Our final posting

We have now been home almost 5 days and we are SOOO glad to be home!

The past 5 days have been very busy, overwhelming days and nights. The girls are dealing with jetlag as expected, Eliana was back in the hospital with an ear infection and is generally not sleeping day or night outside of 20min - 2 hour naps. However she did sleep better Monday night. Mom has been dealing with a nasty cold that needs to clear up really soon! Dad and Olivia are in good shape, however Dad has been pulling the tough night shifts and trying to sleep during the day.

MONDAY A.M.

Some great news is that each day is better, and so far today is really good. Olivia, having fallen asleep at 1:30am, is now still asleep after 10 1/2 hours so she is getting her first good night's sleep! (she slept 13 hours) Eliana still really needs sleep but she did sleep for about 5 1/2 hours last night. She is outside enjoying nature and the hammock now with Aunt Dorothy.

We know we are still being covered in prayer, so everything will smooth out soon and we will all be healthy and sleeping again ~ yes even Mom and Dad! Eliana in particilar needs to start sleeping long sleeps for her adjustment and her health, so please keep her in prayer.

Here are some final photos of the girls and some of our family ~ enjoy!

Home at Last

We made it! It feels so nice to be back on Canadian soil. We left for the airport yesterday still not sure if the girls' visas had come through but after a stop at the embasy we thankfully left with visas in hand.

Here is a shot of some of the babys in the hotel lobby, prior to departing for the airport.

Andrew is carefully reading over the visa paperwork after receiving them from the embassy.


The flight back home went incredibly well and decently fast for 13 hours. The girls fell asleep soon after departure and they slept at least 80% of the time. No screaming babies for us. We were fortunate enough to have a bulkhead row with space for a bassinett so our arms were relieved of one of the babies for most of the flight.

After 13 hours in the air we finally arrived in Toronto. The welcome by family was wonderful. We had been dreaming of this moment for some time.

The ride home was uneventful (other than Eliana in vast dislike of her car seat!) and when we walked through our front door at 10pm it was such a relief. There is no place like home. With the help of family that came back to our house with us, we did the mad dash getting everything out of the suitcases and partially put away, so we could get back into sorts quickly at home.

It is now Friday morning and Olivia slept through the whole night - could she be over jetlag already??? However Eliana did not so we both took turns being awake with her so Mom and Dad are in need of some sleep today...maybe. Thankfully we have family staying up over the next couple of weeks to help out - a blessing indeed!

Going forward for the next short while we have some adjusting to do with our girls in their new home. We would ask that anyone wishing to visit our expanded family to please call ahead to find an appropriate time and day.

We do look forward to having you meet our daughters of destiny before too long!

A&M

On our way home...most likely

Well - we have packed our bags and given them to the bell boys, in the expectation that we are on the flight today. The Canadian Embassy has given us the 99.6% assurance that our paperwork will be ready...but they won't guarantee it 100% until we go to the Embassy on the way to the airport. Yes, the nailbiting final moments... If you don't hear from us in the next 12 hours, it is because we made it on the plane!! If you do hear from us...well...let's just hope not.

The girls this morning are both doing great. No fevers, and a full, good night's sleep for both. Olivia is teething though making her quite unusually cranky. So we look forward to having a good flight with both of them, and hopefully they sleep for a majority of it as it will be their night time.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers, support and ongoing comments. They were the pillar that held our arms up during this trip.

Our next posting should be when we're back in our own home.

Looking forward to stepping on Canadian soil very soon!

Love,

Andrew, Margaret, Eliana and Olivia Lucas

Back in Beijing!!!

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
Greetings from Beijing; boy it is good to be able to say that. It was an interesting day yesterday. Besides being our 9th anniversary, yesterday morning Eliana received her final IV treatment before we took her out of the Guangzhou Children's Hospital. She was in good spirits and during the last and fourth night that Andrew spent at the hospital, he was actually able to get a decent amount of sleep. Below is a small picture of the central waiting area of the hospital. In the morning hours the place is a zoo. Eliana stayed on the 2nd floor of the white building which is just visible through the opening between the two other buildings.

This is Elsie, or as we prefer to call her, Eliana's Angel. She was absolutely brilliant with Eliana and spent 8am to 9+pm with us at the hospital, interfacing with the doctors, interpreting and taking care of all paperwork. We can't thank her enough.

Here are a couple of pictures of Eliana in the hospital. Overall she received excellent medical treatment notwithstanding the general lack of amenities found in Canada. For example it was bring your own toilet paper, also no soap to wash your hands with. Thank goodness for Purell, hand sanitizer, again not provided, but we had brought some with us to China. The other device that we will never leave home without was the digital in-ear thermometer. Considering that the nurse only came about every 4 hrs to check Eliana's temperature, that device might have been a contributing factor for her being well today as during the night Friday there were several times that Andrew went running for the Doctor after measuring a rapid increase in temperature. Definitely worth every penny and the subject for some jealous looks by other patients.

The other person we have to give credit to was the nanny we hired for Olivia. For 3 days straight she cared for her while we were at the hospital. We couldn't have managed without her.

So yesterday we made our afternoon flight to Beijing. It was so good to land and realize that we are now only one flight away from Canada and our own beds. On the flight the babies were remarkably good, even if Eliana seemed at times to prefer any strange woman to her father - she hasn't warmed up to men yet.

Unfortunately we noticed that Olivia had developed a high fever while in the air so we gave her some medicine on the plane which thankfully brought it back down. It wasn't to last however since once on the ground it started going back up again. This then necessitated a trip to the medical clinic at 11pm. Dad, used to working the night shift, did his duty once again.

Now back with our group again, they welcomed us back and have stepped in to help out. For example, last night John and Stacey Day took Eliana for the night and our tour-guide Jenny took Olivia for the night. We had 6 hours of completely unhindered sleep from 1 until the alarm went off at 7. For Andrew it was the first night since Thursday that he had had a good night's sleep. Margaret was also treated to a 90 minute massage today including babysitting.

Here are a couple of pictures from the hotel room.

This morning we had to take both girls back to the medical clinic to do the official medical for the girls' visas. Once that was complete we rushed over to the Canadian Embassy and submitted all of the paperwork. Hopefully the embassy will issue the visa tomorrow morning so that we can fly home with the rest of the team tomorrow afternoon. Other wise we will have to stick it out in Beijing alone until the visas come through. Our adoption agency has requested an expedited processing for the visas and the lady we talked with this morning was hopeful, but there are no guarantees.

One day at a time

SUNDAY PM (Sunday am Canada time)

First of all, thanks to everyone who has been helping us during this tough time, and for all of your prayer and support. This has been the most difficult thing we have gone through in our lives bar none, but with God’s help we are getting through. Things finally feel like they are starting to progress in the right direction, and our agency, Children’s Bridge has been very helpful in arranging things and keeping in constant touch while we are here.

The interpreter that joins us at the hospital has been great. Her english name is Elsie and she is fluent in English and is also great with helping us manage at the hospital as she is staying there with us from 8am to 7pm – and sadly enough helping us hold down Eliana for the many nasty treatments she is getting. It has been heartbreaking to see our daughter endure what she has!!

Eliana is recovering from severe bacterial pneumonia as well as a viral component. The good news is her fever broke this morning and she has been sleeping most of the day. She is still lethargic, with little voice left and eating very little – throwing up what she does eat (sorry for the details), but we are praying for a very fast and complete recovery. She has not stopped breathing again like she did twice before so great news as that just about put us over the edge emotionally! The doctor today said her chest is sounding much better.

Olivia has bronchitis, but had 2 IVs, yesterday and today, and some medicine that our nanny is giving her (bless her heart!) and this has seemed to work so far. Her fever is now gone, and her breathing better. She is still coughing and throwing up periodically but much less often and she looks bright and alert. We need to take her back in tomorrow to see if everything is OK.

The goal now is to get Eliana’s respiratory system calmed down, as well as the fever gone for at least 24 hours so we can fly to Beijing. The doctors here want to keep her hospitalized for a week to 10 days to completely recover but we, consulting with our agency, are getting out as soon as we can. While this paediatric hospital has good doctors and nurses (truly), it is a very unpleasant atmosphere (I’ll spare you the details!). Also you have to bring 100% of what you need (water, syringes, Kleenex, cutlery, all food, sheets, towels, etc etc) as NOTHING is supplied other than the medications and the metal, rusting cribs for baby and adult to sleep in together, so we are needing to plan endlessly to figure out what to bring each day. As a “day in our life”, our current hospital room of 5 cribs is “home” to the other 4 families that do their laundry, bathing, eating, baby’s very public bathroom breaks etc all in our room with an attached “open air” bathroom. There are some of these things we would rather not have witnessed.

When we get to Beijing, we will likely need to visit the hospital there again but at least we are closer to our trip home as the paperwork needs to be finalized in Beijing before we can take the girls home. The rest of our group currently in Beijing said the hospital is good there. We are hoping that between tonight and tomorrow Eliana’s fever stays down and that she regains some strength so we can fly to Beijing Tuesday afternoon, finish our paperwork in a rush (the Embassy has agreed to help out with this), and still keep our flight back Thursday. We need Eliana to have an amazing night tonight and day tomorrow for this to happen.

Thankfully we are both in health still. Andrew deserves the “best dad” award for pulling off these nights at the hospital – he also needs more sleep so he doesn’t get sick.

MONDAY am

Great news, both Olivia and Eliana had a good night last night. It has now been 24hrs since Eliana has had a fever so this is a definite answer to prayer. We will know later today if she is fit to fly to Beijing tomorrow.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support!!

Andrew & Margaret

Health Update

Thanks for everyone's prayers. Eliana is still in the hospital but we belive that she is past the worst of it. Friday night was touch and go, but last night noticed improvement. She still is very lethargic and the occasional fever. Margaret is spending the day with her while I am pulling the night shift. We have a translator to help us and have hired a nanny and an extra hotel room for Olivia. In addition Olivia has broncitis and had to get an IV at the hospital. She seems relatively well though and is staying with us at the hotel.

We are hopeful that we might be able to fly to Beijing on Tuesday (according to our other group members already in Beijing the hospital there is much nicer and English speaking Doctors are available) this will potentially allow us to still make our flight on Thursday back to Canada. All of this will depend on how things go with Eliana over the next 24 hours.

We know that the Lord is in control and our confidence is in Him.

Lucas Update

Andrew and Margaret asked us to post this update. Eliana is currently in the hospital in Guangzhou with bacterial pneumonia so they do not have time to send updates. As a result of her hospitalization, they are unsure of their return date to Canada. They appreciate your prayers.

Graham and Elizabeth Faulkner

Some goings on

Well there is not that much to update this week really. We’ve had the past couple of days with the girls, doing things like shopping and going to the zoo. Some photos attached.

The zoo was very hot and the girls did a lot of sleeping. So I think Andrew and I did most of the animal viewing.

We also spent some time in the hospital, getting treatment for Eliana this week. After going to an International Clinic – we found out she was fairly sick and needed different treatment than the Chinese hospital recommended. Now after her checkup today, she is finally appearing to be on the mend.
Tomorrow (Friday) is our last day in Guangzhou, so it is also a packing day. It will be interesting to see how we manage packing with Eliana and Olivia on our hips J. We leave early Saturday am to fly to Beijing for 6 days before returning home.

So Many Firsts!!!

The past 2 days have been fairly quiet from an “exploring” China perspective, but great days of our girls exploring many things (including us) and us getting to see many firsts in our daughters in such a short time.

New today is that Olivia now has a ready smile for us when we play (not as freely as Eliana but we’ll take all the smiles we can get!). The smiling for her is very new as she seems to be the introverted one that is analyzing everything and trying to make sense of all the changes in her life.

Some of our firsts include seeing the two of them go from lying on their stomachs to sitting up on their own (not completely stable yet though), seeing their beautiful smiles (no gut laughs yet…), seeing them respond to their names, we bathed them for our first time, watching them play on their own now, hearing their little sweet voices in self-talk (they are SOOO sweet), and seeing them reach for us to hold them or crawl to us to get the bottle.

Eliana has become a mommy’s girl very quickly that wants to be held by me whenever she sees me. She is very content with Daddy also – she just prefers mommy when she gets the choice. She will also crawl to where I am standing just to put a hand on my foot or ask to be picked up. Today she pulled herself up for the first time – cool to see!

Olivia has this great “flying” mode when she lays on the ground. She’s on her tummy with her legs and arms raised, flapping away. She has the greatest mouth/lip pucker thing she does – so adorable! She has frequent baby talk conversations now when she plays by herself.

The night sleeps are getting shorter as it seems one or the other is awake, or coughing which is turn is keeping us up. (the amazing thing is that one girl wailing loud will not disturb the other!) Both girls had a cold when we got them and we had to visit the hospital for a couple of related things. But Olivia’s cold is mostly gone, Eliana’s persists though which is making her and our sleep difficult. Eliana does also have a sore on her head (that is why the gauze in the one picture) that we are treating.

Their energy level is now amazing – wow – busy girls!!! Especially Eliana. Olivia seems a bit more independent, but interacts very well with us and loves our attention.

Enjoy some photos

First Full Day as a Family

FRIDAY
Here are some highlights from our first day as a family. If you are not sure which girl is which the easiest way to tell is the amount of hair. Olivia has hair, Eliana not so much.

We decided to introduce the girls to the family, starting with Eliana. She has already studied up on the St. Pierre cousins and has moved on to Grandma and Grandpa. Aunts and Uncles are on the agenda for tomorrow.

Here we are at the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption.

Both girls had there 1st pooh today which was great considering it can often take several days following placement. Of course Olivia decided to wait until we had just put on a fresh diaper before wincing up her face and screaming that pooh out. Both were in fairly good spirits today (Olivia in top photo, Eliana bottom).

For the most part they are eating, sleeping and playing well. They are solid sleepers so far and even when their sister is screaming they don’t wake up. Thankfully, so far they seem to take turns making a fuss which is nice since two fussy babies is not something we are eagerly desiring.
Some twin handling skills.