Hannah Xia Grabowski

Hannah Xia Grabowski




Hannah is in our arms just like she’s been in our hearts for the past 5 1/2 years but now it’s a reality and can you believe it the world is still here! She has bonded well with Rachael and not so much Daddy but I’m good with it because it happened the opposite way with James. She is sooooooo beautiful and well taken care of. She is cutting her first tooth and is drinking her formula. We attempted to feed her bananas and some steamed rice but I think it was still to soon and she was still so scared.

It’s 1:47 am here and we are all awake. (Still on CT time) Tomorrow we adopt her at the Adoption Civil Affairs office in Fuzhou and we get her passport on Thursday and fly back to Guangzou on Thursday night for the US side of the adoption.

Skype has been a blessing. Seeing the boys and introducing them to their sister was awesome. They are being well taken care of and spoiled back home by family. It’s so awesome to be able to see and talk to everyone on Skype (and for free too)

I’m wondering if Facebook, Youtube, and Blogspot are going to be blocked in Guangzou? I emailed this to my bro to get this on the blog. Enjoy the pics!

We have arrived!

Hi everyone! We are here in Fuzhou, China. I'm updating the blog from my cell phone because we can't get on blogger, Facebook, or YouTube but we can go on Skype so we have been video chatting with the boys :)
The travel time from our doorstep to our hotel was 42 hours. We get Hannah around 3:30 am Connecticut time and we will be calling the boys in the morning with Skype to introduce them to their little sister.
The food is gonna take a little bit to get use to and I will be calling Vinnys Pizza from I95 on the way home.
We will try to get up video & pics ASAP.

Let the countdown begin!

We have our final approval and our trip is set. Rachael will be getting a very special birthday present this year. She will be able to hold and kiss our daughter for the very first time on her birthday. Our flight to China has two connections and should be in the range of about a 36 hour ordeal.OHHHH BOYYYY sounds like fun!

We will be spending the first week of our trip in Fuzhou, Fujian province where Hannah is from and finalizing her adoption there and then we fly to Guangzhou to get her visa and medical checkup for our trip home.
As always we'll be posting our experience and video links on here which will automatically post to Facebook.
We are hoping to use Oovoo and Skype to stay connected with everyone back home and from what I've heard they will both work.
Skype user name is jamesgrabowski1 and Oovoo user name is jamesgrabowski. So look me up if your on.

Stay tuned!!!

More paperwork

It never ends. We are again waiting for paperwork from USCIS (I-800). We were hoping to be in China by now but its out of our hands and at this point I think having Hannah home by Easter may not happen. We'll keep you updated.

A surprise email

We recieved a surprise email tonight with some updated pictures and measurements of Hannah and a 15 second video. I don't know how Amy was able to get this but I must say Amy Zajac "You are AWESOME!"
Hannah weighs 7.5kg (16.5 lbs) and is 27 inches tall. The video is sideways but who cares :)

So whats next?

Our letter of acceptance is on its way back to China. We will then be sent our travel approval so we can get our Visa's and set up our Consulate appointment (CA) which will be at the end of our trip. That will tell us when we can leave for China because our trip will depend on our CA. We will be spending the first week of our trip in the province where Hannah is from (Fujian) and then getting on a flight to Guangzhou where the American Consulate is located and where our adoption of Hannah will be finalized.......... and then its time to bring our little girl home to meet her big brothers :)

Hannah Xia Grabowski

Rachael and I would like to introduce our daughter Chen Gu Xia who we will name

"Hannah Xia Grabowski"

She was born on June 20, 2010

We want to apologize to all of our Rumor Queen followers for not posting this sooner but we had a surprise You Tube video to show our family on Saturday night during a birthday party for our neice and nephews. So now that it is done we would like to share it with all of you, our family, and friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pwTEumwGY

Anthony's Gotcha Day

It was the scariest night of my life. I still remember not being able to sleep because Anthony was so sick that first day. I wrote an email to family to please pray hard for us that night. Well that was one year ago today and Anthony is all settled in and healthy. James and Anthony are best friends (sometimes)!
The other day James and Anthony were chasing each other around the house laughing and growling at each other when James ran into my arms and said " Daddy help me. Anthony is going to eat me." I thought I was going to pee my pants I laughed so hard.
We are getting the boys ready for Hannah. They know she's coming and that we are going on the airplane to get her. We got Anthony out of the crib this week and into his big boy bed and he's doing great.
We've brought down all Hannah's things from the attic and are setting up her bedroom again. We should be hearing something within the next couple of weeks.
On a separate note I am officially on the Jets bandwagon! Jets 24, Steelers 17.

NEXT!

We picked her name over five years ago when we started this long roller coaster of a journey. Her bedroom has been done for four years and after telling everyone for years " hopefully within the next year ". We are NEXT! We will see Hannah's face for the first time in the next set of referrals from China sometime next month.
The CCAA has sent out referrals this week for all those families logged in through 5/29/2006 and we are 5/31/2006. The wait for this last batch was a little stressful because there was a chance that we could have been included if they did a larger batch.
Merry Christmas everyone and God bless you all during the holidays.

It's getting closer!

Referals came out earlier this week from the CCAA and they have made it up to May 23, 2006. Once again we were logged in to the CCAA on May 31, 2006 so we are looking at an early Christmas present or a very Happy New Year. We will finally get to see our daughter Hannah's face.

We were fingerprinted again this week which is the 4th time in the last five years we had to get fingerprinted for our adoptions. We should recieve our I800 approval within the next couple of weeks.
It was New Year's Eve last year that we got word that Anthony's paperwork was complete and he was ready to come home.

China update

Anthony has been with us just over 6 months now and we are in the process of finalizing his adoption with our local probate court. A little bit of paperwork left and Anthony will be officially ours and the newest American citizen and with no time to spare because the CCAA is up to May 10, 2006 with referrals. That means we are just 21 log in dates away from our date for our daughter Hannah.
It will be 5 years next month that we started the paperwork for her adoption from China and that doesn't mean she is 5 years old. She may not even be born yet. The adoption process that we have gone through with James and Anthony is completely different than what we have gone through for Hannah.
We have to update our home study for the third time and file new immigration paperwork with the INS at the same time we are finalizing Anthony's adoption. Busy, busy, busy.
We anticipate that we will be traveling to China early next year.
James just turned 3 and is a big "Toy Story" fan.

Whats going on here...

OK I've been threatened by family members to update the blog because they are not on Facebook. I thought everyone was on Facebook by now :)

Anthony has been home for three months now and was christened three weeks ago. He is still dealing with some eczema issues and being very clingy at times but is doing great. James is starting to catch up in the weight category.... only about 3 lbs behind Ant now. Everyone thinks their twins when we're out.
Anthony is starting to say words. He says cheese when he sees a camera. If we ask him if he wants to go outside he runs and gets his shoes (loves being outside). He has a handful of other words also. He has come a long way in three months and is catching on quick.

Now for our China update.... China's adoption referrals are up to April 17, 2006 (Exactly 4 years behind) as of right now. Our log in date is May 31, 2006, which means 45 log in dates until they get to us. If China does 6 referral days per month we should be getting our referral in December and if they do 5 days per month it will be January or February. We thought we would be going to China for our first child not our third. WOW I still can't believe the journey we've been on and are still going on. We are so blessed to be able to do this.

A Little Something Special

Now that I have a little time to reflect on last weeks arrival of Anthony, I wanted to share a little something that happened when we were getting Anthony for good from his foster family. It was a lot harder than it was with James because Anthony wasn't feeling well when we showed up. We go to the seventh floor meeting room with ourselves, the foster family, the kids, and our social worker where we proceed to ask questions about how Anthony was feeling and the medications that were prescibed for him. There was some confusion about when he was taking the medicine, when his next dose should be taken, when his next feeding was and so on. It was mostly because of the language barrier and we didn't think our questions were getting interpetted or answered to our liking. I think at this point you might be able to imagine our hearts were beating out of our chest. We were about to take this child, our son Anthony, to our hotel, away from the people who he had been raised by and loved for the passed year, he was sick, and we didn't know what to do next.  A lot of tears were shed and I think they were at a point where they knew we were not comfortable. Anthony's foster mother took him back down to the doctors to get him looked at again for diarreha and a bad diaper rash. So now it was myself, Rachael, James, and a different social worker who was trying her best to console Rachael, who was visibly upset, in the room alone. This is when our 2 1/2 year old son James took matters into his own hands, grabbed his mother by the hand, and said "pray". We all grabbed each others hands, including the social workers, we raise our hands and say "Amen" and then clap. It's a little something we do as a family at dinner when we say a prayer. We looked at each other and were just amazed at the timing of it. It was the perfect moment. This room was full of toys that James was playing with, yet for some reason he stopped playing, and knew exactly what was needed at a time of very high tensions. It was something that we'll never forget. It helped calm us down and we were able to relax a little more, get through the meeting, and goodbyes. We believe in Jesus Christ and the power of prayer, and I'm pretty sure our 2 1/2 year old does too. :)
Anthony is doing well, feeling much better, and starting to get familiar with us and the house.
 

A couple more video clips

Anthony has quite a personality. Last night, while we were eating the outrageously priced room service, Rachael was feeding me a sandwich while I was holding Anthony.... Thats right I said feeding me, he grabbed a french fry and fed me the whole thing. He also bowed to Rachael after she gave him a french fry to say thank you. Very cute! He has slept very well.

Here are a couple more short video clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH_9b453kLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMXrEoBLiDU

He's here

It's been scary, but getting better. Anthony is not feeling well but right now he is on my lap laughing as James runs at him and touches his legs. A few bad hours followed by a couple good ones. James helped feed Anthony and then Anthony threw up on me :( Here are some pics. I'll try to fill in the blanks later if I could find some time.

A little more about our visit with Anthony

It's 4:30 am here and I've come to the conclusion that we can't get use to the time change. We've been up since 2:30 am.
So anyway when we drove to Anthony's home we did not have James in a car seat.... I'm assuming that there is no law here for it because it wasn't a concern to Anthony's social worker but very hard too hold on to a 2 year old.
We get to the apartment building and take the elevator to the 7th floor. Walk down the corridor to the apartment and no one would answer the door. So our mind are going a million miles a second and then our social worker gets on her phone........ yep....... wrong floor and it wasn't my fault this time. It was a funny moment. So down to the second floor we go and the foster mother was waiting for us with the door wide open. To see him walk out of that room and touch him for the first time.... what a feeling. We are so blessed! Rachael was great and asked some very important question but the one that sticks out the most to me is " Does he have a special pillow or blanket that he sleeps with?" The foster mother walks into the bedroom and grabs his blanket and proceeds to show us how he stuffs the blankets down his mouth and sucks on it..... just like our little Corey. The way she did it was pretty funny.
We get Anthony today @ 2pm which is midnight back home and will be locking ourselves in the hotel to get to know each other. We are very happy about getting him a day earlier than we expected and the fact that we are so close to the agency. Wish us luck and please keep us in your prayers for an easy transition.

Thank you Jesus for this amazing gift that You have given us.

Lots of love to all of you who are following us and with us on our journey.

Jimmy, Rachael, James, & Anthony G.