Care package for Hildy

Well, I sent a care package to Hildy today. She will receive a blanket, pjs and a doll for her birthday. Her foster family will receive cookies and candies and a disposable camera that I hope they take pictures of her foster mom and where she is...their house and surrounding area. I thought Hildy would appreciate having those pictures when she is older. She should get her package in about a week. She is 11 months old today...

Olympics

Sitting here watching the Olympics with Wendi, Scout and Gus. Giving Wendi a crash course in blogger so she can update the site when I am in China.... Maybe if she paid more attention to this than teaching Scout to play dead things would be looking at little more promising.................

Olympics!!!

Well we went downtown on Sunday to check out the Olympics and go to the first medal ceremony in Vancouver. It was great. Thousands of people, lots of live music and tons of energy. We wandered around, saw the Olympic flame, went through Aboriginal House, went for dinner (where Gus promptly fell asleep at the table) then on to BC Place for the Victory Ceremony. It was quite amazing to see our city all decorated for the biggest party on Earth.

Healthy Checkup

We had a phone consultation with a pedeatrician and all the information we got about Hildy says she is healthy. Small but healthy. She is in the 15th percentile for growth but growing steadily so that's good. She has been immunized and seems to be on track for motor development. I was told what medications to bring, formula to buy etc. I also found some pictures online of her orphanage. The first image is of a bulletin board in the orphanage of other babies that have been adopted internationally from Qichun. The second image is the playroom at her orphanage...she is brought here once per week to play with the other children also in foster care but under QiChun orphanage's care. The last two pictures are of beds in the nursery. I assume this is where she would have slept when she was first brought to the orphanage at three days old and where she naps while her caregiver gets lessons about childcare. Nice to feel connected to her and see where she spends some of her time. I am going to put together a care package that I can send to her with a disposable camera and a toy. Hopefully her foster family will take pictures of her and themselves so when she is older she can see where her journey began.

Where Hildy is Now

We know so far that Hildy is in foster care with a local family that lives near the orphanage she was taken to after being found. We are happy that she is in foster care as she has had one on one care and attention in a family setting and had the chance to bond with her caregiver. Although it will be traumatic for her to be removed from this family, in the long run she will have benefited from the contact and care. She is brought to the orphanage once a week to have a play date with other orphans also in foster care in the area. Above is a picture of the orphanage and some of the surrounding area (the yellow building in the third picture). It is a rural area that grows a lot of herbs. It is known as the "city of scholars" because so many famour doctors, professors and scientists have come from this region. The closest large city is Wuhan. I don't have any information about when we could possibly travel but will talk to the doctor tomorrow to review her medical file and hopefully touch base with our agency as to what to expect next.

Group 18

When we started this journey back in January of 2006, there were 13 other families doing the same thing with our agency in Vancouver. We were named "group 18". After this excruciating wait, all that is left of group 18 is us and one onther couple, Tom and Heather. Heather and I have gotten together a few times over the 4 year wait and we all got together for dinner last night to share pictures of our sweeties and make plans for travel. I can't remember if I have posted our travel plans but Horst and I decided it would be too stressful on Gus to bring him on this trip. We decided that he would be best at home with one of us so I had intended to make the trek to get Hildy on my own. In October, my dad surprised me by letting me know he would like to come with me. I was so surprised, then relieved that he would come with me. He will be my rock (except of course, when he is crying too...) Dad and I will be traveling with Tom and Heather throughout our stay and sharing a guide/interpreter. Their daughter is from the same orphanage as Hildy.. We imagine they have played together over the past several months and will be a comfort to each other in the days of change and confusion for them as we leave Qichuan, make our way to Wuhan, Beijing and ultimately back to Canada. As far as we know, we will travel in April. We are waiting on a court date to be booked in China to know exactly when we can go to get our girls. We will all arrive in Shanghai, stay there overnight, fly to Wuhan in Hubei province where we will receive our daughters. There we will go through several meetings to sign papers, go to court to make the adoption official then have a few days to get to know each other. After that we will fly to Beijing where we will visit a Canadian doctor at the Canadian Embassy, get all the paperwork authenticated, then order the girls' passports. We will have a few days to sightsee and get to know our girls, then as soon as their passports are ready, make the journey back to Canada. Whew... we have a lot to prepare for.

More information

Here is one proud big brother... He took her picture to school today and showed it off. The first grade class was a-buzz with excitement...
We received Hildy's translated file today. She weighed 15 pounds and was 65 cm long at her checkup in October. We are guessing that she is around 18 pounds now. We know where she was found, what she was wearing and wrapped in. It is incredible to think of the pain that her birth-mother went through in abandoning her, not knowing what the future would bring for this tiny little girl. We are so thankful that she was found and brought to the orphanage.
She is currently in foster care in Qichun County, Hubei. Her favourite food is congee (rice porridge) and noodles and her favourite toy in a doll. She is "outgoing, smart and active. She is full of energy and would listen adults talking. She is easy to smile and likes being outside. She is a cute baby." Sounds perfect to me. All of her medical reports state she is "healthy". We are so incredibly happy. She is safe, well fed and in good care. Now I can sleep at night...

here she is...

We are absolutely overyjoyed...happy isn't a big enough word. Introducimg our daughter Hildy Ellen Zi Jie Brunsch. She was born on March 23, 2009 in Qi Chun, near Wuhan, Hubei Province. There have been many tears, smiles and much joy in the Brunsch household tonight. We will be given her whole file once it is translated and have her picture to stare at until then... We hope to travel in April to bring her home. Thank you to everyone for your love and support along this journey. One step closer to holding her...

We got "the Call"

So there I am in the middle of Gus's Grade 1 Student-Led-Conference and Marg (from our adoption agency) calls to update me!!! I had to call her back!!! I've waited four years for the call and I had to call her back. Hilarious. Anyway, I called her as soon as Gus's presentation was done and she let me know that our referral had arrived in Canada, had spent the day at the Chinese Embassy in Victoria and is currently en route to her office in North Vancouver. She should have it by noon tomorrow and will email me the pictures, date of birth and location of orphanage as soon as she gets it. That means I will have a picture in my hands tomorrow of our daughter. It's going to be a a long night.....

We're in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, my day started out with the best news possible. Heather (the other adoptive mom in our travel group)phoned at 6:51am to tell me that overnight the CCAA (China's Centre for Adoption Affairs) had matched up to and including April 5, 2006....THAT'S US!!!! Sometime during the night, on a desk in Beijing, someone held our file in one hand and the file of a little girl who needs a family in the other hand and matched us...a forever family. We have waited 4 years to hear this news. Some of those days the waiting was bearable, other days it was excruciating. I am just overjoyed that the wait is over. Her file arrived in Vancouver today, was couriered to the Chinese Embassy in Victoria and will be sent back to our agency in Vancouver tomorrow. We should receive her photo and preliminary information tomorrow and her full file after it has been translated. Today is a good day.