New photos of Eliza

These photos were taken around the 12th of February. Apparently our little Eliza was not up for a photo shoot. We are patiently waiting for China to send the adoption agency our travel notice. Once the travel notice is received our agency can send a request to the US consulate in Guangzhou. The request is for an appointment to get Eliza's visa. Once we have a consulate appointment...we're on our way. The count down to travel is less than four weeks. We will know our departure date 7-14 days in advance.
We sure appreciate all the comments, well wishes, prayers, and support. We'll keep you posted as events unfurl.

Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the lunar year. As always it begins with the new moon. Legend tells us that long ago, Buddha invited all the animals to meet him on the Chinese New Year. Twelve came. Buddha named a year after each of the them. This year, 2007, is the year of the pig. The new year is traditionally celebrated with family gatherings, shared meals, dragon dances, and fire crackers.

On Saturday, Jane along with her lady friends and family celebrated the anticipated arrival of Eliza. They played games, exchanged gifts, and enjoyed traditional Chinese dumplings (pot stickers). The decorations were great. Some I know, will be enjoyed for a long time: Chinese lanterns, red envelopes of good fortune, traditional candies, and red roses.

One of the games was a timed event where participants used nothing but chops sticks to retrieve diaper pins from bowls of uncooked rice. Not so simple, I'm told, but relatively easy to clean up. Another activity involved an English/Mandarin dictionary, several calligraphy pens, and a stack of high quality card stock. To start, people picked a word they thought best described Jane as a friend and mother. They then found the corresponding Chinese character (or hanzi) and transcribed it on a card. The cards are now collected in a scrap book. A sampling of the words include treasure, honorable, beautiful, devoted, teacher, silly, and big human (the last lovingly submitted by 5 year old Sidney).


Thanks to everyone who planned, set up, and celebrated. We can hardly wait to bring Eliza back to such a supportive group of family and friends.

Where We Will Travel

Currently, our time of travel is uncertain. Our agency tells us we will leave for China in four to seven weeks. However, there is some certainty of where we will be going. After a quick stop at the San Francisco airport, we'll hop on a 15 hour flight to either Beijing or, more likely, Hong Kong. After a day or two to reset out clocks, we'll fly to Chongqing, the municipality that is home to Eliza's orphanage. Day three of the trip is also known as Gotcha Day. That's when Eliza comes into our arms and becomes a physical part of our family. The next five days or so will be spent in Chongqing filling out paperwork, making a doctor's appointment, and hopefully visiting giant pandas at the zoo. Roughly translated, Chongqing means second celebration. The city itself is known for several things: as starting point for the three gorges area of the Yangzi River, as China's new gateway to westward economic expansion, a huge population, and dense and ever present air pollution. The urban center is home to 12.4 million people. That's 1.5 times more than New York City. The municipality itself contains 32 million people and is about 8 times smaller than Texas--very crowded. Eliza lives in the city of Yunyang. You can spot it in the north east corner of the Chongqing map.

Then we three fly to Guangzhou (pronounced 'gwaung-joe'), the capital city of the Guangdong province. Guangzhou was formerly known as Canton and a couple centuries ago was the only regulated Chinese port to trade with the westerners. Most importantly for us though, it houses the U.S. consulate. This is where we complete more paperwork, entertain more interviews with officials, and gain a Chinese passport for Eliza. All of these are required for our travel back to the States. We'll stay in the famous White Swan Hotel, the final stopover for most adopting families from around the world. The hotel is located on Shamian Island, a former western enclave. The area is relatively peaceful with open parks and many examples of western colonial architecture. Did I mention babies? There will be gobs of them. After about a week of plowing through red tape and getting to know Eliza, it will be time for the long trip home. And then I suppose, the real journey begins.


Here are a few more interesting facts about China:

• China has almost exactly the same land area as the U.S. (They have an extra Wyoming).
• China has a population of 1.3 billion. That's about 4.4 times the number of people here in the states.
• About 900 million Chinese (about 14% of the world's population) are rural peasants working primarily in agriculture or as unskilled labor.
• Eliza was probably born to a family in this demographic.
  

What's in a name?

According to the documents we received form the orphanage, Eliza's first given name was Yang Fu Xue. Since she was abandoned, as were most of the children at the orphanage, she was named by the caregivers at the orphanage . No information is known about her biological parents. In Chinese culture, a person's surname is written first, followed by their given name. All the children in Eliza's orphanage share the surname of Yang. This comes from the county in which the orphanage presides, Yunyang County. Yang, 阳 , in mandarin can be translated as "sun". As I've been told, the first part of her given name, Fu, is given to all children who come to the orphanage during a given period of time, say the month of June. Fu, 福, is mandarin for "good fortune". Finally, Xue, 学, is a name the orphanage gave uniquely to her. It means "learn" or "study". Here's a pronunciation guide to help:
X is like sh in she
u as in rule, but with more lip rounding
e is like the u in full.

Eliza Fu Xue...a beautiful name.

Introducing...

We are very pleased and proud to introduce Eliza Fu Xue Schurter. These beautiful photos were taken when she was four months old. She is now about 7 1/2 months. Her birthday is June 16, 2006. Her orphanage is in the municipality of Chongqing, located just east of the Sichuan province of China. We plan to travel to her in 5 to 8 weeks. WaHoo!

Note her classy socks.

News From China

The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs has posted that matches are complete for families whose paperwork was received in China before October 13th of 2005. Our paperwork was logged into China on September 29, 2005. We expect a call from our adoption agency in the next day or two. We're pretty anxious.