Forget Sleepless in Seattle….we are sick in Shanghai….

It's 5.30am and we're all awake....well, P is semi-comotosed, but O and I are up...grizzly, but up...

All three of us have caught the dreaded cold, and poor P seems to have a tummy virus on top of that…he's not slept a wink all night (neither have we)...not happy, Jan! We have had another rough night, with our little snotmonster becoming quite upset as he became more congested…and when mummy tries to wipe his nose (he HATES it!!)….needless to say the end result is not at all satisfactory….there will be no photos today :- )

Apart from various viral bugs, we are trotting along pretty well. Oliver seems to be starting to feel OK about being with us, and is going to sleep a little easier than he was a few nights ago which is fantastic…for all of us!

We have been really enjoying Shanghai – it’s such a vibrant, energetic city. Recent adoption groups have hated it here, and I have to say I have trouble understanding why..but each to their own. We have visited the beautiful Yu gardens, had a lovely dinner in an old factory converted into the most wonderful rustic restaurant in a hutong-type area of old Shanghai, seen the stunning light display on the river, walked up and down Nanjing Road, spent a fortune at the underground Children’s market, and enjoyed the satisfaction that can only come from a fantastic mocha grande from Starbucks…

We love Shanghai so much that we have decided to extend our stay here by 5 days before heading back to Oliver’s province where we will spend another week (not part of the adoption process, just us on our own). We are looking forward to having some more free time both in Shanghai and in his province just to hang out, look around and soak up the sights, sounds (and smells – gotta love fermented tofu – not!) of his birthcountry. We also think that having extra time in China as just the 3 of us will help cement our little family together a bit more before day-to-day life at home gets in the way….

We cannot believe how far Oliver has come in just over a week with us. We are learning more about him every day – yesterday we leant that he actually will drink water…but only from an eye dropper…a slow, but effective hydration technique. We can also now tell if he has filled his nappy purely from the look of satisfaction on his face (useful now that P and I are crook and can’t rely on the nose detector). He is such a darling, happy little baby….we are beyond blessed.

I started this post early this morning and am only finishing it now, at 9pm- life is like that these days! I have Ollie on my lap so will sign off before he hits the delete key again…little monster loves to hit the keys when mummy's typing!! No photos from today…P has not lifted his head off the pillow all day except to help me go and collect the washing…gastro and a cold doth not make him a happy camper….he is weak as a kitten and looks dreadful...fingers crossed he will feel a lot better tomorrow as his is absolutely miserable right now.

I’ll leave you with piccies from previous days…sans snot.

Oliver says uytuytuiyt98y809089 - what a clever boy!! Time for bed now Ollie!!

Goodnight!

T xx

With daddy the first day we met...about 1 1/2 hours after meeting

The eyes have it.....Oliver cruising in his sling, with muslin head dress :-)

One Week....

Well, it's been one week since our lives changed forever...one week since we held our darling Oliver in our arms for the first time.

What a week it has been!

Less sleep

More love

More cuddles

Less bathing

More Congee (rice soup that Oliver loves to eat)

Less time together with P

Less sleep

More spit

Less clean clothes

Less sleep

More smiles

....and did I mention less sleep and more love?

We have all laughed and cried a hundred times this week...our emotions (all of us) have ben put through the wringer...but slowly, ever so slowly, we are all getting back to our normal selves. It is going to take a long time, but we will get there, and we will find our own groove as a family soon.

We had a great flight the other day. Oliver was a real pro and took his bottle on the way up and down, and slept during the flight itself. What a champion - and so clever and handsome!

We are in Shanghai now and we love love love it (and no, not just because it has Starbucks...although that doesn't hurt!!).

We underwent the Australian visa medical procedure today - it was far better than I had feared it would be, and once again Oliver amazed us with his calmness and strength. He is one special little boy. We were so so proud of him.

Daddy got his stethascope out this morning and did an initial medical exam on Oliver to try and get him used to being poked and prodded....I really think it helped. Oliver then promptly fell asleep with the stethoscope and would not let it go. I hope he's not getting any ideas for future professions!!!

I know you are all here for the photos so I will not disappoint you all.....here is Oliver!

Love to everyone,

a very happy T and P....and the amazing, gorgeous O xxxxx

Oliver, gorgeous boy

My darling boy is not settled at all tonight so while daddy has a go at getting him to sleep, I thought I'd quickly share some photos....

Oliver is feeling much better, thank you all for your thoughts. We are flying to Shanghai tomorrow, so positive vibes for a smooth plane ride please...especially since his little gums and ears are still hurting....poor darling.

All in all, things are going really well. He continues to delight and surprise us, and has us in stitches with his funny little ways.

We are head over heels in love.

Thank you to everyone for your emails/texts/comments. We are reading them all, but have not had the time to answer you all - so sorry! We really appreciate your thoughts though.

My little monkey is stil not settled, so I'd better go and give daddy a hand....we are ready for bed, but it seems that Oliver is not....don't quite know when the packing is going to get done??!!!

Talk to you from Shanghai!

T xx

A Really Quick Hello

Hi everyone.

We have him...he is beyond beautiful....

We are a family of three and we could not be happier (or more exhausted!)

Promise to write a proper post soon, but it is so busy at the moment as Oliver will not settle without being in our arms, so we are quite restricted - and there's lots of things to do (who knew having a baby was so hectic!).

Oliver is grieving quite a lot, and is clearly quite frightened of us a lot of the time. He is also sick and we have spent quite some time this afternoon at the hospital which was traumatic for all of us....nothing serious, but he's crook enough to make him feel pretty awful lot of the time. Still, through all of it we are getting gorgeous toothless grins, some brief giggles, and increasing amounts of eye contact...all good signs that he is starting to take to us a little bit.

We are absolutely head over heels in love!!

So enough of that.....here he is....Oliver

Love to you all,

T, P and O xxxxx

45 minutes

to go.....

don't quite know what to do with ourselves....P has decided to iron something (don't know why?!), so I am sitting here...neither of us can really speak much.

42 minutes to go...

Bring on the Baby, Baby!!!

Oh baby!

We are 1 hour and 45 minutes away from Oliver.....

so close....so close.

Emotions are high - fear, anticipation, sadness (for Oliver's loss, and his birth family), excitement, pure joy, love...did I say love?

So many emotions.

We leave the hotel in 1 hour....1 hour....1 hour.

We are beside ourselves.

Our son is on his way...

We're coming darling...we love you, we will always love you.

See you soon.

From years, to months, to weeks, to days...

To hours...

As I sit here in our hotel room in my son's province in Southern China, it is merely 44 hours and 45 minutes until we meet Oliver....wow....

It is merely HOURS until we have our son in our arms, and the 7+ year wait to kiss and cuddle and smooch our child is over...as is Oliver's 8 1/2 month wait for his forever family. 3pm on Monday afternoon is when it's all going to happen....wow.

Unfreakingbelievable!!!

Our trip from Hong Kong was great - we shared the journey with 3 other couples who are in our "batch"of 6 couples. There was a lot of nervous tension in the air on that plane!

Our hotel in Nanchang is called the "Galactic Peace"...ambitious (no, let's not just go for world peace, let's shoot for the stars people...Galactic Peace!!). We have a suite which is great as we have a little extra room for the moo-ster to hang out with us in. When the housekeeper wheeled in a little white cot yesterday afternoon and placed it in our bedroom we got really choked up...

Last night we all met for an early dinner, checked out the local brew and the "Great Wall" red wine (not bad...but to be honest I would have drunk firewater last night!). We all had a relatively early night, and a relatively uncomfortable night's sleep on the rock hard beds (why oh why does every bed in Asia need to feel like a concrete slab?).

Today we headed out with a local shop owner called Tiffanie, who owns "Lucky Tiffanie's", a shop stocking all sorts of souvenir-type stuff. Tiffanie is associated with a small school about 50km out of Nanchang, where local children come to learn English, calligraphy, and music. The taxi ride to and from the town was terrifying.

As most of you know, P and I have done some pretty extreme travel over the last decade and a bit....from undertaking a torrential glacial river crossing in Patagonia and finding that a couple had slipped during the crossing and been killed there just 3 days before, to being abandoned by our guide and left with no food in the middle of the Amazon jungle, and surviving on eating pirhanas for 2 days (sorry mum - had I told you that already or did I choose to keep that quiet?), to nearly going off the side of a cliff in a bus doing hairpin turns in the dark with no headlights in Peru, to crazy taxi drivers in Bangkok, Rio de Janiero, Beijing and Zanzibar....but never, ever have I felt so afraid as I did in this taxi today. He was crazy. We clocked 140 miles per hour (P says for the record it was only 120 miles per hour....whatever, but it was bloody fast) on the wrong side of the road, going UP the offramp for the freeway, with other cars coming straight at us. I have never been so convinced I was going to die, and actually made P promise to fight for the right to still adopt Oliver on Monday if I was killed and he survived. It really was that scary.

I'm shuddering just thinking about it!!

Anyway, back to the nice stuff....

Once we made it to the small town (my legs literally gave way as we stepped out of the taxi) our group of 4 couples were the star attraction for the children who attended the local English school. They have not had foreigners visit them before, and I suspect we were the first non-Chinese people they had seen in the flesh. The children were shy to start with, but slowly practiced their English with us, and posed for photographs (they just loved seeing themselves in the playback of the digital cameras!). They were so lovely. Their music teacher gave us a beautiful demonstration of the zither, and then we all had a chance to have a quick lesson with him. The calligraphy teacher then taught us ""calligraphy 101" and we practiced writing our own names which was fantastic.

We headed back to Nanchang after about 2 hours at the school (different taxi driver, still crazy...offered to pay him double if he went slower....he didn't) and hit Walmart (or perhaps mor correctly., Walmart hit us...hard!). How to describe Walmart...um, overwhelming. Fantastic, but pretty noisy, smelly (they have great piles of dried fish on display and a million other things in the meat department that will fuel my nightmares for many weeks to come!), crowded and bustling! I tried to take a sneaky video just to try and capture the sheer chaotic-ness (is that a word?) of the whole place.

Relaxing it ain't!

So that brings us to now....we have changed hotel rooms (first one was on a smoking floor and stunk to high heaven so we changed to nonsmoking this arvo...a pain, but worth it) and are now sitting and doing nothing. We are pretty worn out after today's adventures. We have a bottle of "Great Wall" and intend on doing nothing more than drinking it, ordering room service, and counting down the hours until we kiss our baby.

44 hours to go....

T xxx

Langham me Baby

A glorious massage, a facial, a comfortable bed, my darling husband, French Champagne, sleep ins, handmade chocolates, finding out that dear friends have gotten "the call" about their children in Thailand and China, a pillow menu, hours of time to really talk an connect with P, cable TV, a hundred belly laughs with my husband and our darling friends (and batch-mates), winning the fight against a new laptop gone bad, a good book, 2 x afternoon naps, stunning views, buffet breakfast, quiet reflection on impending parenthood, a rain shower, dreaming and talking and contemplating our son, Skype-ing my family, and unlimited snacks and drinks.

A snapshot of the last 2 days in Hong Kong.

Perfection.

China...we're ready. See you tomorrow.

T xxx

Meet you at The Club....

Well, we are finally in Hong Kong....8 hours closer to our baby boy, and a million miles away from the stress of packing, repacking, and getting ready to leave.

We. Are. EXHAUSTED!!

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning (I've been avoiding them of late) and wondered who the spotty-faced panda was in our hotel room....ahh yes....that's me. Bags under my eyes big enough to pack a week's worth of clothes in (if only we had the weight allowance available!!). Just quietly, P is not looking much better....we looks like Ping and Pong, the zombie pandas!!

We're hoping that the 2 days of rest and relaxation we have planned in Hong Kong (Honkers for the Aussies out there) will go some way towards fixing our panda problem...and the sore throats we both have.

We are staying in the most magnificent hotel room ever - at the Langham Place, in a Club room. Bloody hell this place is nice!!! We selected a lavender pillow from the pillow menu last night (or the "dream menu" as they call it here in Langham Land), and slept for 7 hours straight. Can you imagine it?! We have access to a club room here that provides complimentary food and drink all day, massage chairs, and magazines etc. I don't think we will step outside the hotel until we leave for China...

Decadent? You betcha!

Time to go and enjoy breakfast, then perhaps a swim in the rooftop pool....and enjoy our last few days together as a couple.

Jealous?

Txxxx

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Don't know when we'll be back again (not just the John Denver song...quite seriously, we don't know when we'll be back!)





Well...we are packed...finally. Initially packing weight was 11kg over our limit...eventually, at 3am this morning, we reached weight limit. God knows what we threw out of the cases in the end - we were so tired and hungry we couldn't think straight (I wouldn't let P eat until we got the suitcases sorted 'cause once he eats he does his little "homer simpson" act and is useless for the rest of the night!! treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen I say!!). Sorry...got sidetracked there!

We're hoping that we might get extra weight limit once we get Ollie....which I fully intend to use purely as "shopping weight". Oh yes, I'm looking forward to shopping in China - one of my batch buddies (yes YOU Princess SarahB) is known throughout the land for her shopping prowess..I am a mere beginner but I look forward to learning from the best.

So, we are heading to Hong Kong TOMORROW and will have 3 nights there (sleeping. eating. sleeping. getting massages. sleeping) before heading to China on Friday the 17th. We'll then have a couple of days to find our way around before

Meeting Oliver

on the 20th (don't know what time yet).

Still all feels so surreal...maybe because we are so sleep deprived that we can't think straight! I think I will be the first mother in history who gets more sleep after the baby comes home than before...

Hopefully we will be able to update this blog from Hong Kong and China. We have our lovely new (small) laptop, so internet connection willing, you will hear more from us soon.....

We are also on email and T's mobile will hopefully be able to send and receive texts....we'd love to hear from you!!

Love,
T and P - the soon-to-be weary travellers xxxx

Ten Days

Until Ollie Moo!!!!

Gentlemen, start your engines....

And get ready to meet Oliver!!

Our Notice to Travel has arrived, and we now have the green light from China to book flights and get our butts over to our Ollie Moo!!

In 2 hours this afternoon we managed to find and pay for flights that leave for Hong Kong next Tuesday (no mean feat over Easter!) and book accommodation in Hong Kong....we really are getting ready to go!

6 days until we leave, and only 12 days till we kiss our baby. Wow.

Guess who is not going to be able to sleep tonight?

T xxx

14 sleeps

'till I kiss my baby!

From the bottom of our hearts....

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has made this weekend so so special. We have had a weekend filled with joy, laughter, love, friendship, family and so many people's hopes, dreams and love for our son. To each and every one of you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

We feel unbelievably blessed to have all of you in our lives.

A special thank you to my wonderful mum, and our beautiful friend Gill. They have organised, cooked, created, co-ordinated and shopped...and made this magical weekend possible. Thank you also to my wonderful and incredibly proud dad who helped P wet Oliver's head on Saturday night.

Once again, we are overwhelmed by the love you have for our son. We are also completely overwhelmed by all of your generosity - the gifts you have given to Oliver are all so special...they will be treasured and adored.

I know I've said it before....but I'll say it again. He is magical -already creating magic in our lives xxx

Lots of love,
T xxxxx

NTT is on its way!!!

News just in!!!

We have just received an email from our adoption officer telling us that our NTT left China yesterday.

Everybody now.... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have also received a draft itinerary that tells us the date that we should get to meet our little boy....are you ready.....really? OK.....

That's right, only 17 sleeps away (for P...probably only 10 or so sleeps for me 'cause I am becoming an insomniac of late!) .

Once more can I hear a WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOO HHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am jumping our of my skin with excitement. We are nearly there, we are SO nearly there....

We have our visas already and can travel to China as soon as we have the NTT in our hands....we need to talk this weekend about whether we will go and spend some time in Hong Kong or Kunming or Beijing or somewhere else prior to meeting Ollie, or whether we will wait and fly out on the 16th as originally planned...there is still so much to do....

A busy weekend awaits us, starting with dinner with my Mum and Dad tonight at one of our favourite restaurants. We are already late...I'm just waiting for P to get home from work....tomorrow and Sunday there are a variety of celebrations happening which we are really looking forward to.

Life is good.

Now, bring on the baby!!

T xxxxxxx (grinning from ear to ear like an idiot - a very, very happy idiot!)

Thank you doesn't seem to cover it....

Thank you everyone for your support, excitement, tears, laughter and gifts for our beautiful Oliver. We are absolutely overwhelmed by your kindness!

Our mail box has been a constant source of delight over the last few weeks as everything from gorgeous little socks to hand-made quilts, to ring slings to carry Oliver around in, to books and scrapbooking supplies have found their way to us. We have also been inundated with good wishes and gorgeous gifts from the beautiful staff at P's work who gathered with us for afternoon tea today.

This little boy is magic - can't you just feel it?!!

T xx

8 Months

8 months ago, my darling little boy came in to the world. The day that we have been given as his birth date was warm and sunny in Southern China.

Half way around the world, I was struggling with a cold and working on my presentation for the Adoption Conference I was speaking at later in the month. P was working during the day, and was pretty busy. In the evening we watched the DVD "P.S. I Love You". I cried all through the movie....

There is not a lot I remember specifically about the day itself, but I do remember watching that movie and then not wanting to stop hugging P that night. I'm glad I can remember at least something from that day....