Family In Pursuit: Guangzhou travel day and Medical check

Sorry for not blogging yesterday, I was not in the right state of mind. You know how they say, If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all? :)

Well the day was going well until we got to the airport to fly to Guangzhou. When we got to the airport, it was nap time for Charlie and he was letting the whole airport know he wasn't happy about it. It took forever to check in because we had "prohibited items" in our checked luggage. They made us go through our bag but we couldn't figure out what they were saying was prohibited. After 15 minutes of taking our bag apart, we figured out it was our bug spray and they made us throw it away. Sheesh....

Brian finally got Charlie to sleep while we waited to board and he woke when we got to our seat. I was pretty anxious about the flight with him, but he actually did amazing! We bought some baby headphones and turned on Baby Einstein (thanks for the videos Lindsey) and he wore them almost the whole trip! We also kept the snacks coming which helped. As long as this kid is eating, he's a happy camper! I really feel like that flight was God's great provision for us. I felt peace and so did Charlie because he barely made a peep! That is until we landed and were waiting for our gate. Charlie's little buddy from the orphanage was a few seats in front of us and he looked over the seats at Charlie and they started having a baby conversation across the airplane. They were just going back and forth talking away, pointing at things, etc. It was so cute, the whole plane was cracking up!

When we finally got to the hotel, it was about 8:30pm....way past Charlie's bedtime. We got things unloaded a little bit, gave him a bath, and started the nighttime routine. He was NOT having it. After us holding him and him screaming for what felt like forever, we put him back down to play and ordered room service. Charlie had eaten quite a bit, but we hadn't had any dinner. 10pm and still no sign of bedtime. Finally, I put him in the carrier and briskly paced the floor of our bedroom until finally success about 10:45pm. Whew! By the time he went to sleep we were so tired we could barely think straight!

Sleep finally did come and we woke this morning for our medical exam. All adopted children have to go to this one clinic in Guangzhou to see their doctors and report to the US Consulate that they are "healthy". We basically stand in line in a very crowded waiting room (not Charlie's favorite thing to do) and go into tiny rooms to meet with different doctors. We saw the ENT to check his hearing, ears and mouth. We saw the "General practitioner" to review Charlie's med file and do a quick overall assessment. We saw the nurses to have him weighed and his temp taken. Then, we could play out front of the building until everyone else from our group was done. It took several hours.

After we were all finished we headed back to the hotel. I attended a meeting about our consulate appointment later this week and Brian took Charlie on a walk to get him to nap. This afternoon was pretty fun just walking around and playing and the evening went much better getting Charlie to sleep on his normal schedule.

Guangzhou is very humid but we really like our hotel. It is a very international hotel, especially with the trade fairs going on right now, so we are by no means the minority here. There are people from all over the world and many other families that have adopted as well. It's a nice break from Nanjing where we felt like the local tourist attraction at times.

Tomorrow we have another "free day" so we plan to visit Shamian Island for some local shopping and then to visit a jade and pearl market. Should be fun!

Specific prayer request: Things are looking up. We are getting to know Charlie better and he is learning to trust us. Only a few more sleeps until we can come home! Please pray that we can keep finding joy in our trip as we anxiously await coming back home! Goodnight friends!!