Jiangyin SWI

Hi Everyone,

As I had alluded to, it has been a good - but challenging 48 hours. Lyla is wonderful and we have had some very touching moments. She is definitely grieving and needs to be with Lesley nearly all the time – sleeping and waking. She definitely can walk and is starting to spend short spurts of time exploring our hotel room on her own – the half of the room that I am not in! Lyla will not come to me and in fact closes her eyes tightly when I interact with her. If she is having a hard time she sometimes shakes her head “no” and closes her eyes. We had expected some kind of response to the stress and grief and this is manageable so far – if not very demanding on Lesley. We already see signs of improvement on this. It will just take time for her to relax and trust her new life. In the meantime she is really bonding closely with Les and has provided us with some very special moments.


We traveled to Lyla’s orphanage in Jiangyin today. It is about 2.5 hrs away from Nanjing, east towards Shanghai. We visited with the family from California, whose daughter, Sophie is a crib mate of Lyla. We are so lucky to have shared this experience with them. They have 2 teenaged children, 18 and 15 who are traveling with them and they have been great help with the baby and great company for us. The orphanage was amazing. The director, vice-director, and all of the nannies are wonderful caring people who provide a very loving environment for about 60 children. The facility itself is very modern and amazing. There is a large vegetable garden in the back yard that the older children take care of, and many separate rooms for the different activities that the children take part in. We were able to visit the nursery rooms and Lyla’s actual crib and cupboard that still had her name and details on it – it was very emotional. We were also able to spend some time with some of the older children. They interacted with our two kids like siblings. One particular teenager was so special. She was very bright, spoke many words in English and was very excited to see us and the babies. It was very hard for us to say goodbye. The nannies held Lyla and Sophie and we could tell they were very connected with the girls. It was a very emotional goodbye for all. We were able to visit Lyla’s finding spot and we have a photo of Lyla when she was found and what she was found with. This is so important for us to have as this is part of her life story. We took some photos with the director and then had an amazing lunch at a restaurant close by. The food was the best we have had so far, and the service was excellent.


We headed back to Nanjing and on the way stopped to see where the Yangzee River and the ocean meet. I have to tell you that I have never seen such a busy waterway in my life. You can’t imagine the level and density of industrial activity in this area. As a consequence the air and water quality were very poor. It is really hard to believe that people live so close to very heavy industry – they essentially share the same neighborhoods.


We are very anxious to get home and we miss Mara a ton. Please give her tons of hugs and kisses.

Hope all of you are braving the cold and have your Christmas shopping done.
We will post more soon.

Goodnight.