Interesting Country...

China is so different from our expectations. We have traveled all over the world and never experienced anything like this... It's interesting to learn about a country so few people really know. The population of the US is currently about 300 million. The population of China is 1.3 billion.

At the same time, the land mass of China is almost identical in size to the US. However, close to 50% of the land is not livable due to mountains and deserts. As a result, you have over 4 times the popultion of America, living in an area half the size of the US. Talk about crowding...

The population of Beijing is currently 30.5 million. New York City, the largest city in the US, is only about 8 million. And Beijing is only the third largest city in China!
Very few Chinese people speak English. Yet they are warm & friendly to foreigners. There is a very strong sense of community and respect of elders. I think the most striking difference about China is that there does not appear to be any jealously or animosity towards Americans. They are very proud of their country and heritage. They are not trying to become the United States of America, and therefore don't share the same obstinence that most Europeans do. It's actually quite refreshing... However, it's still a Communist country. While it feels just like any bustling American city, there are tight controls in place that go unnoticed by the locals. It is impossible to access many Western websites, including Youtube and our own damn blog! While we were watching CNN the other night a segment came on about the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. As the segment moved into a somewhat critical phase, the TV screen went blank for about 3 minutes. The Chinese government had simply pushed a button and cut the signal. A few minutes later it came back on without warning. Hearing that you would think this is a very oppressive society. But the locals truly don't know the difference and look to their government as a source of pride and continued economic success. I guess what you don't know can't hurt you...

Mike & Stacy

Lights Out!

The end of another wonderful but long & hot day... We started our day with a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. We are staying at the White Swan, which was the first 5 star hotel in China. We had heard great things about this hotel, but were blown away at how great it is. It's an amazing hotel with great food, shopping, and impeccable service. Heavy emphasis on the shopping for Mommy & Mia... That should help our two weeks go by a little quicker...

After breakfast we headed over to the Civil Affairs office to take our government family photo, followed by two interviews to confirm our intentions and formally commit to love, nurture and never abandon our child.

After the second interview the adoption was formalized and Mia is truly now Mia Sara Jia Lovell. Sara is in honor of Stacy's late Grandmother, Sara Grossman, who was a very special person in our lives. Jia was Mia's given Chines name. Actually it was Song Jia Feng. Song is the family name given to all children from her orphange, with Jia Feng being her unique name. We maintained Jia as a tie to her homeland. Unfortunately, the trip home from the Civil Affairs office wasn't so smooth. The bus driver decided to leave for a more lucrative job while we were in the office. So six couples carrying seven babies (twins in our group!) were stuck standing on a crowded street in 95 degree weather with about 100% humidity, and it just happened to be nap time for all the kids!! Thankfully our interpreter was able to negotiate for another bus to take us back after a slight delay.

After a busy morning we all decided to forgo exploring the neighborhoods today, and instead spent time in our rooms with our babies. We're still pretty exhausted and in fact skipped dinner tonight and I put Stacy & Mia to bed about 15 minutes ago... I'm sure it won't surprise any of you to hear that Stacy has not taken a moment to herself. With very little sleep or food, Stacy is the absolute picture of sunshine to little Mia. I'm pretty sure Mia has received more love, attention and stimulation in the past 36 hours than she did in the past 7 months in the orphanage. Even more amazing is that her caring and nurturing for Dad has not dwindled a bit. We're both very lucky to have such an incredible Mom & wife...

Good night!

Play time with Momma!

As expected, Mom has quickly figured out what Mia likes most... All these smiles while she's sick! The pediatrician in our group today confirmed our suspicions. We noticed Mia tugging at her ear, and it turns out she has a double ear infection. Thankfully the antibiotics she's already on should cure this within a few days... Poor little girl.

Mia bench presses more than Daddy!

It didn't take long for the Lovell genes to kick in. Mia made it clear we needed to get her to a gym for a quick work out...

Can you say Happy Baby?!?!

Looks like Mia's got a rough life ahead of her...

Mia with Daddy!

This picture was taken shortly after we returned to our room for the first time! Isn't she perfect?

Mike

Our Perfect Little Baby Mia...

We're proud to announce that Mia is finally a part of our family! We picked her up at 3:30 pm on Monday afternoon. (Sunday American time!) We traveled to the Chinese Foreign Ministry with our group, as well as about 30 other families! It was surreal as we were all crowded in a room as the caretakers brought in babys one by one. The emotions in the room as each child was handed off, kicking and screaming, were overwhelming. As our name was called, we were shocked to turn and find a perfect little baby who was smiling ear to ear as Stacy took her in her arms. No big surprise that she laughed at Dad! She was literally the only baby in that room who was content. It was as if she'd been with us since the day of her birth. We tried to help the other couples around us who we've become friends with, as Mia was on Stacy' hip like she'd been there forever. By the time we boarded the bus to return to the hotel, we almost felt guilty that our baby was so happy and comfortable, as many of the other children wailed.

Mia weighs barely over 13 pounds, and has the appearnce of a new born she's so tiny. However, not only is she sitting up, pushing buttons on toys and repeatedly letting out full belly giggles, but she almost managed to do the worm across our bed during her first diaper changing. She has two teeth on the bottom and loves her pacifier. We were warned not to bathe or change her until day two as it would take time for her to adjust. However, our perfect baby was bathed, changed and took an 8 ounce bottle within about 30 minutes of arriving back to the room. The kicker is that she smiled the entire time!! We finally put her down at about 9:00 pm and ordered a pizza from Papa John's. Who'd have thought we could do that in China?! She slept soundly until about 5:30 am when we could hear her starting to awake. When Stacy went to her crib, she greeted Mom with a big grin! We were also told not to switch her from Chinese to American formula until we arrived back in the states. However, on day two we made up a bottle of American lactose free formula when she didn't seem to be taking her Chinese rice formula well, and she sucked the whole thing down while panting for more. Again, taking after Dad!! She's now down for her afternoon nap and we're grabbing some room service and a nap of our own mometarily. It's almost scary, but we still have no idea what her cry sounds like... Can we really be this lucky?! Also, this morning at breakfast I carried her around in a Baby Bjorn and she smiled and waved her arms at the gawkers. Needless to say we were the subject of many a foreign tourists photos!!

So as to provide a fair and balanced accounting of her health, let me also share the one difficulty we're dealing with. A strain of strep bacteria was passing around Mia's orphanage over the past few weeks and she has several head boils on the back of her head. They are little sores / bumps that look far worse than you would think by her actions. She has allowed Mom & Dad to scrub them and apply ointment without any emotional reaction. However, she's not really enjoying the oral antibiotics that we're giving her. We're guessing we may finally learn how her cry sounds when we force her to take it this evening... The pediatrician in our group assures us that this is no big concern and is quite amazed that she tried to stand up this morning and actually got into a 3 point stance...

We knew we would love this child, and we knew that this would be an amazing experience. However, nothing can prepare you for how truly incredible this has all been. We are so madly in love with our new little girl, and can't believe how lucky we are to have ended up experiencing this entire process.

We've made great new friends who will definitely be a part of our lives forever. The only bummer is that most everyone happens to be from New Jersey, so we'll have even more reasons to travel now!!

In closing, we were very concerned that it would take several months of bonding and adjusting before we could introduce you all to Mia. As it appears, this won't be necessary. She is thrilled and excited to meet you all soon. She's made that clear with her smiles and gigles. She's very social like her Mommy. We can't wait for you all to meet and love her as much as we do.

Unfortunately, the Chinese government continues to block all access to American blog sites. As a result, Caren is still graciously assisting us with these postings. But the end result is that we can't provide as frequent updates as we'd like. Hope you all understand. We'll post more soon, via Caren.

Love,
Mike, Stacy, & MIA!!

We have arrived...

After 22 hours of flying, we finally arrived safely! We arrived in Beijing at noon on Friday. We were extremely jet lagged and of course Mike was hungry! So, we ate something and grabbed a 3 hour nap... After waking up Friday evening, we each got a massage at the hotel (less than $30.00, U.S.!)

We then ordered room service and went back to bed. I woke up at 2:30 AM and watched Mike sleep, as my body clock was totally off... Saturday morning we met with 3 other couples from our adoption group and loaded a bus to tour the Great Wall of China. It was a 2 hour drive there and we went through many rural Chinese villages on the way. We hiked to the very top of The Wall, which was no small feat, since it was over 1,000 steps! We were hot & exhausted, but it was definitely worth the long hike. Next we headed to a Chinese factory where authentic Closene Chinese pottery is made. This tour was interesting as there was absolutely no automation. All human labor for every step of the process! We then had lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant in the countryside. We sampled many Chinese dishes from the largest lazy Susan you could imagine. After lunch we drove 2 hours back to Beijing and toured the original Hutong neighborhoods via ricshaw. The area is very poor and dirty, yet at the same time quite beautiful. Entire streets of homes will share one bathroom! We arrived back to the hotel at 6:00 PM where I went right to sleep without dinner and woke this morning at 5:00 AM!

While I was sleeping Mike went down to the hotel bar with another soon-to-be Dad from our group, had a few drinks, and had no problems sleeping.

China is truly an amazing country. Our expectations have been exceeded at every turn. Beijing is very crowded, dirty and chaotic. Yet somehow it's strangely appropriate. The people are extremely friendly, there is order to the chaos, and the depth of history is staggering. China is over 5,000 years old... We are loving it here. It does take effort to communicate.
This is not at all like Europe or S. America. Hardly anyone speaks English and while they are very friendly, their focus is not on Westernizing their civilization. It's actually nice to see... We fly to Guangzhou in the morning to finally accomplish our goal of bringing Mia into our family. We can't wait.

We've been unable to post to our blog since the Chinese government has blocked the Internet access to any chat groups, blog sites, Youtube, etc.

My sister, Caren, was very helpful in allowing us to dictate this posting to her. We should be fine to post regularly, with photos, once we get to Guangzhou tomorrow, as we'll be much farther from the capital and the governmental control loosens considerably! We miss you all & can't wait for our big day tomorrow!!!!