Guangzhou Day 1- The Medical Exam

First stop: Photo Shop to have all the babies pictures made for their Visas











The infamous medical exam building






































































































We had another busy day in store for us as we came into our first day in Guangzhou! We were given our itineraries in the van as we drove from the airport to the White Swan Hotel last night and it is a busy schedule!! We got in fairly late and had to be in the lobby having already eaten breakfast to go to our medical exam this morning at 9:30. We have joined 2 other Lifeline Adoption Agency families and 4 other families from 2 other agencies that our guides are taking care of as well! Our first stop was right across the street to the photo shop to have all the babies photos made for their Visa's. We then all took a 10 to 15 minute walk to the medical exam building. It was pretty chaotic since our group was not the only group of families there. They had everyone arrive at the same time. We waited a bit and then we had to make our way to each of 3 rooms. One room was just to be weighed and she was lighter than we thought. We got an update a week before we left that said she weighed 17.5 pounds, but today she was only 15.3 pounds. She hasn't been eating well, but if she has lost over 2 pounds we are in trouble. She is such a tiny little thing that I couldn't imagine her weighing that much, but you only have what they tell you to go on until you get her! The next room was to look at her ears, nose & throat. And finally we went to see the doctor whom I personally loved. She kept saying to our guide "beautiful mom, beautiful baby." She was very kind and merely mentioned that we need to tell our doctor about her "Mongolian Spot." We left there and casually walked back towards the hotel to meet our friends to have lunch. The streets are really quite beautiful here in Guangzhou. I said that it reminds me of Savannah, Georgia and some thought of St. Augustine, Florida because of the trees hanging over the streets with some sort of moss hanging from them. The buildings are old and many are looking run down, but some are very beautiful sort of like in a restored downtown area. We saw our first church since being here in China. It was Catholic Church that was built in the late 1800's, but we were not sure if it is historic site or if it is still used. It is really beautiful and so we stopped to take a look and snap a few pictures. Also, there is a park in the middle of our walk with a playground where children were playing and men were working out on some equipment in the park. It was nice to see people living their normal lives without so much poverty. Nanchang, where we had been, was just so poor that it was hard to see everyday! We met up with our friends and had Subway. We felt for just 30 minutes like we had gone home and we really enjoyed our lunch.
Now the second part of the business of the day was approaching so we headed for the hotel. We were told to send one smart person to a room for a paperwork meeting and the other should stay with the baby. So Steve said I should go and I did. I really thought this was just a meeting for the guides to help us gather the needed paperwork so they could take it to the Consulate. But 2 hours later we finally finished filling out more paperwork and organizing our package for Anna Claire's visa. Steve stayed with the little darling and she took a very long nap. We have worn her out and so after 3 hours and 15 minutes we woke her to go with about half of the families to an organized dinner at a Thai restaurant. We have not really eaten Thai food and really couldn't tell much difference between it and Chinese, but it was really tasty either way! They said we would walk just a block away, but it turned out to be about 4 blocks in the pouring rain! The hotel loaned us large umbrellas, but it was a soggy walk! We enjoyed getting to talk to some families that we hadn't been around much and hear their stories. We then tried to call it a night and started preparing for the next morning but worked in a few Skype calls to family as well!