Bringing Home Laine, Part 7: Halfway Home

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

September 1, 2019

Guangzhou! And probably the nicest hotel I will ever stay in. We spent day one getting Laine cleared by the health authorities to leave the country. She’d been running a fever so we were a little tense about it, but of course she passed because, y’know, God.

It really was an incredibly nice hotel. I thought our hotel in Kunming was pretty nice, but this one made it look like a dump.

It had a huge, grand lobby, with lots of swank, upscale shops; five or six restaurants; and an absolutely delightful breakfast buffet. Clearly, somebody at the adoption agency was really working the deals on Travelocity.

We didn’t see many Westerners in Kunming, but they were all over the place here.

But as glitzy as the Guangzhou night life may be, the main reason we were there was to get the medical clearance and associated paperwork to get Laine the heck out. The day after we arrived, we were to bus over to the travel healthcare office to get her a check-up and, hopefully, an all-clear for the exit visa.

We had heard horror stories about kids who ran a little bit of a fever on the day of their visit, and so didn’t pass the check-up. The parents then had to wait in country for days until the fever cleared up and they could try to get clearance again. Of course, for the previous couple of days Laine had run an on-and-off fever — because that’s what babies do — which we had treated with Tylenol.

When they put the thermometer on Laine, I was using all the Jedi mind power I could muster to hold the numbers down. Then the doctor said she was fine, and I wanted to grab her and run out of the building before anybody changed their mind.

September 2, 2019

Guangzhou down time. We got to walk around Lichee Creek park and visit the Guangzhou city zoo.

Once again demonstrating great wisdom, our adoption agency planned a lot of activities for us so we wouldn’t be bouncing off the walls waiting for the paperwork to process. China is amazing.

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