Love Without Boundaries 2008 Cleft Mission Trip!

It is almost here...Love Without Boundaries

2008 Cleft Medical Trip to Anhui, China!

Many of you know that Jaida was the recipient of cleft lip surgery during the November 2006 LWB Cleft Mission Trip to Anhui, China. Well, another team of volunteers is getting ready to leave in one week to provide this life-saving, life-changing surgery to 25 more children. In one week, LWB will take a small team of ten volunteers to Hefei, Anhui. Leading the team will be John Ness, an outstanding plastic surgeon from St. Cloud, Minnesota, who has offered his skillful hand to help children all over the world. He is very passionate about these sweet children and he looks forward to teaming together with the physicians and hospital staff at Anhui Children's Hospital (ACH) to bring new smiles to 25 beautiful children's faces! We are personally so thankful to Love Without Boundaries and to ACH, as this hospital is the location where Jaida was found when she was left as a newborn baby. It is also the hospital where her cleft lip surgery was performed. Jaida's life was forever changed because of the collaboration of this U.S. Charity organization and this China hospital!

I am writing this to let you know that there are still many children who will be receiving cleft lip surgery during this trip and they are still in need of a surgery sponsor or just a general donation. Even the smallest amount of money can make a difference in the life of one of these children. Please consider donating today by visiting the Love Without Boundaries link I have posted under "Favorite Links" and experience the joy of giving! Enjoy reading "Jaidalyn's Gift" below, which I wrote for LWB to post on their blog to encourage others to donate!

JAIDALYN'S GIFT

With only a week left before the 2008 LWB Cleft Mission Trip to Anhui, China, I wanted to encourage you to become a part of a child’s story. Our story begins in June 2007 when my husband and I opened our hearts to the prospect of adopting a child from China with special needs. With some apprehension we submitted our special needs application to our agency and waited. On August 20th, we received a phone call that has forever changed our lives. Our agency had matched us with a little girl named Na Qun whose special need was cleft lip and palate. The moment we opened up the first picture of her file, we knew for certain that Na Qun was our daughter. We adopted Jaidalyn Na Qun in March 2008 with a repaired unilateral cleft lip and an unrepaired cleft palate. Jaidalyn is a beautiful 2.5 year old who is full of life, a blessing and delight to our family!

But it wasn’t always this way for Jaida…Jaida was born with a very wide cleft lip and palate, which made eating very difficult and required special bottles and attentive nannies. We discovered through Jaida’s medical files that in November 2006, Jaida was the recipient of cleft lip surgery during LWB’s 3rd Cleft Mission Trip to China. We may never know who sponsored Jaida’s surgery or the individuals who donated even the smallest amount of money for Jaida to have this life-saving, life-changing surgery, but every time we see her smile we are reminded of and forever grateful to the team of surgeons, nurses, and volunteers who gave our daughter a smile that can melt your heart and light up even the darkest of rooms!

As the next cleft mission trip to China quickly approaches, I ask you to open your hearts and experience the joy of giving. Yes, Jaida’s beautiful smile came with a cost, but its worth is PRICELESS. “Every Child Counts” and they are counting on us…become a part of their story and donate today!

THANK YOU!

Jaida then...and NOW!

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Jaida has been ours for 6 months!

Well, last week we celebrated six months since the day Jaida came into our lives and she was fully ours! Even though it seems like she has been with us forever, we still can't believe that six months has already flown by. My goodness, where does the time go?!

I first must apologize for not updating our blog on a more regular basis! I thought this was going to be a great way to keep everyone updated on our weekly happenings, but it seems to get pushed to the back burner as I try to maintain the homefront for this busy family of six. I really am going to try to do better from now on!

As I reflect upon the past six months, the only two words I can truly think of is.....extremely blessed! Jaidalyn is such a gift, bringing joy and adding more fun to this crazy, busy, abundantly full life God has blessed us with. Jaida is full of life and her smile is big enough to light even the darkest room! She has grown and changed so much over the past few months. She has grown about 3 inches in height and has gained almost 4 pounds. She finally figured out she can ask us for food rather than just waiting for us to feed her! She sleeps 12 hours a night and takes a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon-can't get any better than that!

She has learned English more quickly than I ever thought possible and speaks amazingly well despite her unrepaired cleft palate. She is a true girl and talks from the time she wakes up until bedtime. She is not shy to voice her opinion and can be frequently heard saying, "I don't wanna!" Wonder where she got that from? She has speech therapy two times a month and is fairly tolerant of us making her repeat words correctly, but she also has a mind of her own and pretty much decides when and if she will cooperate with this. She attends preschool three mornings a week and absolutely loves her teacher and her new friends. The teacher told me she is very quiet and soft spoken in class, boy does Jaida have Mrs. Jodi fooled! She also loves church and we enjoy listening to her say grace at the dinner table. She always ends it with a raising of our hands together and a "Hallelujah!"

She loves her brothers and sister. Mikayla and Jaida have developed a very close relationship. That is really neat to see! She is also very attached to her brothers and has fun deciding on a daily basis who is going to get their bedtime hug first. She surely likes to be in charge, but the kids have done a great job of making her a part of the family. I am so proud of them! It has probably been the most difficult for Josh to adjust, which has revealed itself a lot since school started. It has proved very difficult for him to go from being the "baby" of the family to a middle child. We have had many teary-eyed days, but are implementing some things to try to make this transition easier for him to handle. We pray for Josh to be back to his happy-go-lucky personality very soon!

The only thing that hasn't gone as we had hoped is Jaida's cleft palate repair. We were hoping to have this repaired shortly after she got home from China, but that hasn't happened yet. She finally had her first consultation with the Cleft Team in Kansas City on August 28th. We are still awaiting a surgery date. The plastic surgeon who will be performing the surgery is highly sought after and in high demand which has now caused his surgery schedule to be fully booked through June 2009. Yikes! They are planning to bump someone else to fit her in sooner rather than later, but not sure when that will take place. The longer it goes, the more bad speech habits we will have to break, but at the same time, we have enjoyed the time we have had to bond with her. She has had ear tubes placed and a bad tooth extracted since being home. She will have approximately 3 to 4 surgeries from now until 6-8 years of age. Poor baby!

The twins are doing great in high school. For the first time, Mikayla is playing golf for the girls golf team. She is doing a great job and getting some good practice and experience under her belt for next year. They both play and march in the high school band. Ty has joined a Robotics club. Josh is doing a great job in 2nd grade and thoroughly enjoys the gifted classes he gets to participate in for Reading and Math. They are all such a blessing to us and even though sometimes the teenage attitude is more than I can handle, I wouldn't trade them for the world!

Well, I hope you enjoy the update. I know it is definitely a long time in coming and way overdue! I will be adding a slide show later today for all of you to see how Jaida has changed since that first uncertain day in March when she met her new Mama and Daddy (no longer Baba), as well as, pictures of her beloved siblings! Enjoy!

It's like she's always been here!

I know a lot of adoptive parents make that statement and it is soooo true! It truly feels like Jaida has always been a part of our family and it is hard to remember what life was like before she was here! I bet you can probably guess that life has been a little busy since we got home from China. Life with four kids, one of those being Jaida, a busy two year old, definitely keeps me on my toes. I know many of you continue to follow along on our blog and I apologize for such few updates since we have gotten home and I promise to do better with that! I will be posting updated pictures today of Jaida and the kids.

We have learned so much about Jaida's personality in the past almost 4 months since we first held her in our arms. To give you an idea I will list all of the words that I can think of that describe her personality...Extrovert, independent, leader, talkative, loud, tough, funny, animated, intelligent, imaginative, imitative, affectionate, a friend to everyone, just plain cute!

Not sure where I left off in my last post and still trying to believe that 4 months has already passed by since then. Wow-where does the time go?! You may be wondering about Jaida and her Daddy...can you say "Daddy's little girl!" Yes, it only took a couple of weeks after we got home for Jaida to absolutely fall in love with her daddy and just totally adores him. She actually probably likes him more that mommy because he does all of that fun wrestling around with her and mommy is all about schedules, errands, and discipline...ha!

As far as an update on Jaida's cleft palate...of course, we were hoping to have this repaired shortly after we got home, but things didn't go quite as we had planned with our insurance and the cleft team here in Wichita so we are actually going to be taking Jaida to a cleft team in Kansas City and her first consultation will be at the end of August with surgery probably not until the end of the year as the plastic surgeon she will have is a very busy doctor and has a booked surgery schedule. I am hoping that once she has her consultation with him that maybe due to her advanced age for a palate repair, he might consider working him into his surgery schedule sooner rather than later. We will see what happens. On August 15th, she will be going in to have ear tubes placed and a bad tooth in her cleft line extracted. It will be nice to at least get these two procedures taken care of at the same time. She has had fluid behind her eardrums since we got her and thankfully it hasn't affected her hearing yet, but the ear tubes are definitely a must and will improve any little bit of hearing she may be lacking due to the fluid buildup.

Like I mentioned earlier, Jaida loves to talk and pretty much talks from the time she gets up until she goes to bed. She knows so much English and puts 3 and 4 words together to talk to us and get her point across. At times, of course, we don't understand what she is saying due to her cleft palate, but we just nod our heads and agree with her. Most of the time, however, we can understand her simply because we are around her all the time and the great thing about Jaida is that she is willing to repeat anything and will imitate everything we say, which really helps her to develop her speech. We have a speech pathologist that comes every two weeks from Rainbows to play with her and to continually evaluate her speech development and to give us things to work on with her. Of course, there isn't a whole lot Peggy can do until Jaida has her palate repaired because there are a lot of sounds that Jaida can not physically make due to her open palate. We are just amazed at how quickly Jaida has picked up on English and how many things she can say! It makes life much easier when we can understand her needs!

When Mikayla, Ty, and Josh head back to school in August, Jaida is going to go to preschool three mornings a week. I wasn't sure if we should do this since she is only 2.5 years old, but I truly think she is going to absolutely love it and she probably misses seeing children her own age on a daily basis, like she was used to at the orphanage. When I went to pick up the paperwork and we walked into the preschool, you should have seen her eyes light up when she saw all of those kids! She immediately went up to them and started shaking their hands and just wanted to hang out with them in their classrooms. This will be great for her and for Mommy as well. I went from total freedom before Jaida to no freedom after Jaida and it will be nice to have a few hours a week to start doing some medical transcription as an independent contractor. God has truly blessed us for the past 8 years and my ability to be a stay-at-home Mom!

I am sure all of you are having a busy summer just as we are.

WE ARE HOME and SETTLING IN!

Well, we have been home a little over a week now and are slowly settling in and adjusting to our new addition that has now made us a family of six! Wow, are we so glad to be home, but oh boy did we not expect it to take this long to adjust to the time change and jet lag. Last week was a very difficult week for all of us. I suppose much like it would be if one had given birth to a baby, with the waves of emotions from happiness to tears, frustration, doubt, etc. Of course, being tired always makes everything seem worse. You name the emotion, one of us including our three children we came home to, have felt it at some point this past week. We have to remind ourselves that adoption is a journey and not a race; it is going to take many months, quite possibly even a year, for us to adjust to this amazing toddler and for Jaida to completely bond and adjust to her new mommy, daddy, and three incredible siblings. We are looking forward to the journey!

Well, Jaida is down for her afternoon nap and I thought I would take this very limited chance to post to our blog to let you know how we are doing! How quickly we had forgotten what it was like to have a toddler in the house. They sure do remind you of all the safety aspects that need to be taken care of in the home, so we have installed a stair gate, cabinet locks, outlet plugs, and door knob covers! She is a very busy little girl! She is not used to playing on her own, so playing in her room with her toys by herself is not something she is comfortable in doing yet, but is surely having fun playing with Mikayla, Ty, and Josh when they are around! The kids have been amazing and are transitioning as one would expect with a new sister in the house. I compare Jaida to a new puppy; I suppose the "newness" will wear off eventually and she may become more "annoying" than "fun!" As we all know, all toddlers can be annoying at times, especially to their siblings.

Jaida is adjusting very well. I think she has finally adjusted to the 13 hour time change. She is now sleeping through the night, which is a blessing for sure, especially for Mom. She is bonding little by little each day with Shon. He was able to spend last week home with us, so he spent a lot of the days taking care of Jaida, playing with her, and meeting her needs so that she will begin to trust him and love him unconditionally as her Daddy. It sure would be nice to get into her little mind to know what she is thinking!

Jaida is truly our gift from God (as are our other three children)! It is amazing to think that over a year ago, God planned for this little girl to become a part of our family and His handiwork has brought her home! God surely knew what he was doing as Jaida is a truly great fit into our family! She can be such a hoot! She has a face for everything! She is definitely not an introvert like her paperwork said she was! She is happy the majority of the time and is definitely a normal "testing, manipulating" toddler! We wouldn't expect anything less from her. She is very bright and very imitative. I have to tell you a story from today...This morning her and I were getting ready to run an errand to Wal-Mart and I was getting my purse ready to go. All of a sudden, Jaida goes running into her room, grabs a basket she has that is full of play food, dumps all the play food out of the basket and onto the floor, and places the handles of that little basket right up on her arm like a purse. Too cute! So I went to her closet and got her Hello Kitty purse out for her to bring to the store. She was watching me so intently as I placed my purse onto my shoulder and followed along with her purse in just the same way-it was neat to see that!

Today was my first real day on the job as a stay-at-home Mom to a 2-year-old as Shon went back to work and I had to get up and take 3 children to school by 7:30am. That was interesting! Well, I am sure she will be up soon from her nap so I better close up for now. Thank you to everyone who has flourished us with food, gifts, support, prayers, and love during the nearly 3 weeks we were out of the country and this past week of us being home! We can't tell you enough how much this has meant and encouraged us! We hope you will continue to keep up with our blog as this will probably be the easiest way for us to keep you updated on the happenings in our family! Take care and I will be posting some pictures of our first week at home with Jaida just as soon as I find our camera battery charger!

Last Post from China-AMEN!

Jaida taking a picture of Mommy with her camera.

Jaida eating her own cup of ice cream!

Playing on the slide at McDonalds in Hefei.

Jaida swinging on her playground at the orphanage.

Jaida playing with the phone, one of her favorite things to do!

Jaida having fun playing on the bed!

Well, we are happy to say that this will be our last post from China and we are definitely not sad about that! It feels like we have been here for a month-it is so hard living out of a hotel room with a toddler to say the least! As Shon has said many times...We've been to China, seen it, done it, got the T-shirt...now let's go home! I can't wait to walk into a store where I am not mobbed by every salesperson trying to sell me something...anything for my "baby." Their favorite comment, "I give best price to you." Yeah right, that's what they all say! I don't mean to sound cynical although I am somewhat, just so ready to come home to the wonderful USA where I can drink the water that comes out of the faucet, not worry about Jaida swallowing some of the bathwater for fear she might get sick from the unpotable water, each fresh fruit and vegetables without worrying about getting food poisoning, drink "real" diet coke with ice, brush my teeth with water from the faucet, walk down the streets and not feel as though I need to burn my shoes from all the pollution, eat at a restaurant that isn't selling water beetles, sandworms, snakes, and frogs to saute up for my next meal, and go to a "Western" bathroom where I don't have to bring my own toilet paper and squat over a hole in the ground! Sorry, I know that may be too much information, but just had to share it with you! Well, I guess that is enough of the things I am looking forward to not having to endure anymore once we arrive home.

This morning we had the famous White Swan "Red Couch" pictures of all the babies and children. There is a red couch at our hotel and it is famous for adoptive families taking pictures of their newly adopted children on this couch before departure. Jaida was dressed in a traditional Chinese outfit in lavendar with pretty little purple shoes. Hopefully the photographer was actually able to capture one photo where all the children were sitting and looking at the camera at the same time, highly doubtful. To top it off, we were trying to get some pictures of Jaida with another family we have gotten really close to and their youngest daughter was sitting too close to the fountain and fell in all the way under the water. So, that was the end of the picture taking!

We are packing up now and will head for the Guangzhou airport early tomorrow morning for a short flight to Hong Kong and then our long flight from Hong Kong to Chicago. That will be a very interesting flight for an very ansy 2 year old. Shon thinks it will be a great flight for him since Jaida will probably be with me the whole time :) She continues to warm up to him and is making daily progress, I was just hoping to be a little further along on her liking Daddy to hold her so the flight home would be a little easier. I guess just knowing the fact that this flight is taking me back HOME will make it a little more tolerable! Can't wait to see you all!

This afternoon we have our very important appointment at the US Consulate where we will receive Jaida's passport and visa and will go through a swearing in ceremony to finalize everything! Then we are free to leave China and as soon as Jaida's feet touch US soil she is considered an American--YEAH! We will probably enjoy a dinner of Papa John's pizza tonight to have some comfort food before heading home. We look forward to sharing more of our trip with you and especially our Jaidalyn NaQun (now called Nacho by her Dad)! She actually answers to it-very cute! I will post some final pictures of Jaida here now that we have collected through the week-hope you enjoy! See you soon and love to you all!

Shon, Trish & Nacho

Another rainy day on Shamian Island!

We also visited a Buddhist Temple that is still in operation today.


Daddy, Mommy, and Jaida at the front of the park. As you can see, the park is decorated with all kinds of "rats" to commemorate the Year of the Rat 2008.

Mommy and Jaida in the rain at Yun Tai Park.

Well, we woke up to another rainy day in Guangzhou and today's adventures take us to, yep you guessed it, an OUTDOOR park! Yesterday would have been the perfect day to go the park, sunny and low 70's. I think we are to have rain for the rest of our time here. We went to Yun Tai Park in Guangzhou-a very beautiful park that was landscaped amazingly with trees, flowering bushes, rose gardens, ponds, fountains, etc. A beautiful respite from the crowded busy China streets, a place of relaxation, if only it had not been raining. Jaida didn't mind to bother the stroller ride through the park in the rain-she is very resilient and not much ever bothers her! I will post some pictures from the park.

We have made a little progress in the Daddy department. Jaida will now hold Daddy's finger while walking down stairs so long as she has mommy's finger for the other hand. She will also let Daddy pick her up in the elevator so she can push the buttons. She is letting him help her at her meals now and letting him take her to the potty and to lift her up to wash her hands. So, she is now letting him do some things that help meet her physical needs, so this is a step in the right direction!

She is taking a nap right now. She really goes down pretty easily for naps and bedtime as long as she can see mom's face as she fades off to sleep. After her nap, we will take her down to the playroom here at the White Swan so she can play with some of the other children. The playroom is sponsored by the Mattel Toy company-pretty cool! After playing, we will head out to do some more shopping and will have dinner at a Cantonese restaurant with some friends. We ate at a Thai restaurant last night and it was absolutely awful-we have much better Thai food in Wichita!


Well, I will try to post again tomorrow. Our guide will be going to the US Consulate tomorrow to deliver all of our paperwork to be reviewed so they can issue a visa for Jaida's passport. We will receive her passport/visa on Thursday at a swearing in ceremony and then it is homeward bound on Friday-Praise God! Love to you all!

Only 4 more WAKE-UPS!

Jaida acting silly at Charlie's restaurant at the Holiday Inn in Hefei. The manager from the Phillipines was singing and the playing the guitar for us and all of the kids were having a bawl dancing on the stage and goofing around! She is quite the little ham!

Jaida playing get away from her Daddy!

Easter Sunday-We went to a non-denominational English/Chinese church service on Easter morning. This church is located just a block from our hotel. There are only a limited number of Christian churches in China and they have to be registered with the government. It was nice to be able to go to church on Easter Sunday and worship God.

Jaida at her medical examination at the Shamian Island Clinic.

The island has many of these little courtyards with flowers and trees. Many grooms and brides were out today having pictures taken. In China, the bride rents her gown. It was funny to see many of the brides wearing sweat pants and tennis shoes on under their dresses for comfort and the backs of their dresses were cinched in with safety pins to size it to the bride.

As you can see from the title, this is how we wake up each day...counting down the days by how many "wake-ups" we have left! Sad, very sad indeed, but we have experienced China and we are ready to come home. We arrived in Guangzhou on Saturday and are staying at a very nice hotel, the White Swan, on Shamian Island. It isn't necessarily an island, but it is surrounded by the Pearl River on one side and a canal on the other. The island is somewhat pretty because it is tropical in the low 70's with palm trees and brick sidewalks. It is very easy to walk the entire island in a very short period of time. We have seen many brides and grooms taking their wedding pictures on the island, it is a pretty place for that.

Well, I thought I would take the chance to write to you all while Shon is having "Cry therapy" with Jaidalyn! As many of you have seen from the pictures, Jaida is having a difficult time warming up to her Daddy which is oh so difficult on him but he is being a champ! So, everyday we have our little cry session when Daddy holds Jaida and she just cries and cries her little eyes out. We know she is doing this to have some control over a part of her life, but we will keep trying until she gives in to her Dad. This is highly common in toddlers that are adopted and may come slowly, but it will come.

Well, it has been one week with our little Jaida and she is just a gem! Jaida is an amazing little girl. She is so smart. You can really tell that her foster family and the nannies in her classroom have really worked with these children on many things. She is potty trained, cleans up after herself, and very smart in trying to test the boundaries with Mama and Baba! Her paperwork said she is an introvert…Ha! She may be slow to warm up to people, but she is definitely an extrovert. She is hilarious and so much fun to be around!

We had her medical exam today and she weighed 28 pounds and is 35 inches tall. She is very tall. Her cleft palate does not affect her ability to eat at all! She can shovel the food in like the rest of them! In fact, on our orphanage visit we were handing out candy to all the children and at one time she probably had a least 5 gummy lifesavers in her mouth at one time! She stuffs her mouth and then slowly works to get it all down. If she gets crackers, she doesn't eat one at a time she stuffs them all in her mouth at once and she has never ever choked!

We can't wait to see you all and we just can't thank you enough for all of the wonderful comments you have sent us. It really helps us feel closer to home and the prayers you have lifted up for us have been answered daily and have lifted our spirits! Thank you so much! Enjoy some new pictures of Jaida and Shamian Island.

Orphanage Visit and Na Update

Jaida eating nuggets at KFC.

Jaida and Daddy at the Anhui Museum.

Jaida and Daddy blowing bubbles. Trying to still break the ice very very slowly.

A common sight when Daddy attempts to hold Jaida! Poor Daddy!

Jaida at the Hefei Zoo.

Jaida coloring with her new coloring book and toys.

Well, as you can probably tell I am not getting to post nearly as much as I had hoped for so I am going to try and get a little bit done while she is busy playing in the room and not needing Mama. The main thing I want to say is we are definitely one blessed Mama and Baba! This little girl is amazing, much like our other three children!

She has really opened up the past two days and is coming out of her shell. We have learned a few things about her personality that I will share with you...Just as we thought from previous pictures, she is very inquisitive and curious. She is also full of energy, independent, happy, giggles and laughs a lot. She is now talking and singing to us in Chinese and is beginning to understand a lot of English with us talking to her all the time. We are still calling her by her Chinese name, but will begin to incorporate her English name with her Chinese name now so she begins to recognize that as well.

She is very slowly warming up to Daddy, which is somewhat discouraging for him as he hasn't hardly been able to hold his little girl since we got her. Anytime he gets close to her, she cries and pulls away. From our orphanage visit, we did learn from the orphanage Director that it took Jaida quite awhile to warm up to her foster father a year ago when she moved in with them and now she is quite smitten with him. The director also mentioned that it is quite typical since there are not very many males at the orphanage. So, we know it is just a matter of time for her to warm up to Shon. Once a day we practice with Shon holding her and it is such a hoot because it is just a major screaming fest. I will post a picture of this today so you can see what I mean. We just keep telling ourselves, this too shall pass and she will be just as smitten with Daddy as Daddy is with her! Shon keeps saying, she'll warm up to me when she figures out who she needs to go to, to get what she wants, i.e. clothes, money, car, etc!

We went to visit her orphanage yesterday and it went very well. As you can probably imagine, this was a very emotional event, but a necessary event in Jaida's life. It provides a sense of closure for her and for the orphanage staff, nannies, and foster parents. Na ran right up to her foster Mom to be held, but had no problem coming right back to Mama! The most difficult part of the visit was when Na's foster father held out his arms and Jaida went running to him. That pretty much put a sword through Shon's heart. On our visit, we go to tour the orphanage grounds, Jaida's home including her bedroom, and her classroom. It was wonderful to be able to get so much video and so many pictures for her to have as she gets older. We played with the other children on the playground and of course passed out bags of candy. They can never get enough of that!

We also took pictures of many of the waiting children whose parents will be traveling for them soon. If you are one of those families, I want to let you know that I have not forgotten about you, we just have been having a challenge with getting the pictures uploaded to the AFH photo group so I may just post some on our blog for you to see until I can get that accomplished.

Upon finishing our orphanage visit, the director gives each family a bag that includes some very special items. Jaida was given a Jade necklace with a Chinese dragon on it for her to wear when she gets older. China is the largest place in the world that mines Jade, so it is very popular to buy Jade from this country. She also received a Chinese mask, representative of the Peking Opera.

But the most treasured gift of all is a bound journal that contains at least bi-monthly journal entries about everything Na ever did in her two years of life at the orphanage and pictures to go with it, as well as, several sets of fingerprints and footprints that show her growth over the months. So, we have all the important facts about the things we missed out on in her life, such as when she got her first tooth, when she started crawling and walking, what she looked like before her cleft lip surgery, and what she looked like shortly thereafter. It contains the story of her life...you couldn't ask for a bigger blessing than this. Of course, it is in Chinese so we will have to have it translated for her. Our guide did translate several entries for us, so we could have an idea of what some of the entries had to say about her. That is another blessing...our guide has been amazing and will be a friend forever!

Our days in Hefei have come to an end and we will be heading to Guangzhou in the morning for another fun filled 6 nights--of course, I say that jokingly as we can't wait to come home to our kids and the good ole' USA where we don't have to eat noodles and rice for breakfast!

While in Hefei we have enjoyed some sightseeing to the Hefei Zoo, the Anhui Museum of History, and a lot of shopping down many busy streets. We had KFC for dinner last night...Yum, yum! Well, I am going for now. We will see you in Guangzhou. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Oh and so you know, this post has only taken me about 3 hours to finish as little miss Jaida has been very busy and is now down for a nap!

We've got our little Na!

Jaida, shortly after Gotcha Day, playing in our hotel room. She loves to play!

Jaida on "Gotcha Day" eating noodles at the noodle shop at the Hefei Holiday Inn. She loves to eat as you can tell and it can be anything from duck, tofu, steamed eggs, fried rice, chinese noodles, etc. She can shovel it in!

Jaida later on Gotcha Day in the hotel room talking on her play phone. She is very busy and knew exactly what to do with the phone! Guess it won't be long before she wants her own cell phone too, huh?!

Jaida warming up to Baba (daddy) on Tuesday. Jaida is having a difficult time letting Daddy into her world as she is probably not used to having any men in her life at the orphanage. We are doing little things to help her with this and are hoping she comes around very soon because Mama's arms are getting very tired from holding her all the time. We were supposed to visit the orphanage today, but our guide wanted us to have a day just to bond with our new children so we will do that on Thursday morning.

This is Wednesday and we had a morning outing to the Hefei Zoo. Jaida enjoyed herself after we tortuously got her into the stroller. This is another one of her dislikes-the stroller. She absolutely hates it, but is getting better with that as well. She spent a lot of time walking today and this picture was taken outside a shopping mall that we went to after the Zoo. We were so happy to stop off her for some good ole' McDonalds. We've never thought we would say we enjoyed McDonalds nuggets-but you can only take so many noodles and rice! Na (Jaida) had fun playing on the slide at McDonalds and really had fun playing with the other children in our group. She has quite the fun personality-full of smiles and giggles.

Mom holding Jaida for the first time on "Gotcha Day." Bribing her with toys and snacks helped her to come to me from the nanny. What an emotional day!

Jaida with her nanny as we walked into the Civil Affairs office on Gotcha Day.

I will definitely write more later on this wonderful day. Jaida just woke up from her nap and we need to go have dinner at the Noodle Shop...again! Enjoy the pictures! We love you all and miss you so much!

Wow, there really aren't any words to describe the joy we have in our hearts today! It is amazing to see the unfolding of God's plan from beginning to end. Today we now hold in our arms the purpose of God's spoken words to us over a year ago, "I have ONE for you." We now have the "ONE" and she is ours forever! I stand in amazement of God's infinite wisdom and am humbled!

I know everyone really just wants to see pictures, so I am not going to write much right now. I apologize for not getting these posted sooner. As I am sure you can imagine, things have been a little busy with a toddler running around. Constant motion..she is definitely one busy girl!

Goodbye Beijing...Hello Hefei!

Wow, I have to tell you we left Beijing with a BANG! I guess there always has to be some part of your trip that is most memorable and we sure did experience that this morning at the Beijing airport. I have never seen anything like this in my life and will definitely never never ever complain of a U.S. airport again! It was literally mass chaos from the time we got to the airport at 6:30 this morning until we finally boarded our plane at 8:05AM. In any U.S. airport, half of the people that we were in line with this morning would have been taken to the ground by security and handcuffed, but not here I guess. I have never witnessed such chaos, pushing, shoving, and yelling. In fact, our guide Grace, has also never seen anything like this at the Beijing airport in all four years of her touring experience. As of yesterday, without our knowledge, China just instituted the "No liquids" in carry-on baggage rule to get ready for the Olympics, a rule that the U.S. has had in place for a long time and it literally caused total chaos and pandomonium at the airport as thousands of people missed their flights. In China, there is no concept of a line and there is no word for "Excuse me"--you simply just push and shove your way through until you get where you want to go and you don't care who is in your way. Shon and I have a new appreciation for living in the good ole' USA!

I am happy to announce that we did, however, safely arrive in our daughter's city, Hefei, located in the Anhui province of China. Hefei is pronounced like "Huh fay" and Anhui is pronounced like "Ahn wee." Hefei has a population of 4.7 million people, of which half are living in very poor agricultural areas. The majority of the population in Hefei are Han Chinese.

We are staying at the Holiday Inn in Hefei and it is a beautiful hotel with a small shopping center across the street. When we opened the door of our hotel room, we were surprised to see a crib and a stroller all ready for Jaida. After checking in and going to the grocery store to get some bottled water, we have had a relaxing day of getting the room ready for a toddler and for getting Jaida's backpack ready that we will take with us tomorrow when we meet her at the Civil Affairs Office. Of course, we have to take toys and treats with us to bribe her with so she will want to come to us! :)

Wow, in less than 18 hours, we will be a family of 6! We just can't wait to show her to you all! Thank you so much for your continued prayers of safety, good health, and easy transitions! We can truly feel you praying for us and have thus far been safe and have felt great! We will talk with you all tomorrow and will post pictures of our little Na!

A Great Day at the Great Wall of China!

The Olympic Stadium; the site of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics! The locals call it the "Birds Nest," as its shape and overlapping structure looks like a bird's nest.


Trish sitting on the Great Wall of China. The building of this wall was an amazing feat! The Great Wall is over 3,800 miles in length, slightly larger than the length of the United States from West to East. Climbing the steps of the Great Wall is definitely not an easy task, but well worth the effort!

Inside the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City covers 70 hectares, approximately 700,000 square meters. WOW! It was truly massive and amazing. It took 14 years to complete and was built from the years 1406 to 1420. It made for a very interesting history lesson!

Shon standing in front of Tian An Em Square. It was closed to the public yesterday, so this was as close as we were able to get to it. Everything in China is BIG. Tian An Em Square is 400,000 square meters in size and is large enough to hold 1 million people.

Today was an amazing day of touring the great sites of Beijing and learning about China's ancient history. We began our day at 9:00AM and returned to our hotel around 6:00PM. It made for a very long and tiring day--but definitely one trip worth making! How exciting to be able to visit firsthand the country of our daughter's birth and to be able to share this with her when she is older! As you can see from the pictures and captions above, we visited Tian An Em Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and then lastly drove by the Olympic Stadium. Our guide, Grace, did an amazing job of sharing with us as much historical information as she could at each site.

Prior to the Great Wall portion of our tour, we stopped off at a Chinese restaurant and had lunch with our group "family style," meaning there is a piece in the center of the table that turns and allows each person at the table to reach all of the different dishes they brought to us. We were able to sample many different Chinese dishes--it was very good and believe me we needed our energy for climbing the Great Wall. In a separate part of the restaurant, there is a factory where they make "Cloisonne" and we were able to take a tour of the factory and see the workers making the beautiful pottery. Cloisonne is actually a French word and it is an ancient metalworking technique using copper and a multi-step enamel process used to produce vases, jewelry, and other decorative items. It is a very tedious process to say the least and is definitely not for those with a short attention span as it takes much patience to bring these pieces to their final beauty! Of course, after our lunch we were taken to the "Friendship Store" where you can buy all types of beautiful Cloisonne items and we couldn't resist purchasing a couple of items.

Well, we have now reached the end of our time in Beijing and have truly enjoyed visiting the ancient history of this country! Shon and I have mentioned to each other several times that this experience has been very surreal and is still hard for us to grasp the fact that we are truly in China! Never in a million years did we ever think that one year ago we would start on a journey that would take us around the globe to China! The past 4 days have kept our minds and our bodies busy as we anticipate the true purpose of this journey...to bring our daughter "Na" home! Tomorrow will be an early morning for us as we head to the Beijing airport and fly to our daughter's city, Hefei.

We're not in Kansas anymore Toto!

This is a picture from the Acrobat show.


This is Lilly making a pearl necklace from a string of freshwater pearls.


This is silk being spun from the silk worm cocoons.

Ni Hao! Hello from Beijing, China! We wanted to let all of you know that we have arrived in Beijing safely and we were so thankful when our plane touched down at the Beijing airport nearly 13 hours after leaving Chicago! I was ready to bend down and kiss the ground, even though it wasn't American soil! 13 hours in an airplane in coach class is definitely not my idea of fun, but nevertheless we are glad to be at this point of our journey. One interesting item to point out regarding our flight to Beijing was that we ended up having seats next to another adopting couple who I had communicated with previously on an internet adoption group and who live just 3 hours north of us in Kansas City. Truly amazing! We had an awesome time talking and getting to know each other and we definitely had enough time to do that! All in all, we ended up meeting approximately 7 other couples on our flight who were headed to China to adopt their children.

It is now Friday evening over here and we surprisingly slept pretty good last night and are hoping for the same tonight. We had a wonderful day today in Beijing! We are trying to adjust to the Chinese cuisine and had an interesting breakfast of steamed eggs, bok choy, bean curd, and a couple of more common items like bacon and a pastry. We were excited to have KFC for lunch; the chicken nuggets hit the spot!

This afternoon we hired a guide to take us shopping around Beijing. We went to many shops including a silk shop, pearl shop, a China-town type market with anything you could ever want, and a Beijing Olympic Souvenir shop. As you may know, China is known for its silk and for its freshwater and saltwater pearls. It was very interesting to learn how to distinguish real pearls from fake pearls and to see how silk is manufactured from the silk worm cocoons. Of course, we had fun making a few purchases along the way! We spent the evening at a Chinese acrobat show. That was a lot of fun!

Please feel free to read what you would like here and discard what you don't. I will be posting quite a bit here as this will be our journal for Jaida to have when she is older. I will try to point out a couple of interesting facts about China each day. So, for today I thought you would find these facts interesting. China has the same land mass as the United States, but has over 1.5 billion people. That is 5 times the population of the U.S. Beijing has a population of 15 million people. In Beijing where there is such a large populus of people, you will not see any houses. Everyone has to live in an apartment complex as there is not enough land to build individual homes. There are high-rise apartment complexes everywhere you look. Also, on the busy streets you will see many types of vehicles, including cars, buses, bikes, motor scooters, and of course walking and the streets are packed bumper to bumper most of the time. Remember, if you ever come to visit, pedestrians do not have the right of way and yes they will run you over! Well, that is your history lesson for the day. Hope you enjoy! I will post a few pictures of our day here and will have more for you tomorrow as we go on a day long tour to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tian An Em Square. Zai jian (goodbye) for now!

Our Next Post will be from China!

Well, it is finally here...this will be my last post from here in the good ole' USA! Our bags are packed after a very long chaotic day of packing, repacking, weighing the luggage, reorganizing the bags, to finally closing the zipper and just praying we have everything we need. It's not like you can just say, "Well if we don't have it, we will just get it there!" We are talking China here guys, not another US destination :)

We are heading to bed for the night to try and get a few hours of sleep before it is time to head for the airport. We will be leaving home around 5:45am for a 7:45am flight to Chicago. There are so many things we ask you to pray for over the next 17 days and once we get to Beijing I will be posting those here for you all to see. We have total faith that God will be with us to the very end and beyond of this amazing journey. It is still unbelievable to me where God has brought us over this past year! Truly amazing what he can accomplish when we yield to His will! The biggest blessing of all... Jaidalyn NaQun Gerber!

God bless each and everyone of you...thank you for being a part of our Journey to Jaidalyn!

See you in China!

Official Travel Itinerary!

Mar 12..Depart Wichita at 7:46am for Chicago...Chicago to Beijing
Mar 13..Arrive in Beijing at 3:05pm (It is Thursday; 13 hours ahead)
Mar 14..Free day for resting, shopping on own, and a Chinese Acrobat Show in the evening
Mar 15..Sightseeing tour to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square
Mar 16..Depart Beijing at 8:05am and fly to Jaida's province of Hefei, Anhui Province
Mar 17..Gotcha Day! 10:00am we meet our Jaida for the first time at our hotel!
Mar 18..Civil Affairs appointment to finalize adoption and visit Jaida's orphanage in afternoon
Mar 19..Visit to Zoo.
Mar 20..Visit to Baogongci.
Mar 21..Get Jaida's passport.
Mar 22..Depart Hefei at 10:50am for Guangzhou.
Mar 23..Sightseeing tour to Chen Family's Temple.
Mar 24..Photo for Jaida's visa and Jaida's medical examination.
Mar 25..Sightseeing tour to Yuntai park.
Mar 26..American consulate appointment.
Mar 27..American consulate interview, take oath, and receive Jaida's passport/visa.
Mar 28..Depart Guangzhou at 8:20am for Hong Kong..Hong Kong to Chicago..Chicago to Wichita.
Mar 28..It is still March 28th. Arrive in Wichita, KS at 5:16pm! Welcome Home Jaida!

New Pictures of Jaida!

A precious adoption friend of mine who is in China right now adopting her son went to Jaida's orphanage today for their orphanage visit and she blessed us with these two new pictures of Jaida from her classroom. These pictures were literally just taken a couple of hours ago in China as it is Thursday morning over there right now. Janis mentioned that her son and Jaida have been together for a long time at the orphanage. She also said that Jaida was all over the place playing while they were visiting--she is very active! She looks just precious and healthy too. It is difficult to tell how big she is as they have her dressed in about 3 layers of clothing and it looks like she has snowpants on. I just hope some of the clothes we are taking for her will fit her! Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we do! This time next week we will be enduring our 13 hour flight from Chicago to Beijing!

Official Travel Dates!

On Monday, we received our official travel dates for China and yesterday our international flights were booked! We are really going to China...God is good...ALL THE TIME!

We are now leaving on the morning of Wednesday, March 12th and will return on Friday, March 28th. We weren't able to get a consulate appointment on the 25th, so it is now on the 26th, which pushed our return date out by a day. We also decided we wanted to leave one day earlier than our group's travel day, so that we have an additional day to get adjusted to the 14-hour time difference and to just have some time to relax before all the FUN begins! You can see our travel itinerary posted off to the right side of our blog. I should have a precise in-China itinerary by this Friday or Monday. Now that our international flights have been booked, the Beijing office can take over and schedule all of our in-China flights, hotels, guides, activities, etc. How wonderful to have someone else take care of all of the details for us!

God is always perfect in His timing and I am reminded of this once again as our travel dates to China are going to work out perfectly with our children's Spring Break and for all of the wonderful friends and family who are going to be assisting us with taking care of our children while we are gone! Not only do we have an amazing God who will continue to guide us through the rest of this journey, but we are also blessed to travel with 7 to 8 other adopting couples from around the U.S. and will be with each other on our entire two week trip. About 5 of those couples have children in the same Province as our daughter. It will be wonderful to have others who we can relate to and lean on during this amazing journey!

Stay tuned...only 7 days until we get on that plane!

It's A...Wonderful TA Day!

Not only is it a beautiful day outside today with spring-like weather, but it is a beautiful day in our world as our Travel Advisor called this morning at 8:39 AM to let us know that she had just received our Travel Approval (TA) from China, which is the final document we need to be able to travel to China to adopt our daughter! We just couldn't be more happy and totally over the moon with excitement! At times, we thought this day might never arrive and now it is here! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!

We won't know our actual travel itinerary until next week, but our tentative dates for travel are March 13th thru March 27th with a "GOTCHA" day of Monday, March 17th--WOOHOO!! In the adoption community, "GOTCHA" simply means the day we will finally have Jaidalyn in our arms forever! We will celebrate this day every year and will refer to it as our Forever Family Day--the day we became a Forever Family to our Jaida!

As we reflect on the past year of this journey called adoption, I am reminded of this "step of faith" that God called us to take in our life. On Saturday, March 3, 2007, we took our 3 children to a Christian concert looking forward to spending some quality time together and hearing the music of many of our favorite artists that we listen to everyday on the radio. Little did we know, that this was not the main reason for our presence at this concert. But rather it was God's avenue for opening our hearts up to the idea of adopting an orphan from China. WOW! When I relate this story to friends they immediately laughingly say, "Boy am I glad I wasn't at THAT concert!"

It is amazing to me that God can accomplish His purpose even through the means of a concert with a man and woman walking away from it asking each other, "So what did you think of the concert?" To this man and woman expressing to each other that God had spoken to each of them at this concert, "I have ONE for you." Of course, you can read all about this process in previous posts on our blog, but I still stand in awe of our loving God!

This one-year journey has definitely been a "step of faith." A step into the unknown. This step that God called us into was something beyond our experience, knowledge, and control. When we said "Yes" to God and took that first step into the unknown, the plans that God had for our lives and for our family, slowly became revealed to us. Look at what we would have missed out on had we said "No" to God, not willing to take that step, find someone else. A beautiful little girl called Lu Na Qun! God has given us the blessing of raising this litte girl as our daughter; he has entrusted her life to us...I am humbled.

We pray that God will use our journey of faith to somehow reach out to someone else who may be afraid to make that "step of faith." I promise you, you will not be sorry that you took that step of faith. In fact, you may find yourself extremely blessed indeed!

Adoption Update

Welcome to our new blog! We developed this blog so it would be a little easier for all of you to follow along with us on the rest of our adoption journey. Hope you enjoy it! I know many of you are just as anxious as we are to have our little girl home and may be wondering "What is the hold up?" Believe me, this has been the most difficult wait of our lives and although we may appear patient, there have been many definite times of total impatience on our part. We continue to trust that God's timing is perfect and we will have our little girl at just the perfect moment! With that said, here is what has been happening since November.....

Our hope was to travel around Christmas, but that would not come to pass. Day after day we had hoped for the arrival of our Letter of Approval from the China Center of Adoption Affairs. Well, the so called average wait of 100 days came and went as did our little girl's 2nd birthday on January 3rd. Oh how we had hoped to celebrate this birthday with her! We just didn't want to miss out on any more of her life! Finally on January 21, 2008, with a wait of 150 days, we got the call from our adoption agency that our Letter of Approval had arrived. They Fedexed it overnight to us, we signed it and checked the box that yes we indeed accept the referral of Lu Na Qun, overnighted it back to our agency, and they overnighted it back to China. Finally, we think things are starting to move forward.

Now, we have an average wait of 15 to 20 days for China to send our final paperwork, the Travel Approval, which gives us permission to travel to China to adopt our daughter. Well, we already know how the averages work for us, they don't! And we have only got 17 to 18 days until the Chinese New Year at which time the China Center of Adoption Affairs takes one full week off for their vacation and celebrations. ANOTHER POSSIBLE DELAY...UGH! You guessed it, no Travel Approval before the Chinese New Year. So, here we are today, Day 37 of our wait for Travel Approval and nothing yet. However, we did receive a message yesterday from our adoption agency that approvals were sent out on Monday from China and they are expecting them any day now, so we will let you know just as soon as it is here!

Once we receive the Travel Approval, our agency will call the U.S. Consulate in China to schedule an appointment for us that will take place at the very end of our trip to China. This appointment is where Jaida will receive her visa, medical checkup, and swearing in ceremony. So, once we receive the date of this appointment, we back our trip up about 12 days and set up all of our travel arrangements. We are really hoping to be leaving somewhere around March 7th, if we can get the consulate appointment date that we want. We are definitely ready to go!

Please keep a copy of our blog address for your reference as you will be able to view it daily while we are in China to follow us on this trip of a lifetime! We will be able to post from China to this blog and will have daily updates and pictures! We also hope to hear from you as you can leave comments on each post we have!

Video Clip of Jaida

This video clip was taken in early July by another adopting family, the Fredericksons, that visited the Hefei Children's Welfare Institute where Jaida lives in China. At the time, this family did not know that Jaida was going to be adopted, but they happened to visit her room at the institute. She in not being held by any of the nannies, she is the child walking around the nannies in the video in the pink top and red shorts. At the beginning of the video, she is in the lower left hand corner of the screen and moves around to see what is going on. During the clip, Robert focuses in on her a couple of different times and she appears to shy away. Oh, we can't wait to have her in our arms! Thank you Pam and Robert for this wonderful 40 seconds of seeing our daughter in real life motion! Enjoy!

Jaidalyn Slideshow

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Our Adoption Timeline

3/3/2007--God called us to adopt
3/26/2007--Great Wall China Adoption Agency in Austin, TX accepted our application for international adoption
4/1/2007--Home Study began
4/20/2007--Drove to Kansas City Immigration Services for Fingerprinting
5/25/2007--I-171H Received (Approval from Immigration to Adopt an orphan)
6/15/2007--Dossier to China (DTC)
6/20/2007--Log-In-Date (LID)
8/20/2007--Our Waiting Child Application is matched with Lu Na Qun!
8/27/2007--Letter of Intent (LOI) sent to China
9/6/2007--Pre-Approval (PA)
1/21/08--Letter of Approval (LOA)
2/29/08--Travel Approval (TA)!!!
3/26/08--Consulate Appointment (CA)!!!
3/12/08 thru 3/28/08--Official Travel Dates to China!!!