A Panda Day

Last time I came back to the States after being in China, a surprising number of times I was asked if I saw pandas. I hadn't.  The only place in the whole world that wild pandas still exist is in the province of Sichuan. This time we live in Sichuan, so we decided we needed to see the pandas!

We went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Pandas. Newly learned fact, there are only 1,600 wild pandas still in existence (as of 2004 which is last widely accepted data) and somewhere around 200 pandas in zoos and research facilities. Of those pandas, 88 are here in the Chengdu at the research center.  The research center is about 200 acres of bamboo forest. It is beautiful!!

They have a few pandas for viewing in zoo like habitats, but mostly the pandas are in these huge, beautiful outdoor enclosures. You can walk so many paths through the bamboo forest looking through the trees to spot pandas.

We got to see this guy, my favorite panda, climb the trees and switch over from branch to branch. His name is Oreo. We saw so many pandas sitting around eating bamboo. They eat as much as 40 lbs of bamboo daily. We also got to see a toddler panda climbing up trees only to have his mama have to pull him down each time. I can see one of my little pandas doing that. :)

It was a LOT of walking! By the end of the day we were beat. They had a trolly that could take you around the park for 10 RMB (about $1.50), but our understanding was that it was an 1.5 hour ride that didn't stop. As it turns out, it is an 1.5 ride through the park, but you can get on and off as you chose. (Our chinese still a work in progress). If I had to do the day over again we would have taken the trolly. But the center was so clean and beautiful!  On a cooler day without babies, the walk would have been really enjoyable. Emma got to see the pandas in style in the stroller with a fan.

 The center has bread 124 giant panda cubs, 83 that survived. This is one of the tiny little babies! We couldn't believe how little they were. Another newly learned fact - pandas are pregnant for 3-6 months and have 1-2 babies in a litter. However, they chose the best baby and only raise one panda at a time.

Someone feeding the baby panda a bottle.

Philip feeding our baby panda a bottle, while waiting in line to see the baby pandas. 

 They also have red pandas and soon they will begin breading golden monkeys - both also endangered. I never realized how cute these guys were.

Bella's favorite parts of the day were the panda skeletons in the museum which she thought were dinosaur bones. She let out lots of big RAWRRs!! That girl is really into dinosaurs right now. And the coy fish pond. She also really loves fish. I think she would have been content to stay right here all day. I think our next outing might be to the aquarium.

And the day wouldn't be complete without Bella mooching a snack from new friends. Chinese people love to feed Bella girl and she loves to be fed.

One of the really nice part of the day was that Bella didn't feel like an exhibit. Its really common for our family to attract a lot of attention. In general, we don't mind. But sometimes it can be really frustrating because we want to enjoy what we came to see, not pose for pictures all day. However, at the park we weren't overwhelmed by people. I think mainly because we got to the park so early. Coming early was great. Way less crowded. Way less hot. And we got to see a LOT of pandas eating their breakfast.

It was a really fun day!  If you are in the CD area, I highly recommend a visit to the Panda Research Center.  We came home exhausted though! We ate a quick lunch and had a family nap time (yes, even mommy and daddy - thank you girls), and ended our day with watching Kung Fu Panda.

No more children...

(The context of this post will make the most sense after reading yesterday's post about my pregnancy with Emma.)

Emma will be my last baby. The stress of pregnancy on my body has caused a lot of problems for my heart. The doctors have agreed that it would not be safe for me to become pregnant again.  Even before my heart problems surfaced, we had considered that this might be our last child. In hind sight, I think that this was Father's way of preparing my heart for things to come.

But still there is something about being unable to have another child that makes me feel so sad. Maybe its my rebellious spirit wanting something it can't have. Or maybe its the joy of seeing Emma make her first smile.  I love my sweet babies! And it seems so sad to think that Emma will be my last. Sad that it will be the last time my baby will fit laid across my chest. The last time I get to feel all of those tiny fingers wrapped around my finger. The last time I get to watch her whole body make work towards getting out those first coos. And the "lasts" will only continue through each stage of her precious life.

With that I think maybe we could have just one more. Maybe my heart could handle it. But then I remember waking up in the hospital and seeing my husbands eyes filled with tears as he held my hand tightly and said, "I thought I was going to loose you." No. Our family has four - no more.

I try to remind myself that there would always be a last baby. Even if I had 15 children, there would always be a last and it would always feel sad to think that it was my last time to have these sweet experiences. The fact that this is my last baby should just make me enjoy the experiences all the more. Plus, I am fortunate because I have so many brothers and sisters. Through them I hope that I will get to hold and love lots of babies through the years. And then one day I get to have the joy of holding my babies babies.

Over the past couple weeks of processing through the fact that I won't be able to have any more children, I have realized that I have already been blessed so much more than I can even express. These two beautiful healthy girls are more than I could possibly deserve or ask for.  To not be content in the blessing that Father has given me would be nothing short of wrong.

Father, thank you for your blessings. Thank you entrusting me with these precious lives. Help me as I bring them up to love you. Thank you for restoring my health so that I can enjoy the sweet moments with them and watch them grow.

Emma's Arrival

Last fall, I suddenly passed out. I was taken to the ER where there seemed to be no explanation.  About a week later, I was getting ready to have my immunizations to move to China. But instead I had to call our friends and family to let them know that I wasn't able to get my shots. As it turned out, I had a medical condition that was going to last about ... oh... nine months or so. We were going to have a baby! Emma was our very unexpected shot day surprise!

Those nine months were full of lots changes - both exciting and scary. In that time we moved 4 times including time in three countries (America, China, and Hong Kong).  Emma was our firecracker due on the 4th of July. We planned to have her the our home city in China.

My pregnancy with Emma was so different than my pregnancy with Bella. With Bella, I was so organized and had everything so planned. Within a couple months of finding out that I was pregnant, I had bought all my maternity clothes, baby clothes and had the nursery finished. I had a birth plan A and a birth plan B - both typed up, with 10 copies waiting by the door. With Emma, life was chaos. I had to roll with the punches. I had to take each day one day at a time.

I had really bad morning sickness the entire nine months (which unfortunately was true with both my girls). During my pregnancy I faced kidney stones. I was cut by a piece of glass which happened to puncture an artery that caused me to loose a lot of blood. Then around 33 weeks, my water started to leak. Despite each of these events, I did not go into premature labor and Emma was never in distress. She stayed strong and healthy.

Then grand finale was when I suddenly collapsed and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital in China. My heart went into tachycardia and was beating at over 200 beats per minute during the 40 minute ride to the hospital. I don't remember much about that time, but it from the stories Philip tells me it sounds like a Chinese ambulance ride was quite the cultural experience. He also tells me that as I came in and out of consciousness, my only concern was for Emma's safety.

I stayed in the hospital for three days. Medication had brought my heart rate down some and although my heart rate was still very elevated, I was released from the hospital. During this time, Emma was still perfectly healthy and unaffected by all that was happening in my body. I was home for one day, when it was recommended that our family go to Hong Kong to have the baby. We would be gone for about two months and needed to leave the very next day so that we didn't miss the window that I was allowed to fly.

After several weeks of lots of doctors appointments, being bounced between the OB and the cardiologist, it was determined that I was as ready as I would ever be for a c-section. My heart rate was still elevated and I was at risk for cardiac problems during the surgery, but it seemed very likely the Emma would be delivered safely.  I felt so helpless and uninvolved during labor this time. I couldn't see or feel what was going on. I remember how wonderfully relieved I felt as I heard the first sweet little cry. As she came out, one of the nurses said, "Ooo she has strange color hair." Red! Another redhead! (Chinese people don't seem to know what color to call it). 45 minutes after surgery began I was able to hold my beautiful daughter Emma.

Immediately after the surgery, my heart rate came back down to normal. I felt so good! (I did experience some mild problems again several weeks later, but things are still much better!).

 My recovery from the C-section went really well.  There were things about a c-section that were hard compared to a vaginal birth like not being able to have Emma room in with me at the hospital or not being able to hold Bella when I got home from the hospital. But there were benefits, like knowing when we would have her and being able to make arrangements for Bella and mom's visit.

Tears in my eyes as I came home and got to hug Bella for the first time in several days.

When it was all over. None of it mattered - c-section or vaginal birth, China or Hong Kong, birth plans or to-do lists. We got to bring home our sweet beautiful healthy Emma Jane...