Adoption Day!!

Today, at 8:30am, Chang Lu Ping officially became Mariah Claire Lu Ping Kaminski! I can hardly believe I just typed that! What a blessing this trip has been. I have had the wonderful opportunity to spend quality time with my hubby and my parents. It has been really nice. I am homesick though. I miss my kids! Three of them are sick and I just want to be home to give them love. Aunts and uncles are terrific, but mom and dad just make things different. 

The above picture is truly not painful. We had to put our thumbprints over our signatures and then put Mariah's over her name. She was unimpressed!!!


My mom was the photographer for these pics. The below picture is all of our official paperwork. Our guide pointed out to us that Mariah is the 99th child from the Jiangsu province to be adopted this year. Kind of neat!

Our facilitator came to our hotel this morning and we made our trip to the Civil Affairs Office for the adoption of Mariah. Yesterday we were just the legal guardians and we had to decide if we wanted to complete the process. Well, that answer was YES!

We had one last picture taken at the Civil Affairs office with the assistant director of Mariah's orphanage.


Today, Mariah seems to have attached to Jeremy. I know this can happen and I truly am okay with that. I knew to expect that. All of our training tells us this is possible. The school of thought on that is that Mariah has been abandoned by all the women in her life...birth mom and nannies. So, she is guarding her own heart. For that, I grieve as well.

After we finished the adoption paperwork, we went to the Nanjing Brocade Museum. It was pretty neat there. We saw how they make silk tapestries etc. It was fascinating. While there we were stopped by two grandmothers with their chubby grandsons. They were fascinated that we had a Chinese baby! They were sweet about it. The one woman loved Mariah's hair! This picture below shows these sweet grandmas holding their grandsons.

We were fascinated with the entire museum. They had people working on making silk brocades while we were there. It was amazing. The physical labor involved in that helps me to understand why it is so expensive.

I also wanted to share a picture of our guide, Nancy. She has taken such good care of us while here. She meets us after breakfast and we go touring until lunchtime. Then she brings us back and we are free for the rest of the day. She makes sure we have our groceries needed and wrote in Mandarin for the Chinese restaurants to understand what we want. It has been interesting. There is a HUGE language barrier! But, we have managed with gestures and a calculator. Here is "Nancy".......

This evening was spent in the Confucius Temple area right outside the front door of our hotel. This was a really neat experience! We were able to barter prices on several things there. Jeremy was hilarious to watch. We seemed to be the center of attention as well. Many, many people looked at us and stared once they saw Mariah. 


Mariah has tested the waters a bit more today. That is a good thing! She is still just confused with our language. I certainly can see how she perks up when hearing Chinese. Jeremy did get her to repeat bye-bye a couple of times. She is a sweet baby! We love her so much.

One interesting thing we found out today. We have a thumb sucker! She is the first of our kids to suck a thumb. Rebecca sucked two fingers but Mariah is the only thumb-sucker.


Please continue to pray for her as she adjusts. I think the  food is bothering her tummy too.  It has been a terrific time here in Ch*na! She has such a rich heritage to share.


Here are a few more pictures to end with. This one is with my parents at the Brocade museum.

This last picture is Mariah's registration for adoption!! We were told to guard this with our lives. I guess it is pretty important.

I will try to update you all again on our visit today (Wednesday in China) as we visited a section of the Nanjing City gate. It was pretty neat to see how the city gate/wall is still standing from the 1400's when Nanjing was the capital of the Ming Dynasty. 

We have been blessed to be able to Skype with our other four kids each day. I miss them so much. They are having fun going to the pool. I guess my boys thought helping Uncle Don split wood was fantastic. That ended the second day. 

Kyle is trying not to get too sick with a cold and he is being a great oldest brother. I'm sure he is a comfort to the other three kids. 

Micah is struggling with a yucky cold. He barely speaks to me on Skype. I know he does not feel well. When we call, all we hear is coughing. Some are my sister's kids, and some of the coughing is my kids.

Rebecca seems pretty excited about Mariah. She keeps asking us to take the camera over to her so she can see what she looks like. Then we hear her googling over what she sees! She is going to be a terrific big sister!

Ben is being Ben. He is missing me terribly. He keeps telling the kids and my sister that he just wishes he could hug me. He seems great while we Skype but he also is congested. Aunt Tammy made him eat what everyone else was eating.....tortellini. He was not very happy. We also make him eat what we eat but I will honestly tell you that pasta is not his favorite meal. 

Thanks to my sister for watching our kids and to both of our families for supporting us in many different ways. I love you all!

Gotcha Day!!!!

Here is the first look of our precious second daughter! We were barely able to contain ourselves as the head nanny and assistant director were walking through the parking lot outside our window. 


The train they were taking from Mariah's orphanage was running very late. So they did not make it to the Civil Affairs office until 10:30am instead of 10:00am.  We have waited 18 months for this child and six months since first seeing her picture......we could wait a few more minutes!


We were the only family to receive our child today. So, it was just the four of us (us and my parents) in the building waiting. Then when they came in, Jeremy and I were overwhelmed with emotion. However, I knew if Mariah saw me crying it would likely scare her. So, I was brave and walked over to her nanny who was holding Mariah and just rubbed her back and told her in Chinese that I loved her. Then the nanny handed her to me! I cannot begin to explain how that felt. All the pain and emotion that went into this whole adoption melted away. She was in my arms!!!


After I had her for a while, I cautiously handed her over to Jeremy. 


Jeremy kept telling me that it didn't matter where Mariah was.....we would come get her again and again. I have noticed how he cannot keep his hands off of her!


                Without much further ado........Introducing our baby!

So......not quite the reaction you may expect. But as my sister wisely pointed out to me, this is very much how each of our home grown kiddos greeted us as well.....screaming and crying!

The picture below shows her calming a little. This came only because I offered her food and she must have been hungry. Notice the tears still in her eyes.

This next picture is our first as a semi-family. We are terribly missing our other four kids in Ohio. We have never been away from them for more than 2 nights. Ben, especially, is having a tough time.

This next picture shows the assistant director and head nanny with us.

We were presented with gifts that were specific to Mairah's city of Changzhou. The orphanage gave Jeremy and I a box of combs of the four Chinese princesses. (Not sure who they are, so I have some studying to do). Then they gave us a beautiful comb set for Mariah. Hers is of the famous Chinese opera in her city. We were overwhelmed.

So, back to the details of the day. We arrived at the civil affairs office 20 minutes early.  We were the first ones there so our guide went somewhere and got the keys. We were let in to a room that was empty of other families. We then found out that we were the only family with Gotcha that morning. There have been very few adoptions out of Jiangsu this month. We were only the fourth family!

Can you imagine the day this baby had? Her very first train ride on the high speed train, her first time out of the orphanage, then handed to a strange white couple. So, I did what any other momma would do at that point. I pulled out the snacks in her backpack and bribed her with food. Let's say she loves the Gerber Graduates Puffs.

As we were beginning our relationship with Mariah or PingPing as we are calling her for now, my mom noticed something I did not. The assistant director turned away and wiped tears from his eyes. How precious is that? They loved this child closely when we could only love her from a distance.

We gave a gift to the head nanny and assistant director. The nanny received a bracelet I had made. It had glass beads and one single lady bug charm. She also received a small gift bag of BeautiControl products.

Then we gave the assistant director his gift. It was made by a special man at our church, Neil. He made a wall plaque and carved out the shape of the entire United States and outlined each state. Then he cut out the state of WV and marked our town. Below that, Neil cut out the country of China with its provinces outlined. Then off to the side he cut out Jiangsu (Mariah's province) and marked her home city of Changzhou. The pieces were raised from the background wood but will not come completely out like a puzzle unless pressed from the front. I loved it!

Jeremy was asked to explain what it was and the guide interpreted for him. The director was so touched. He kept shaking Jeremy's hand. Our guide later told us how much that meant to the director. She said we did very well and that was VERY special to him. 

We had some private time with Mariah and went upstairs to a room to have her new family picture taken. That is for the adoption registrar's records. That was it. We signed guardianship papers to keep her for 24 hours and determine if she was a fit for our family and we left. 

She fell asleep in the car. They do not have car seats here in Ch*na, so she rode on my lap. We stopped at Carrefour (very similar to Walmart) for some groceries. 

We found out that Mariah only eats one meal of food each day....lunch. Breakfast and supper are rice cereal in a bottle of formula. So we had to go get what we needed.

That evening she really came to life. She began to play! She does walk but is not very steady. But she really enjoyed the freedom in our room and the hotel hallway.

She took a long nap and I woke her. We went to the local mall for supper and hurried back so that our kids could see their new sister on Skype for the first time. This twelve hour time difference makes it tough to communicate. They loved seeing her!

My sister Tammy has my kids while we are here. Three of them are getting sick. Micah and Ben seem really sick and Kyle is getting there too. They each have really bad colds. I sure hope it does not turn into something worse.  Ben keeps telling my sister and the other kids that he just wants to hug Mommy. My heart is torn. I know my sister will take good care of them. 

She also mentioned that my sweet sister Tina wants to come down from Cleveland and fix supper one night for them all. My brother and oldest sister have also been in contact with us. Did I mention that we have an awesome family?!!!!

Jeremy's parents stayed up Sunday night to meet their newest granddaughter via Skype. They were pretty awestruck!  We spoke with them for quite some time. Jeremy's brother also has kept close tabs on us while here. See, both sides of the family have been so great while we have been here. We are truly blessed.

I realize how blessed we are in America. This country has boundless beauty but it is certainly not America! 

Mariah has an absolutely beautiful birth country of which to be very proud. But, we are proud to be American.....all seven of us!

Nanjing---Day1

 Our flight was on time!

Here was where the ultimate goal led, Nanjing.

We arrived about 10 minutes early but not without interest. Let's just say that my mom never wants to get a seat beside another non-family member again! I had a window seat and Jeremy sat next then my dad. lastly, my mom sat across the aisle from my dad.  Mom's "neighbor" had the worst motion sickness of anyone I have ever heard of. She sat there and began vomiting as the plan was backing out preparing to taxi down the runway. She proceeded to vomit and gag the ENTIRE 2 hours. Then as the plane was preparing for approach, the girl beside her got sick.

You may not be too surprised to hear that Jeremy got a huge kick out of that. He sat and all my mom could see was Jeremy's turned back and his shoulders moving up and down as he laughed. Then I was laughing. I admit that I'm so glad it was my mom (a nurse) and not me!


Our guide, Nancy, met us at the airport with her driver and took us to our hotel. We drove about 40 minutes to our hotel. The city was alive with people everywhere. This country girl is not used to this many people. 


One thing we notice about Ch*na. You feel oddly safe with so many people. The city has a unique history. It served as Ch*na's capital during the Ming Dynasty. Lots of history here!


Super tired and needing to post more about our "Gotcha Day" moments! I promise to update more later today. We do have her and she is sleeping in her crib as I type. 

And we are here, finally!  I apologize for not updating everyone on our progress but as you can probably tell, I've been busy planning one of the most important trips of our lives.


We got our TA (travel approval) on June 6th! I was not able to schedule any trip until we had a confirmed CA (Consulate Appointment). The consulate appointments were full and our hoped for, June 28th appointment was doubtful. Our terrific agency got to work. After one day, we got the phone call that changed everything. We had a confirmed Consulate Appointment for June 27th! Then our swearing-in ceremony is on June 28th, Rebecca's 10th birthday.


I hate to miss her birthday but I am truly glad that this little girl has a very special day to share with her very special sister. Rebecca was so sweet about it.


Helen has taken very good care of us. She and her driver picked us up from the airport and drove us the 2 hours (almost) to our hotel, only about 15 miles away. The traffic was very interesting. The lines on the road mean nothing here. They drive in the emergency vehicle lane, they drive on the wrong side of the road, they are careless.

Ok, back to the above picture. We had only hours, literally, to book our guide for Beijing. After requesting quotes from a few others, we decided on a terrific guide, Helen. She took us to this great section of The Great Wall. We this picture is from the Mutianyu section. This was challenging! The steps were uneven, many, and varied in height. Usually, the height of the steps were inches. Some of the step heights were approximately 18 inches. Our legs were tired. We successfully climbed up and back to 6 watch towers. Jeremy could have gone on a few watch towers farther but we decided to come back. Helen was shocked we went so far. We were sort of proud that us foreigners were able to impress a young guide with how far we walked and climbed.


We were given the choice to ride the ski lift back down or toboggan. We chose the toboggan while my parents rode the lift. It was a lot of fun. We had beautiful weather.


After the wall climb, we ate at the wall. There is a restaurant called The Schoolhouse. It was a real schoolhouse at one time. It is now a somewhat American restaurant. The four owners are American and we had a very nice time talking with them.


Oddly, there was a glass blowing demonstration in the attached building. The owners of The Schoolhouse also own a glass shop. It was beautiful. I loved the glass being sold there. 


As I am tired, I will close out here.  God Bless!!!  We should have Mariah in our arms in about 36 hours!

Trip Itinerary

Watch out China, here we come!

6/14         Fly from Columbus to Chicago 

6/14         Fly from Chicago to Beij*ng

6/15         Arrive in Beijing

6/16         Touring Mutianyu Section of Great Wall

6/17         Flying from Beijing to Nanj*ng (Mariah's province)

6/18         Gotcha Day (still Father's Day in the U.S.)

6/19         Adoption is finalized and she officially becomes a Kaminski

6/20         Touring Province with guide

6/21         Visit orphanage and finding spot

6/22         Fly from Nanj*ng to Guangzh*u

6/23         Medical exam appointment   

6/24         Touring with Lifeline group 

6/25         Touring with Lifeline group

6/26         Touring with Lifeline group

6/27         Consulate Appointment and Oath then Shamian Island shopping

6/28         Private van to Hong Kong 

6/29         Receive new American visa and fly home--Hong Kong to Newark                                    

Long plain ride is 15 1/2 hours. Keep in mind we are doing this with a toddler that has never ridden in a car or carseat. Keep us in prayer as we know we will be on the road for over 24 hours to come back.

God has been so good to us. We don't deserve it!     

Honest thoughts

I thought I'd take an opportunity to write a few things that are on my heart as we wait out the remainder of this process. It has been a tough few weeks for me, personally. My heart aches so much to have this little bundle in our arms and in our home. I know and understand that this is all in the Lord's timing. My mere human mind does not understand why this process takes so long. We began this process in December of 2010. But when I compare this process to so many other countries, it is actually pretty quick. I think one of my many faults as a wife and mom is my lack of patience. God has taught me so much in this process. I have learned that no matter what happens, God truly is in control. I knew this before but never experienced it as we have recently. Just when we thought we would never be able to make the next agency payment, God provided.....all in His timing. We have watched this many times in the past 17 months. 

The above picture was the second picture from the update that we requested two months ago. Doesn't it look like Mariah could use a Mama's arms wrapped around her and her Daddy's kisses? She will not know for many years how this journey has changed us as a family. She possibly will never know. I can attest to the fact that we are not the same husband and wife as we were. We have had our hearts' eyes opened to things that we chose to ignore, until now. We did this because it was just plain easy. 

Our Mariah has been waiting for us, for the opportunity of a life she would never have if left in that orphanage.  She was found on the Special Focus list of children on Ch*na's Waiting Child list. This is a list of children that have the lowest odds of ever becoming part of a family. She was truly, the least of these. So how could Jeremy and I see her beautiful picture knowing that she was created in the image of our perfect God and not act? We simply could not. We prayed about her for just a few moments and knew that she was to be part of our forever family. 

Mariah's story is one that we will share with her. She does not have the most beautiful beginning, but we pray that God will create a beautiful remainder of her story. Soon, she will begin that journey. One that was written before the fabric of time.

Here is the beginning of her story that we have not yet shared. Her approximate birth date is December 14, 2010. No one, except her birth parents, know her true birth date and circumstances that surround her birth. Mariah was "found" on January 17, 2011. I have researched many things about this particular day in her province. It was a cold winter Monday in Changzhou. The high temperature was 34 degrees and the low was 21 degrees. 

Maybe you understand even more why my heart aches so much for this baby. She is wanted! She is loved! She is our baby girl who is living in an orphanage. We will teach Mariah what a family is. We will teach her that she is unconditionally loved by her Heavenly Father and earthly family. We will teach her what a mama and baba are, that we will provide for her earthly needs. We will give her a sister that she can share all of her secrets. We will give her three brothers that will protect her. I also have to admit that all of her siblings will spoil this sweetie. They are beyond excited to have her home. Best of all......she will give us the picture of biblical adoption! 

Jeremy and I have witnessed how our old desires have dramatically changed. Two years ago we would have told you that we wanted to remodel our 30 year old kitchen. Would that be nice?......absolutely! We also would have told you that we wanted to have furniture in our theatre room. Do we have furniture?.....nope! Bean bags provide seating for the four kids now. We would have also told you that we wanted a deck on our pool, new family room furniture, new windows in the house, eat out more often, and an additional parking space in our driveway. None of that matters now. Those would all be nice, but we feel so blessed to have been chosen to be Mariah's family.  We can live with things the way they are for a few more years. 

"For such a time is this" has been a comfort to me on more than one occasion. When others have questioned our motives, Jeremy has reminded me that this is God's time for us to adopt and quoted this Scripture from the book of Esther. We have received a lot of support and it has been a blessing. Several friends have been surprised by our announcement and accepted it with joy. It took us 16 years to come to this decision! We are simply obeying God. I don't mean that this is simple. It has been anything but. We could have given up several times, but we knew there was a little girl sitting in an orphanage in Ch*na waiting for us. We dove right into the waters that were so unfamiliar to us. I feel like we dove in without a life jacket. Yet here we are. 

Our lives would be so much simpler right now if we were not on this journey. We would have more money. We would not be going back to a baby in diapers then potty training. We would have a newer car for Jeremy with brakes that work (he lost his brakes on his way home from church today). We chose to obey God's leading, after several years. Keep in mind that we ignored this leading for several years. We just could not ignore any longer. God does not ask us to do the simple. He requires us to obey. We would have been miserable if we chose to continue our lives as they were. Instead, we are experiencing God in a way we never dreamed. We are happy! We are madly in love with each other.....still! I see Jeremy as I have never seen him before. He would move heaven and earth for Mariah, a child we have only seen in a few pictures. He has ignited this fire in our other children and encourages them to consider adoption once they are married. Jeremy has already arranged to return to China with Becca when she and her husband adopt. Evidently, her husband and I stay home. Ummm, we'll see!

All of us agree that it is time! We are just praying that Ch*na issues that final approval this week!  

We ask that you pray for several things as we begin this leg of our process:

*Pray that Mariah's little heart is ready to meet us.

*Pray that Mariah is healthy.

*Pray that our flights are not terribly expensive.

*Pray that our four kids here do well at Aunt Tammy's and Uncle Don's.

*Pray that we remain healthy. 

*Pray that my parents remain healthy.

*Pray that we do not suffer terribly from jet lag.

Thank you for your friendship and prayers. 

I leave you with a video that Jeremy put together. This song has special meaning to us.                                           Beautiful!

                                      

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.                                                                                Jeremiah 1:5

A little bit of this and a little bit of that!

I guess this is not as clear of a picture as I hoped, but you can still make out the beauty of these bracelets! A very sweet friend of mine from high school made these for me. I emailed her a while back and asked if she would make part of the gifts for me that we will be taking to China. When we asked our agency how many gifts we needed to take, they told us 10-12 gifts.


These gifts will be given to each of Mariah's nannies, our guide, and our agency's in-country facilitator.


One of the requests I had for these bracelets was for each to have a ladybug somewhere on the bracelet. If you look closely you will see the silver ladybug on each bracelet. That is pretty significant in the China adoption world and I was thrilled to see it!

Here are three more of the bracelets. I did ask for twelve bracelets as I intend to keep one for myself and one for Mariah. The hard part is choosing which two I plan to keep. I have a couple of more weeks before I have to decide.


These beautiful bracelets were made by Marie Hilty. She was a friend of mine in high school. She makes jewelry of all kind and has a business. Thank you, Marie, for quickly making these bracelets and making them unique!


I also thought I'd take a minute and share a little about China and Mariah's provincial city. She is currently residing in Changzhou (pronounced...Chung Joe). As many of you already know, she lives in the orphanage in that city. I cannot wait to take pictures and show you her hometown and her orphanage. The orphanage moved to a brand new location a few years ago and honestly, it is gorgeous! I've seen pictures and other parents have told me how nice the orphanage is now. I believe there are around 300 children living there. She lives with 29 other children ages 0-2yrs.  Her orphanage participates with Half the Sky. This wonderful organization comes in to the orphanage and provides much needed care to these children. They provide physical and occupational therapy and consistent nannies to help facilitate healthy attachments for the children living there.


Changzhou City, Mariah's city, is located about halfway between Shanghai and Nanjing (provincial capital). It is a city that is most known for it's comb factory. Yes, hair combs! We are hoping to take a tour of the comb factory there.  We will also purchase a set of combs as a keepsake for Mariah.

Changzhou is also home to the famous China Dinosaur Park. This park is home to over 50 dinosaur fossils from all over China. It also happens to be an amusement park!  As well as the dinosaur park, Changzhou also boasts one of the tallest Buddist pagodas named Tianning Temple.


Yesterday was just a day of fun here at the Kaminski house. Well, fun for the kids. Jeremy and I worked on getting the pool ready for use while the kids had the garden hose in the front yard. So we snapped a few pictures of the kids playing.






High temps were in the 90's! Very warm and humid.

Then I cannot forget our youngest little guy. The only picture of him playing with the water was not very good. So I'll choose a picture from a few days before. This is typical of what you would see Ben doing on any given day. He is so much fun!


We have decided to stay home this Memorial Day. It is too hard to try to made it back to PA since Jeremy works on Sunday and on Tuesday. That leaves us with less than 24 hours to be with family. A good part of that time would be spent sleeping. It's a little tough to visit with both families and make it back home in time to get everyone to bed at a decent time. We will certainly miss the family reunion with Jeremy's family. I don't remember the last time we were able to be there. Jeremy's schedule is the same every year. We wish it could be different but going home is just not going to work this year since we will be using much of Jeremy's vacation time when we leave for China in just a couple of weeks.

To answer any the question you are probably thinking, we did not receive our date for travel yet. We hope to get that by the end of next week. Then we should know when to book our flights. For the next couple of weeks we will continue to prepare. I realized the other day that our toy room is unacceptable. We have Legos EVERYWHERE! My feet have found many of them as I walk through. Ouch!!! These definitely have to be taken care of before Mariah comes home. 


We received a gift from a sweet couple at church today. The husband picked out a dress for Mariah and the wife chose a beautiful white sweater! This keeps getting more exciting!