Day 3, City of Guangzhou, Guandong Province

Today was Emily's medical exam. This is the last step in her visa approval for travel home to America. The medical exam was conducted in a state medical clinic, where everyone in the area goes to see a doctor. One room is dedicated solely to the babies being adopted. The waiting room was filled with several dozen parents and strollers at a time, with crying babies at several different doctors' stations. Can you imagine the mayhem? And in the middle of it all, a sign read "Keep Quiet". Hah!

Emily did beautifully, more curious than alarmed by all the strange faces. She now weighs 17.4 pounds and is 28.7" long. She's still a full 3 pounds behind a normal American baby, but a good size for a Chinese baby. We've seen Chinese babies here at the hotel that were so tiny at 8 and 9 months old, they looked like little dolls!

On the walk back from the clinic we passed soldiers performing a drill in full uniform and with machine guns! Kevin filmed them until the drill sargent waved him away. We got this shot plus the beautiful foliage, which is common throughout the city. It reminds us of West Palm Beach, Florida, with palm trees and tropical foliage (it's a similar climate).















Next, we passed a neat school with a large park in front of it. Children and adults were both playing on the equipment, kids for fun and adults for exercise! A neat stone pathway curved alongside the park, serving as a massage area...and it hurt our tender Western feet! Here's Kevin trying it out, and a shot of our family.











We spent the rest of the afternoon bonding with Emily, hitting a few more shops, and hanging out with the other families in our group. One family visited a local market that sells live scorpions, turtles, and other things...but cats and dogs for pets, thank gosh. Kevin told everyone I couldn't go to the market because I'd adopt everything and bring it home! (He's right.) This same family came across a 5-year old girl begging. They said her eyes were so horribly sad. After adopting an abandoned baby, they couldn't ignore her, so they bought food in the market and brought it back to her. They told us she happily clutched the food to her chest, kept bobbing her head and thanking them in Cantonese. They wanted to grab her and take her home. But that's just life in China. There's poverty everywhere.

On a happier note, the babies in our group have all transformed. They went from tense and clingy or limp and unemotional to happy, taking their first steps, eating everything in sight, and interacting with each other, and sitting on other parents' laps! The joy on everyone's face is just wonderful to watch. The Chinese ask us if we'll come back for another child, and we're all talking about it already as if it's a given.

So here we are ending the afternoon with CJ and Linda Vocu (and adorable Lia) at the incredibly beautiful pool at the White Swan, while we wait for our Visa paperwork to be processed. (CJ and Linda are really enjoying the posts from their family and friends on the website.) In the background of the photo is a waterfall and stone cave.






Emily is happy and healthy, and enjoying our attention, the attention of the other parents, Chinese shopkeepers, and people on the street. We tried really hard to learn how to pronounce her home town properly--Cenxi is "tzung shee", which is hard on the tongue, but delights the Chinese to no end when we get it right.


Here's our singing baby. She goes crazy when music plays, rocking crazily and making sounds with her mouth!

Tomorrow is the famous Red Couch photo, finalizing paperwork, then packing. Our journey is almost over, as we watched our friends Lisa and Jeff receive their little girl--Taylor Grace--today in Changsha, Hunan province. Now we prepare for our U.S. Consulate appointment on July 20th (BTW, Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad, Happy Birthday, Karen Hill!). Then, we say goodbye to China, to beautiful Nanning where we first met Emily, to the lovely families we travelled with and will stay in touch with, and our wonderful agency guides who made everything so easy. We'll miss everyone, even as we head home to very excited family and friends.

Take care, and keep those comments coming...we love reading them!!

Caroline