleep for about 3 hours this afternoon. I feel like I have been to a spa and back. Who ever thought sleep was a luxury. Nanny had a bouquet a balllons when she met us at the airport and Olivia just loves them. I put a little clip in of her playing with them at about 3 this morning (Auntie Cathy brought more today so now she has even more to play with). She is such a little angel and we are soooooooo in love. It is just really nice to actually have her home. I'm sure her schedule will be off for a little while but hopefully within the next few weeks we'll get it figured out. She didn't take her bottle before bed tonight so I'm expecting her up again before the night is over. She just went down about 30 minutes ago though so maybe she'll sleep right through.
Thank you to everyone who made comments on our blog while in China. Kirk and I enjoyed reading them everynight after Olivia went to sleep. I hope they still keep coming. It's always nice to get that on going support. I will try my best to get some home pictures of her the next couple days and post her in her "Forever family" home.
I want to send out a VERY SPECIAL thank you to Michelle (click here) for coming to the airport and to welcome us home. Olivia and I will be there with bells on when your turn comes.
We did it!! Olivia is finally home. I must admit that I never thought the day would come. I remember the hours upon hours of stalking adoption blogs and thinking how lucky the ones with babies are. Well now, we are lucky ones too. Olivia is adjusting well with Nanny. She gives her lots of smiles and giggles but has yet to show her her screaming middle of the night fits. I guess that's because when Olivia woke up 1am this morning me and mudder got up with her and played. That's right folkes were were playing with all here new exciting toys from 1 - 5 this monring when she finally decided to sleep. Kirk was such a good husbande to me today and let me sleep for about 3 hours this afternoon. I feel like I have been to a spa and back. Who ever thought sleep was a luxury. Nanny had a bouquet a balllons when she met us at the airport and Olivia just loves them. I put a little clip in of her playing with them at about 3 this morning (Auntie Cathy brought more today so now she has even more to play with). She is such a little angel and we are soooooooo in love. It is just really nice to actually have her home. I'm sure her schedule will be off for a little while but hopefully within the next few weeks we'll get it figured out. She didn't take her bottle before bed tonight so I'm expecting her up again before the night is over. She just went down about 30 minutes ago though so maybe she'll sleep right through.
Thank you to everyone who made comments on our blog while in China. Kirk and I enjoyed reading them everynight after Olivia went to sleep. I hope they still keep coming. It's always nice to get that on going support. I will try my best to get some home pictures of her the next couple days and post her in her "Forever family" home.
We arrived back in cold Beijing last night at midnight. Olivia wasn't too impressed with her first taste of winter weather. Just look at the face on her when we bundled her up in the snow suit.
As you can see by the video, she's all good again this morning.
What an emotional day yesterday. I knew it was going to be full of emotions visiting the orphanage but the finding spot really hit home. We started off our day with the orphanage visit. The Nanny's at Foshan S.W.I are just soooooo loving. You can really see that she was well taken care of. It was neat to see her in the nanny's arms and then to see her little crib. Her name was still labeled on the crib so we took a picture of it. She spent sometime playing with the other kids in the orphanage and then one of the Nanny's gave her a plastic ball from the ball bin in the playroom (what a keepsake). We got lots and lots of pictures (Foshan yahoo gang - got all your pics but can't seem to send emails) Try emailing me at debbie.ingram@sympatico.ca and I'll see if I can reply to them.
The afternoon was spent visiting the finding spots. Olivia's was the first one closest to the orphanage. She was left in a flower market in an area with lots of locals. Just walking up to the spot made me break down. I couldn't imagine her birth mom having to do that walk and actually leave her, it just breaks our hearts. We bought some flowers from the market lady and I broke down again. She wanted 15 yuan and we gave her 100yuan. You should have seen the excitement, it was like she won the lottery. Our hearts were just aching and we couldn't dare ask for change. She ran in the market and screamed out to everyone what just happened. Everyone in our group now thinks it is going to spread through the town about the caucasion couple who gave her a huge tip and has a Chinese baby. If that birth mom finds out that Olivia has a home - WHAT A GIFT!!! Our hearts are still dropped at all the emotions. I can't explain in words what yesterday meant to us. Anyone who is doing this trip after us, make sure you do your finding spot if nothing else. I'm telling you it is a gift beyond words!
Here's a couple pics from our day. As you can see in the finding spot family pic, we were full of tears and couldn't get a smile out.
Today we had a nice relaxing day. Olivia is having trouble getting on a sleep routine so we went for a walk around the area of the White Swan hoping to keep her up this afternoon. She's fell asleep about a half hour ago (7:00) so hopefully tonight is the night that she sleeps through.
We did lots of market shopping around the white swan for gotcha gifts and went inside to get a picture by the red couch. There are so many red couches so I wasn't sure which one it was. I got my pic taken with her at one of them so its all good.
We went through about 4 changes of clothes with her today because we forgot her bib. She will only take a bottle and the nipple has to be extremely large. All the other babies seem to be taking spoons but I'm not forcing that on her right now (she gets really upset when we try to spoon feed her)
Here's some pics from today and a pic of Darcy, Donna, Katie and Sarah.
So can you tell by now, I like showing off my angel. She had another rough night of couging and up off and on all night. She has medication in her now and is fast asleep.
Here's a group picture we had done last night of our gang. We had all just came back from a long day out at the police station and were all very tired but still proud as punch!
Well.....and some more Olivia pics (the one with crazy hair is for you Auntie Cathy)
Kathryn - we leave to go back to Beijing on Friday. Our flight is not until 7:30. I'm thinking about giving Olivia some gravol just so she can relax for the flight. Kirk wanted me to ask you were the 8 floor electronics market is that you were talking about.
Well we were hoping not to have to bring her to see a doctor until at least Canada but Olivia decided otherwise. There were a couple of the kids who were really sick so we all jumped in a cab with our tour guide Shirley and trucked it off to the hospital. Let me tell you that was an experience. There were thousands of people, crying babies sick children just all over the place. Somehow our wonderful guide got us all to the front of the line. We were in and out within an hour. Our poor little angel has a throat infenction and is now on two different types of Chinese Antibotics.
Here's some pics of the big first hospital trip including the "jailed in" taxi ride to get there!
We visited the zoo yesterday. We were a little disappointed as we were expecting to see some panda and cubs. It turned out only being one large panda and he was fast asleep curled up in a corner so we really couldn't see him. Other than that , it was a typical zoo like in Ontario. The walk was great though to give the babies some fresh air and put them asleep.
Olivia's eye infection is all cleaned up so no more screaming to get those drops in. She has started to really cling to us both more now. The first couple days she just seemed very easy going and would go in her crib after falling asleep on us. Now when she falls asleep we try to put her down and she just wakes up crying. We just came up from breakfast and she's fast asleep on Daddy's chest now on the bed. She still is waking up throughout the night about every 2 hours. Our hearts are just broke because its a really hurtful cry so we are not sure if she is having night terrors or what is going on.
She's finally taking her formula and cereal in a bottle but will not take anything from the spoon. We really need to get some fruit into her for fibre but she just won't hear tell of it. We have even been mixing up fruit juice in a bottle but she just won't touch it. The one thing she will drink though is the fruit punch flovoured electroyltes from Erin ,, thanks soooooo much Erin, it truly has been a god sent!
The food for us SUCKS big time. I'm a little bit easier with trying things but Kirk is a meat and potatoe kinda guy and can't find anything he likes. The McDonald's even taste a but funny. It has a tangy taste to it. The ketchup is horrible so if your a big ketchup fan pack a bunch of packets of Heinz. The french fries are always something to fall back on.
O.K on with some more pics of Olivia and her friends.
Olivia woke up this morning happy as could be. She punched a really rough night with her eye infection and nasty cold. The tylonol really rested her and her cold seems to be much better. Her eye infection is starting to go away but still quite pussy in the mornings. It just breaks our heart seeing her cry when we put the drops in but we just have to get her better. I ended up almost passing out and threw up once out of pure worry. I never in a million years thought I could worry this much. She is a true blessing and we are the very lucky parents.
Here's a little clip from this mornings early hour giggles.
We are happy beyond belief with our little or I should say BIG bundle of joy. We brought mainly all 12 months clothes for her and barely any of it fits her. I went out shopping today looking for clothes and man was it hard. I went to a department store but all they sold there was really heavy quilted clothes for babies. They really bundle them up good around here and its WARM! Kathyrn Robertson - if your reading any know somewhere I can shop in the Guangzou area (or anyone who is familiar with the area), I'd love to here where - IT"S CRAZY!!
Olivia has a really bad cold. She can't stop coughing and sneezing and is really congested. She was fussing alot today an my heart was just aching. I never thought that I could feel pain like this for someone else. I finally caved in about an hour ago and gave her some Tylonol for colds. I wanted to avoid medicine but I don't want to see her suffer. She also has an eye infection so really glad I brought some drops. I have to say she's a smart little bugger though. Kirk put the first drop in and she didn't know what was coming so all good. He went to put the second in and she squeezed her little eyes as tight as she could. I think we have a bright one on here :-)
Kirk and Olivia are both fast asleep now so I'm going to try and get the room somewhat back to normal........
She is a very happy baby who gives us lots of smiles and giggles. O.K on with the good stuff - more pics! As you can see only day 2 and another leafs out fit on her. It's just too adorable. It's too big but just look how darn cute she is. We had it made about a year ago and Kirk couldn't take it another minute without seeing her in it.
I'm also posting pictures of other families we are travelling with in case anyone was out there stalking for others :-)
All is good and hopefully I'll get to post again tomorrow. I just love her so much that every waking minute is spent drooling over her.
