Gotcha Day!!

Hello everyone!

If you hadn't noticed, I didn't post yesterday. It was a baaaaad (sheep sound, here) day. It started off fine enough. We met Stella (social worker) at the orphanage and went with the kids to the library where they played in a special area for little kids. We hung out there for about 45 minutes then went and had lunch at the cafe in the building. The 5 of us, including Stella, then headed back to the hotel so that John could take a nap. That was the first time he had been to our hotel.

Here is John playing outside the library. It had been raining so he was playing in the water.



John is such a little trooper. Sweet boy came in our room, played a round for a bit, then fell asleep for one and half hours. No fussing, no fighting, no screaming. I have to tell you, I don't expect this to me the norm. I think he is in shock, so to speak. The ladies that work in the orphanage say he talks non stop, but we haven't found this to be the case. That is one of the main reasons I don't think we're seeing thre real John. But for now, I am totally digging the no fussing thing though.

John finally let David carry him. This was a big deal!


Our first problem started outside the hotel. In the madness of getting 4 adults out of the taxi, handing John over to David so I could pay the taxi driver, and actually paying the driver,  I misplaced my wallet. We scoured the room and called the front desk. It was nowhere. Of course, we then had to call and cancel all of  our credit cards. Unfortunatley we did not have much money on us and when we cancelled the VISA credit card that left us without a way to pay for things. The debit card would not work. It was the middle of the night at home so there no one to help us. Thankfully, David  had his work AmEx card. He was able to pay for meals with it until we got somebody on the phone in Ga. Apparently AmEx is not accepted as worldwide as the commercials would have you believe.

Later that afternoon I began to feel weird. Kind of a thirsty, nauseated, cold feeling. I knew something was wrong when we were riding in the taxi back from the orphanage, and I was cold. Westerners are not cold in Hong Kong. If we're cold then the locals are freezing. It is really comical. The locals are decked out in hats, scarves, and heavy coats and we're in pants and short sleeved shirt. I honestly would have been more comfortable in shorts for most of the time.

Anyway, I digress. I got back to the hotel and puked. Well, that explained it. I'll spare you the gory details but it was food poisoning. I have no idea what I ate, but my body was having no part of it.  The blessings in all of this are 2-fold. Number one, I was the one and only one who got it. I would've felt awful if Holley Kate had been sick. If David had been sick then he wouldn't have been able to take care of the credit card/money issue. So, praising God for that. Number two, it couldn't have happened at a better time. John had already been here and had his nap. I didn't have to worry about getting him back to the orphanage and explaining what was wrong with me. I also didn't know at the time if it was the flu or some other such bug.

Today was Gotcha Day!! It was just great. I'm not sure that John really understood what was going on though.  They had all the kids in a semi circle in the room. They sang song after song. John got to go in the middle of the circle and sing and dance. He was the star of the day.

They did a candle ceremony where John held a (fake) candle and took it around to all the kids in the room. The children would put "good wishes" into the candle for him. At some poing during all this I looked around and noticed the workers crying. Crap, y'all! I lost it. And it just kept getting better. They started to sing the I Love You Barney song while John went around and hugged everyone goodbye. By this point I'm a blubbering mess and Stella is feeding me tissues.

All in all, it was really sweet and well done. After that they took him to each room to tell the room goodbye. We even had to go down to the office to tell the piano goodbye. It was finally time for us to leave. I think John was just done by that point.

I can't imagine how hard this was for John's workers. He primary worker, May Yi (sp), wasn't even at the going away party. She said she just couldn't do it. We did get to tell her goodbye yesterday though. She was such a nice woman. John was so blessed to have had such a kind loving woman to care for him.

Y'all would not belive John's suitcase they bought him. It is huge!! They filled it to almost overflowing. I had no idea he was going to come home with so much stuff. It wasn't just clothes. The ladies that work there bought him gifts!!



Can you believe it? It is 75% gifts. I'm just floored.

As I type this John is napping. We'll wake him up in a bit and head out for some exploring.

I found out some information about his biological parents which I'll share in a later post. My mind was really opened and my heart changed with this information.

I'll post some actual pictures of John over at my other blog.

We're praising God that John is officially ours today! It almost doesn't seem real. I guess once we get back to the states and settle into a routine, it will be more real for us.

Talk to you tomorrow, Lord willing.

We Met John!

So today was the day. We met our son. How weird is that? For 3 years he has lived in a country without a mommy and daddy, and today he got them. How would I have known that on July 12, 2009 my son was being born half way across the world. I have often wondered what I was doing on that day. For the life of me, I can't remember. More than likely, I was schooling Calvin and Holley Kate and spending the afternoon at the pool.

Ok, enough contemplation. On to the meat of the day. Our case worker, Stella, met us in the lobby of our hotel at 9:15. She is a very sweet, petite Asian lady. Very warm and friendly. And she loves those kids. We all took a taxi over to Mother's Choice which was only about a 10 minute ride.






Here is Holley Kate posing out in front of the sign. Mother's Choice (MC) is in a really pretty part of the city. Funny thing is, we went right past MC yesterday and didn't even know it. The tram that goes up and down to The Peak is right next to it.

They are very big on cleanliness. You have to take your shoes off and put on some of their slippers. You then wash your hands with soap and water. After that, you spray your hands with alcohol. It was kind of like going into the NICU.  We then went into a waiting area. Stella could hear John before he even got to us. He came in wearing a traditional Chinese outfit. We sat a while and got to know him. He then wanted to go play with the piano.

I'll tell you now, I can't show John's face on this blog because it is public. If you'd like to see him, you'll have to go to my private blog. I'll give directions at the bottom.


I just can't express to y'all just how sweet he was. He absolutely LOVED Holley Kate. He sat there and played and played the piano with her. I really think he would've done it for an hour had he been abe to.

We first met with the physical therapist. John gets around real well but is a little unsteady. I'm not sure they know exactly why, but they guessed that it was due to his poor vision in his left eye. He pulls everything up very close to look at it. He even makes his fist into a sort of telescope to look through to see more clearly. I really believe his eyes are going to give him trouble. We'll be seeing lots of specialist to address it. It make my heart lurch a little when I think about it. But really? How many people live with just one good eye? My brother for one. I somehow know many people who only have one working eye. And who knows what the docs in the US can do for his eyes?

Stella said John wasn't talking anything like he usually did. She said he was nervous. Can you blame him? How strange all of this must be for him.

We then went upstairs for lunch. They fed him rice, egg, and eggplant. He seemed to love it. He scarfed it all down. They then gave him dragon fruit which was similar to kiwi. After that, yogurt. He at every.single.bite. Water came after lunch. He pours his own water and gulps it down.

It was then time for a nap and lunch time for us. We joined Stella at a resteraunt about a 10 minute walk from MC. Poor Holley Kate. She's having such bad luck with food. She didn't like her lunch. The good news is that there was salad bar that came with it. She was able to fill her tummy on salad and fruit. I think I made need to try and broaden their palates a bit once we get back to GA. The most adventurous we get is
Italian.







After lunch we walked back to the orphanage and got to hang out with John a little bit more. I was able to see a little more of his personality. There are 2 or 3 boys in his room that are quite rambunctious. And I mean, they take those walkers and run with them and ram into the walls. The slower kids ( not mentally just physically) have to steer clear or they'll get run over. John is one of the slower ones. He sat on a mat way out of the way. David, Holley Kate, and I sat on the floor with him and played. He had a little cash register that he was very interested in. Truly y'all, he was happy just to sit there and play with his toy. He enjoyed playing with us, especially since Daddy have him some Hong Kong coins to put in his register, but I really think he would've been fine by himself.

Bathtime was next. He seemed to really enjoy it. I can't wait to get him home so he can just sit and play in the tub. They have 12 kids to bathe so there is not "tubby time". I think he'll thoroughly enjoy getting his bath toys and hanging out in the water.


The only little glitch is that he seems to be a bit afraid of  David. I think it is a combination of him being male (most of the workers are female) and the Grizzly Adams beard David has going on. John gave Holley Kate and me tons of hugs and kisses but only when we asked. He just wasn't quite as warm with David.

I know that once he gets more used to us he'll cling to David. Both Calvin and Holley Kate did that. They love me but they see me all day long. Daddy is always the fun one :0)

Anyway, I've posted some "real" pictures of John at www.schrammclan.wordpress.com If you haven't already, you have to sign up. It will send me an email to see if I allow you to see the blog. Let me know if your username is something weird that I won't recognize. I have to be careful who I let see his pictures. That just basically means I have to know who you are. Family for friend. Hong Kong has some pretty strict guidelines on how their kiddos photos are used online.

We're praising the Lord for such a wonderful first meeting with John. It really was what I wanted it to be. Very sweet and low key. I didn't want there to be lots of drama. With that being said, please pray that John will grieve the loss of his friends and substitue moms at MC. He needs to miss them and feel that loss. That way he'll cling and bond with us. As his mother, I don't want him to hurt. But, I know that this is an important part of the process.

On that happy note, I'll leave you for today. Tomorrow we go for an outing. Woo Hoo! Talk to you then.

Day 2 in Hong Kong

Last night I fell asleep at 10pm which is waaaaaay early for me. And when I say I fell asleep, I mean I went completely unconcious. I think David and Holley Kate tried to call Calvin or something, but I was out. My body is so stinking confused. We are downing the coffee.

The good news is we got up early enough to get dressed for church and go out in search of a McDonalds. We really wanted to go to one of the bakeries we've heard so much about, but apparenty they aren't open on Sundays. The nerve of them!

McDonald's has all the normal breakfast foods that the states do along with some other very strange foods. I watched the woman next to me eat a breakfast soup that had an egg, sausage patty, noodles, and vegetables in it. Yack!

Speaking of which, I don't think I mentioned how everyone just sits together at the tables in restaurants  here. It was rather strange and somewhat uncomfortable in the beginning. I'm getting more used to it. I guess since we speak another language nobody feels the need to engage us in conversation. So we're sort of still sitting by ourselves. Maybe???

The church we went to today was pretty interesting. It was very different for us but not because it was a "Hong Kong" church. It was different from what we're used to simply b/c it was a non-denominational, contemporary service. The leader of the worship music was Chinese and did a fantastic job. They did the whole American contemporary service thing where they had the words to the songs on screens.

The sermon was on sex. Oh.My.Stars. Welcome to Hong Kong! They had asked for members to text their questions that they wanted answers but were too afraid to ask in person. The preacher and his wife sat on the stage and answered these questions. Y'all, I thought Holley Kate was going to DIE!! That of course made it all that much funnier to me.

This afternoon we took a bus up to The Peak which they say is the highest point in Hong Kong. Unfortunatey for us is was foggy and drizzly, so we weren't able to see very far. We rode one of those double decker buses up the mountain. I couldn't watch out the front of the bus. The roads were tiny and we were in the outside lane ( they drive on the opposite side over here). I'm pretty sure we were having to pull over so other buses could pass.

We're planning on going on the Star Ferry tonight. It's supposed to be a really cool place to watch the light show.

Oh, I almost forgot! One of the sweet ladies at the church told us some restaurants to go to that were more "normal" for Holley Kate. You know, I blame her for all this but I'm more than happy to accomadate her. After seeing the cooked chicken heads in the market next to our hotel I'm good with going to the American joints.

We meet John tomorrow! So excited and nervous! Thanks again for your prayers. We know that God ordained that John would be our son. That gives us peace in knowing we are doing the right thing. As crazy as it sounds, I'm not very nervous about meeting him. I'm just really looking forward to it. I pray that his heart is opened to us and that bonding can begin. That is the part that worries me. But good or bad, he's ours now.

Talk to y'all tomorrow!! Love you!

Day One in Hong Kong

So we made it! That was one massive trip. We left Atlanta at 12 noon on Thursday and arrived here at 11:30 pm. I think that is about lunch time in GA. We were beat. I think I slept, at most, 1 & 1/2 hours the whole trip. David and Holley Kate got in about 3 hours. It was really hard to sleep on the plane. Delta did a great job entertaining us. There was a tv on the back of the seat in front of us with tons of movies to choose from. Not only that, there were some television shows we could watch as well.

I am not a big movie person but I figured I needed to become one for the trip. The first one I watched was Breaking Dawn part 1. Oh my stars, it was awful. I read the book and actually enjoyed them. The movie was a completely different story. I think I ended up watching about 4 movies. I finished the trip with the Kardashians (on the plane from Japan to HK). Yep, that was awful too. But you know, it was entertaining enough to keep my mind somewhat off my aching body.

Once we made it to the HK airport we had to go through customs. Ugh! Think Six Flags in the summer only a little cooler. Not to mention only working on 1.5 hours of sleep in the past 24 hours. Yea, that was fun.

I could have kissed the guy that was waiting at the airport to drive us to the hotel in our limousine which was minivan :0) I guess we finally made it to the hotel around 2am. Everybody got a hot shower and a dose of Benadryl. We slept hard.

I guess we woke up about 10am and headed out to explore. You know how skinny the streets are in Atlanta? They have NOTHING on Hong Kong. HK is crowded, hilly, stinky, strange, congested etc. It was totally cool though. We found ourselves at a mall where we ate lunch. Our choices were either McDonalds or Asian food places, duh. Have I mentioned that Holley Kate doesn't eat Asian food?
We shared some sort of beef dish. She did eat a little but we had to buy her some M&Ms afterward. We're looking for an American food joint for dinner tonight. Poor Holley Kate needs some "regular" American cuisine.

At some point during the day we ended up at the Lady's Market for souvenirs. We found lots of cool gifts. You get to haggle over the prices which is totally fun for me except when they vendors follow you down the street, grabbing your arm, trying to get you to buy the wares.

Tomorrow we're going to church with a friend of our pastor's. Hopefully we'll go on a tour afterward. Then Monday we meet John!! Woo Hoo!

Thank you for all your prayers. This has been a relatively easy trip so far. We miss Calvin something awful but we know he is great hands right now. We've been able to talk to him via FaceTime,which is really cool, btw.

Talk to y'all tomorrow!

High Court Order and Travel

Well Hello!

So last Tuesday we got fantastic news! The High Court Order was issued. Praise The Lord! Hallelujah! It only took 7 & 1/2 weeks. I cannot even tell you how shocked I was to receive the news. It took 10 & 1/2 weeks for my friends in Atlanta to get their HCO. We were not expecting to hear from HK until the week of Dec. 6.

So it happened like this. The kids and I were sleeping late. It was about 9:15am and my home phone began to ring. Nobody but soliciters call my home phone. I take that back, my sister in law and a few friends call it occasionally, but for the most part, it is just junk calls. We have one of the phones that announces who is calling. So instead of getting  out of my warm bed to answer the phone I waited for my phone to tell me who it was. When she announced that it was Bethany Christians Serices I lept from the bed to reach to phone. I couldn't see the phone so I mashed the wrong button and somehow had Alison on speaker phone.

It was really quite hysterical. The big kids were coming from their bedrooms all sleepy eyed trying to figure out why mom was knocking things over and making all kinds of noise to get to the telephone. Once they realized what had happened they joined me in celebration. Happy, happy day.

Mother's Choice recommended meeting John on Monday Dec. 3 which meant we needed to arrive the weekend before.  That gave us roughly  1 & 1/2 weeks to get to HK. Good grief, these people don't play. David spent the rest of the day making flight arrangements.

On a side note, our church (Old Peachtree Presbyterian) decided about a week or so ago to give us some extra money for the trip. God's timing is perfect. With the extra money we were able to buy Holley Kate a ticket to come with us! Yippee! She has been such a good sport about this whole process. She desperatley wanted to go. We have told her time and time again that we probably wouldn't be able to afford it, and not to get her hopes up. But guess what! God totally proviced a way.

Now you may be wondering about Calvin. I kid you not. The child begged me not to make him go. He had no desire to sit on an airplane for hours on end, go to a foreign country, eat weird food, etc. He just wasn't having any of it. The good news is that our family has come through for us. I'll drop Calvin off with his grandparents the day b/f we fly out. He'll go between both of David's parents' houses and maybe even get to go to Americus as well. I found out later on that he was super stoked to get to have his grandparents to himself. He said he had never had them to himself. Come to think of it, I guess he hasn't.

Praise The Lord for plans coming together! Everybody is happy with the arrangements. Of course I'm worried about leaving my eldest. I am not one of those moms that leaves her kids for any extended amount of time. I'm not super mom. I'm just extremely needy and want the ones I love close all the time. Heck, I  usually take our dogs with us everywhere we go. They even go skying with us in the summer. They hang out on the boath with us and bark at boats that come too close.

I have experienced about every emotion you can imagine in the last couple of days. I feel like I'm going into labor without the labor pains (for which I am grateful). I'm anxious about leaving Calvin, leaving the dogs, leaving my house... You name it and I've worried about it.

If you think about it, please remember us in your prayers. We've got a long road ahead of us. I'll be keeping everyone updated at this blog while we're gone. I'll also post pictures of John and maybe some of the other kiddos on a different blog, my password protected blog.
Here is that address:
schrammclan.wordpress.com

If you want to look at the picutres just  go to the site and fill out the new user info. It will send me an email asking me if you can view my blog. I'll say yes, then you can see all the pics.

 Love and kisses to all!

Waiting, waiting... and Pictures!!

Well, today marks 6 weeks that we received the Article 5 letter. The count to our High Court order began. The adopting agency told us the average is 8 weeks. So theoretically, we should hear in 2 weeks.

I'll tell you right now, I don't believe it. I think we have at least 4 more weeks before we hear. My friends, that arrived in Hong Kong this morning, had to wait 10 & 1/2 weeks to get their HCO :0(

That would put us in Hong Kong the week of Christmas. Oh, I do NOT want to be in HK the week of Christmas. But,  if that is that is what it takes to bring John home then we'll be there with bells on.

On a brighter note, they finally told John that he has a mommy and daddy! He didn't understand why we were changing his name from Kevin to John. How do you explain to a 3 year old that his older brother's name is Calvin which is way to similar to Kevin?

Funny thing is, on the video that we sent to John, I kept saying Calvin's name. That confused John since he thought I was saying "Kevin". Oh, this is going to be confusing when we get him home.

I'm not sure if I mentioned the video we sent John before, but it was about a 10 minute tour of the house. We made sure to go out in the back yard and show him the play set. Calvin and Holley Kate demonstrated the swings and slide. Apparently, the ladies in HK asked John if he was scared to go down the slide. His response was no, that he would sit in his sister's lap and go down.

Our heart melted! Holley Kate cried; I cried; I think we had everyone in the house in tears. It means so much to Holley Kate to hear that John wants a big sister. She loves him already.

So, for the most important part! Pictures! HK is real weird about us showing pictures of the kids. I have another blog that has pictures of John since I couldn't figure out how to password protect certain posts here.

So, here is the address:

schrammclan.wordpress.com

The wordpress blog  is password protected so if you want to see the pictures just private message me and I'll send you the password. You can do it via Face book or my regular email which is :

schramm.julie@gmail.com

Love to all!

Article 5 Approval

I know, I know, long time no blog.

Well, I'm here to update on all things John. Last Thursday, September 30, we received our Article 5 letter. I really don't know a whole lot about what an Article 5 letter, but I do know this. You have to have it to adopt. It takes about 8 weeks after you get the Article 5 to receive the High Court Order. Once we get the HCO we will be given travel dates which are usually 1-3 weeks post HCO.

I've been scouring the internet looking for blogs from people who have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Hong Kong. So I'm going to add a little technical info here for others who may be reading this blog to get some answers.

We received our Matching Approval on August 10. It took about a week for the documents from HK to arrive at our adoption agency. In the mean time David and I filled out documents for immigration. Everything was mailed to USCIS on either 8/20 or 8/21. We received immigration approval on 9/5 which was about 2 & 1/2 weeks.

After than all of our immigration info was supposed to be sent to the US Consulate in  Hong Kong for the Article 5 letter . A friend of mine who is a few weeks ahead of me in the journey told me that it took them 10 days after immigration approval to get their Article 5 letter. That was not the case for us.

Ten days came and went without hearing anything from the consulate. After much fretting and gnashing of teeth I called Bethany. Long story short, our paper work got left on a bureaucrat's desk and was not sent to the consulate. Craziness ensued on my part which involved me calling the consulate on a Sunday night to try and figure out if they had received our documents. Ok, I have to tell you, those poor English speaking Hong Kong ladies had no clue what this South Ga redneck was saying. I kept yelling "article 5" into the computer (I called on Skype). Travel over there is going to be real interesting for us.

Thank the good Lord, Mother's Choice confirmed with us that Monday that the consulate had received our immigration and was in the process of getting the Article 5 together. The actual Article 5 was issued September 27. Hallelujah!!!

Now we are waiting for the High Court Order. They say it take 6-10 weeks with 8 being the average. Please pray with me for the HCO. All of this has been perfectly ordained by God. I know His timing is best. I want to be comfortable and peaceful with God's timing. But, I really want that HCO to come sooner rather than later. God hasn't been doing any of this according to my time table, so maybe I should start going with His. The only problem with that is that I can't print off His table study it, and make plans accordingly :0)

I got a video in the mail last week. I can't wait to tell you all about it!