Friday, June 27, 2008

We are Home!



No Duh. We have been home for 6 months with Emma, but the title to this post seemed appropriate considering the last post was right before we left. What a trip! For everyone that knows us, you already know all the details, good to bad. From the perfect day, when we met Emma to the dreadful run in with the CDC and US State Department bureaucracy which led us to our late night harrowing escape from Saigon, I mean Guangzhou. "Maria you have 25min to pack everything! By yourself! Hurry! Hurry! We have to run to catch the last train to Hong Kong!" Memories of this trip have been burned into our minds , never to be forgotten.

We both learned about, love at first sight. That feeling of when you hold your child for the first time. We also were blessed to have the opportunity to truly understand how lucky we are to be living in this beautiful country. More so me than Maria. Coming from the Philippines she already had a deeper appreciation of all this country means. Since I was raised here, spoiled and naive I never truly understood the poverty and despair that exists in this world. I've seen the tiny wood shacks with tin roofs, no electricity or plumbing that are typical in Panama and Rio DeJanairo slums but always from a safe distance inside an air conditioned tour bus. Our trip to the orphanage in China really opened my eyes.

The Social Welfare Institute (SWI) we visited was one of the better SWI we were told. Holt International, our agency, sponsors it and has a good relationship with the directors. The SWI's in China are also homes for older people with no family to care for them. As well as some disabled and unfortunate adults who never were able to adapt to life outside the SWI on their own. All SWI's are state run and there is a policy of not allowing tours to foreigners. Because of the relationship Holt has with this particular SWI we were given the opportunity to see inside. We saw many happy children, but it was terribly cold. Cold everywhere. Not drafty or chilly, but cold like 40-45 Deg F! How can they live like that? They allowed some pictures, but not in the room with the sick babies. The sick baby room was devastating. Freezing cold babies wrapped up in bundles of blankets like mummies, not able to move. Most wearing full down ski jump suits under all the layers of blankets. Sweating and freezing at the same time. They were in the little carts you see in the hospitals they use to wheel around newborns. Lined up symmetrically, about 12 of them. They all looked very sick. No IV's or monitors or devices you would see in a hospital. One was blue hardly able to breathe, gasping for breath. I'm sure she is not alive anymore, they said she had a terminal disease.

On a happier note, we survived the winter and are enjoying the beautiful summer. Emma has been able to visit her Cousins and Abuelos more often now that it's warm out. The monotonous rut of life has been brought alive by Emma. Family Bar-B-Q's, walks in the park and reading about Elmo at bedtime are now part of our daily routine.

Avion!, Avion! says Emma pointing to the airplane in the sky. She always does this, as if she remembers how she got here. Life is Beautiful!


Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Wer'e off to China


Beijing is very far north, didn't fit on this map. Will be cold there. Our Next stop after Beijing is Nanchang which is further South and will be in the 60's. We will meet our daughter our first day in Nanchang. The girls will be brought from the SWI's and foster homes in Fuzhou to Nanchang to meet with our group of 12 families. Then we go to the US consulate in Guangzhou to get Emmas visa to enter the US. We go home from there. We won't really see Hong Kong because we stop there only for a connecting flight to Newark. She will legally become our daughter after we file some paper work in Nanchang. She will become a US citizen automatically when she enters the US, there is a law that was specifically created to grant internationaly adopted children automatic US citizenship.


Jan/9 Newark/Beijing
Jan/13 Beijing/Nanchang
Nanchang 4:30pm: Children Handoff in hotel’s meeting room
Jan/18 Nanchang/Guangzhou

Jan/24 Guangzhou/HongKong
Jan/24 HongKong/Newark

I don't know If i'll be able to transfer pictures from my camera to this blog while we are there, but I'll try.





























Thursday, November 29, 2007

Fuzhou Social Welfare Institute (SWI)

We did some research and found pictures and information about the Orphanage Emma is at right now. The Social Welfare Institute (SWI) in the city of Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province, China. It's a modern building that can house about 300 orphans. I found this website with lots of Pictures.

http://tanowitz.typepad.com/photos/fuzhou/index.html


It looks much nicer than the dickinsonian place I had imagined when we first started the adoption.


Saturday, November 24, 2007

Emma Grace Tobar

We got our referral November 5th 2007! Over 2 years of paper work and waiting is finally coming to an end! Emma will be 10 Months old when we meet her, around the end of December. We won't know the exact travel dates for 2-3 weeks. Sounds like we may be celebrating Christmas in China. Can you believe it? I hear they do celebrate the holiday in China somewhat. We were actually in Belize on our Honeymoon December 2005 too. Anyway, we are very excited about this new phase in our lives. I can't wait to see Emma and all her cousin's play and interact!

Welcome to our Blog

Inspired by my cousin Jennifers (http://jeninethiopia.blogspot.com/) very well done Blog, we have left our Yahoo Group, and will be only using this new web presence. Google is very Cool! Using Google's Picasa2 photo organizing software it's 10 times easier to update Web Albums and keep the site up to date. Our plan is to post pics of mildstones in our families life, Birthday's Holidays etc. If you click on the slide shows to the left, it will take you to all our Puplic Albums. If theres anything new I'll try to send an email letting everyone know. If not you can favorite the site in IE and check now and then. Don't expect much to change, maybe once every 2-3 months we'll have new pictures.

Thursday, November 22, 2007