I know this is a long time in coming. It's going to be a long one!
We've had a hard week. We got home last Friday night on September 17th, but we got sick Saturday night.
I'll start where I left off before.
I was going to the Pearl Market with the women on Thursday morning in Guangzhou. That didn't happen. Bob woke up sick during the night on Wednesday night. It was pretty bad, so I decided to stay with him in the room for most of the day Thursday. He certainly wasn't able to watch Raeanna. He was going to have to go outside and walk with her to keep her from crying when I left, and he was too sick for that. We stayed in the room most of the day, but Cade and I decided we needed to go get some things at the store, and Bob said he was going too, so we took a cab to Carrefour. It's a store, similar to Walmart, but on several floors. It has escalators with an incline and you take the shopping cart up and down on it. We enjoyed it. Because it was just us this time, we weren't in a rush. We looked at the strange meat just hanging all over the meat department. There was chicken hanging with no refrigeration and then some really strange looking meats. There were different types of rice in bins, and you bought it by the kilo. We bought a few Chinese dvds for Raeanna. After the store, we went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken. The french fries are good. The chicken sandwich has dark meat, instead of the white meat and it looks pink, so I couldn't eat it. Bob wouldn't eat anything.
We rode the subway back to the hotel. That was interesting. I don't know what we would've done on this trip without Cade. Bob and Cade carried the stroller together down so many sets of stairs in China. I was standing and holding on to the pole in the subway car when I noticed this young girl staring at my wedding rings with her face just a few inches from them. She was looking over the details carefully. She leaned forward, and said "That Chinese baby?" I told her yes, and she asked me lots of questions about adoption and how I found out about Raeanna. I complimented her on her English speaking ability, and she told me that English was easy to learn. It was nice to talk to her. Most of the people, mostly older women, would come up to Raeanna and lean down and look her over. We don't know exactly what it was about, but wondered if they were trying to figure out if something was wrong with her. They seemed to admire her. Not long after we got back to the hotel, Susan, our wonderful guide, came back with Raeanna's visa and paperwork to travel to the USA. Yippee!!! She invited us to go with the group to eat at a Cantonese/Portuguese restaurant in a neighboring hotel, so we went. It was Cantonese style with the huge lazy susan in the middle. They ordered for the group, and we had some interesting food on the table. One of the dishes they ordered was fish soup. It had the whole fish in it. It's mouth was open, and it was looking at us. Raeanna threw a fit for it. I tried to give her some, but it was full of little fine fish bones, so she couldn't have it. We had a nice time visiting with the other families, and then we stopped at a little mall on the walk back to the hotel. After that, we went back to the room to pack up to go home!!! I wondered if she thought that hotel room was our home. It had to be confusing for her.
Our flight left Guangzhou at 6:00am Friday morning. The bellboys arrived to our room at 5:30am to take our luggage, and we met the guide in the hotel lobby. She brought little breakfast boxes for us from the hotel, since we left before they started serving. The bus took us to the airport. Raeanna didn't get happy until daylight broke, but she was fine after that. She started breaking into the breakfast boxes. By the time we got our luggage checked in and on through security, she had eaten 2 boiled eggs, 2 bananas, and several sweet rolls.
Bob and Cade were sitting behind Raeanna and me on the first flight, and she didn't like that at all! She screamed when I put the seat belt on her and again when we took off. She settled down after that, but couldn't wait to get to "Baba." He held her, and they let him use a baby lap seat belt for the landing on this flight. That helped very much. She didn''t get upset when we landed while she was in his lap.
When we got to Beijing, it was raining, and the plane didn't pull up to a gate. We got off in the parking lot, and onto a shuttle bus. We went to International Transfers, but our stroller didn't make it. Bob went to go get the stroller. Thankfully, he gave us our passports and boarding passes before he did, and took his with him. He couldn't get back to us. We sat there for about an hour. I finally went up to the desk to ask where he would've gone. I could just see him held up by security somewhere or something. She told me that he couldn't come back there from baggage claim, which is where he had to go to get it. I panicked at this point, since we had no cell phones or any way to communicate. She told me how to go to the gate and that we would probably meet up with him there. So, Cade and Raeanna and I made our way through security officers, lugging all the backpacks and an unconfined little girl, who wanted to go her own way. Then I heard Bob yell my name. I was really glad to hear that! He had been begging security to let him get to us, and they wouldn't budge. He had gotten them to finally call the international transfer desk, but we had already left. He was relieved to see us, too! He said he found the stroller in the Lost and Found. They asked him what we were wearing and when he tried to explain to them that Raeanna had on pink, they didn't know what pink was. So frustrating and scary to be separated at a foreign airport like that!! We rode a train to the right place and went through security. Security is very tight Beijing! They scanned us and scanned Raeanna. When they finished with her, she went back through the detector, and I had to go through to get her. By this time, I had my purse back, so I set everything off. Fortunately for me, they laughed. In our airports, you can buy water after you're on the other side of security, but not there. They took my expensive water bottles right at the gate of the plane. They searched our carryons AGAIN! Oh well, at least we knew we were safe! Raeanna was asleep before takeoff this time, and slept all but about 30 minutes of the 12 hour flight. During that 30 minutes, she was sick and throwing up, so we were very thankful that she slept. She had a little fever, too. Cade's seat was down the aisle from us. She didn't like that. She motioned for him to come when she woke up and saw that he wasn't with us. Sooo cute! She's well aware that we're a unit, and we belong together!
We got to Chicago, and Raeanna became an American citizen! We went through immigration and customs with hundreds of others. We were sent through special lines, so it didn't take as long as it could've taken. We had to take our luggage through to go to Louisville. One of the airport officers showing everyone where to put their luggage leaned over to look at her, then looked up at me, and said "Guard her with your life." Kind of scared me a bit!
After all of that, we found our gate and changed clothes and freshened up as best we could. We found a restaurant. It was probably the best cheeseburger in the world, and we could have ice in our drink!!!! I love America!!!! Everyone in the restaurant had a good time talking to Raeanna, and then we were off again. Only one short 45 minute plane trip and we would be back in Louisville! They wouldn't let us have a baby lap belt on this plane or on the one from Beijing because she's over 2. It didn't matter how small she is. Once again, she fell asleep before take off and slept through it. She woke up when they started talking right before landing and screamed until we came to a stop.
Brett flew in from Jackson, MS, so he was at the airport waiting for us, along with Katey and Kathi Henri. It was soooo good to see them! Raeanna smiled for them, and she knew they were ge ge(big brother) and jie jie(big sister). She HATED the carseat and cried all the way home. Once we got there, she was so happy! She walked in, looked around, and then it was as though she realized, "Hey!, This is my home!" She started happily feeding everyone her Cheerios, and I was too tired to realize what I was letting happen. BIG MISTAKE! I'm quite certain that is how Katey, Brett, and I ingested the virus. We all got sick at the same hour about 14 hours later.
Since this post is already so long, I'll post again in the next couple of days about our first week at home. I want to document it for her, as well as let you all know how things are going, so I promise, I will post about it.
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