Taiwan: Ying-Tzu Mia

We have been together 5 days now, but I am going to back up to Friday and Monday, two days we spent in Taichung picking up Ying-Tzu and meeting her birth family.  I thought I would be a lot better about keeping up with the blog on a daily basis, but we are finding that our little energetic 5 year-old is taking every bit of energy we have!  hmmm, how quickly you forget what five is all about!  Plus our go to "use your words" that we would say with our first 2 kids when they were toddlers having fits of frustration does not really work ;-)  We are finding humor in trying to communicate, and luckily she is too.  She is an incredibly happy little girl considering the huge change she is going through and the frustration of having a new family who understands so little of what she says.  I am so sad thinking of all of those hours of intense spanish practice I did when I should have been practicing Mandarin for the last 2.5 years, but we did not know our journey would lead to a mandarin speaking little girl.  Ironically, as Ying-Tzu is practicing her English when we get home, Jillian has elected Mandarin as her middle school language, so she will take it every day at school starting in August!  And Ying-Tzu and I will be enrolling in the chinese school to practice our mandarin on Saturdays.  She learns incredibly fast.

We traveled to New Hope, the social welfare institute that has been working with Ying-Tzu for the last year.  Her social workers cared for her well and we credit them with preparing her as well as possible.  Her foster mother also seemed to care deeply about her.  The meeting with the birth family was enlightening.  Our families will always have her uniting us.

Ying-Tzu with her foster mother whom she lived with for 5 months

The wall that adoptive families sign at New Hope.  We all signed... note they taught her to write "Mia", which we have chosen as her middle name.  She may choose to use her middle name in school.

Birth father, Johnny, Jillian, Steph, Bates, Ying-Tzu, grandmother, brother & Aunt all together after an emotional meeting.  Ying-Tzu is holding her beloved snoopy

Taiwan: Family of Five

Pictures for now because I know our family is waiting to hear!  We had an emotional, tiring, amazing day yesterday.  More later, we are headed to the zoo to run off energy... the hotel room is shrinking!! ;-)

Ying-Tzu at the playground in Da-an Park

Ying-Tzu, Jillian and Bates at the hotel pool

She had never been in a pool... did not take long for her to love it!  Daddy and Ying-Tzu

Taiwan: Lunshan Temple, Memorial Hall, National Museum of Art

Bates enjoying soup

Jillian and Steph in the beautiful gardens at the National Museum

Steph & Johnny at the National Museum of Chinese Art

streets of Taipei- there are scooters everywhere!

Lungshan Temple was incredible, we left an offering for our big day

Part of Memorial Hall

Memorial Hall.  The tents are the discovery channel set up for an episode

Entrance to Memorial Hall Courtyard

Taiwan: Travel & Taipei 101

We keep looking at one another and saying, "this is surreal" and "I can't believe we are really finally here".  Our journey to Ying-Tzu has begun!

We traveled to Los Angeles and connected with a direct flight to Taipei.  Jet lag is tough; we are relaxing in the hotel now but my body really wants to go to sleep!  With a 12 hour time difference, at 1pm here it is 1am at home.  We were met at the airport by our adoption agency's facilitator, Mr. Yeh, and his 13 year-old son.  His son and I had fun practicing English and Mandarin with one another.  Everyone we have met has been unbelievably kind.

Today we took the MRT to Taipei 101 to get a great view of the city.  Taipei 101 is the 2nd tallest building in the world.  Taipei, Taiwan's capital city, is a lot like New York.  It is clean and modern and full of life 24 hours a day.  The food here is wonderful, but we have already been surprised a few times when ordering as we have to guess... very little is in English.  Tomorrow is a full day of sight-seeing and then Friday we meet the newest member of our family.  Thanks to everyone that is at home watching our progress, watching our dogs, watching J's guinea, feeding our fish, etc.  We could not do this without your love and support!

In line to re-check our luggage at the international terminal in LAX

EVA Air loading

The famous LOVE sculpture outside of Taipei 101

One of the views from the top of Taipei 101

Our cheesy photo booth pics; we had a blast with all of us stuffed inside the booth!

Final Ruling!!!

Just a quick update since there is so much to do!  We leave in THREE DAYS to pick up our daughter. We got the civil ruling on May 8th, she turned five years-old on May 10th, and we heard about our final ruling May 28th.

In the midst of all of the logistics and flurry of activity to book hotels and flights (four of us on the way there and five coming back!), I am re-reading Karen Purvis' Connected Child.  I think constantly of how many changes this child has experienced in her young life and how scary the next few weeks are likely to be for her.  When the initial cloud of euphoria is gone and we are left with our "forever" family of five, balancing her needs and fears with the uncertainty my two older children are bound to experience about their new roles in our family will take all of the energy and love I can muster.  Please send me your warm thoughts and love as we enter this new chapter!

We are coming, Ying-Tzu, and we already love you more than you can imagine.

Ready

The books are lined up on the shelves, the bed is made, the shades and rug were carefully selected.  There has been an empty room in our house for almost 2 1/2 years that has evolved and flowed and has held different dreams, but now it is finally ready for a specific little girl who will be our daughter.

We skyped last week!  It was surreal to interact with her, to have her call us ma ma and ba ba (mommy and daddy) for the first time.   It was so hard to wave goodbye at the end of the call.

Are we ready?  Yes.  Our plans for summer are all tentative as we wait for the call saying the judge has made his or her final decision and we can book our flight to Taiwan.  We wait, and our daughter waits in a foster family.  We are both trying to make the best of the waiting.  She is learning English and practicing her letters and looking at our pictures.  We are practicing mandarin phrases, sending her packages, and looking up places to stay.  But we are all anxious to be together.

Packages and Paperwork

Our adoption agency sent us all of the paperwork to prepare for our in-country stay and appointment with AIT (The American Institute in Taiwan).  I am telling myself this means we are getting close!

In the meantime, our daughter is getting acquainted with us through pictures, our voices, and presents we send in care packages.  It is a challenge to send the 'right' stuff, when it is being viewed by not only the social workers but YT's birth father and perhaps court representatives.  I have tried to forget all of that and focus on the relationship these things are building between ourselves and our little girl, in place of actual contact.

I have not met the social workers at New Hope, but already I am impressed by them.  They are so thoughtful when sending us updates.  When we get an email each month linking to new pictures and videos in our dropbox account, it is like Christmas!  We watch the videos over and over, seeing her reaction to each item we have sent, seeing her giggle and run and hug stuffed animals.  And sometimes she seems sad.  Already, we have seen it all... but from so far away.  We are still hoping to travel in June- we make very tentative plans for anything during the summer at this point, as we are on hold.  Please send us your prayers and good vibes that the court process is going well and we can bring her home soon.

Care Package #1: a book we recorded, photos with labels in chinese, 1 outfit and a special snoopy that she loved

Care Package #2 A lot more clothes, some sensory toys, and songs in English that the social workers requested

The cutest TEVAs ever.  They sent us an outline of her foot on a piece of paper, and guess what?  They fit!