Yipeee!

Will post more later, but just have send a shout out to say how happy I am that my buds Em and Kristen got their I600 approvals---FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go get your girls, my dear friends!!! See you on the other side of motherhood! :)
Big, HUGE hugs and congratulations to you--I will deliver them in person as soon as I can!!

Also, Cindi's little guy, Hudson is home from the hospital!! Good news all around! Yay!!!

Man, are we parents now...

Whew, we have had our roughest night and day since becoming parents--I have now listened to hours of blood curdling screaming, been thrown up on and projectile pooped on. Evidently we had tummy issues last night, but at the time we had no idea what could be wrong, but that she was NOT a happy camper. It was very hard and at those times, you start wondering if you were cut out for this--it can really get to you. At one point last night, I was just hoping she would exhaust herself from screaming and go to sleep, as nothing we could do was helping. Finally, I think that happened when Matt finally put her in the crib and just rubbed her back and she passed out. This morning did not lend itself the usually happy baby we had gotten used to either, and figured either is was greiving finally setting in, or the fact that we hadn't gotten a poop in the last day or so. :)

Chalk it up to not knowing the lanquage when you buy baby formula added to the fact that she is on medication that can upset the fine balance of an infants tum-tum. When we went to the store the other day to buy more formula, we thought we were buying a smaller can of what we had been feeding her (at the orphanage too), but on further inspection at the store yesterday, we realized we had accidently bought formula for a one to three year old (they seem to have lots of toddler formulas here, right with the other kind). OOps--the can labels looked almost the same, except evidently one was level 2 and we meant to get step 2--honest mistake,right!? Hey, we are new at this, and all the labels are in Vietnamese! Evidently either the formula change or the antibiotic or both did not sit well with her digestion. Well, in her crazy fits last night, she worked herself up so much, she threw up all over me, herself and the bed. That was fun. Then today, after our outing and she was still a little fussy, and just not herself--we took her temp, and no fever, so we decided it was probably the lack of pooping issue and gave her a tiny bit of infant laxative--about an hour later, we acheived what we all had been waiting for when she started grunting! We waited until we thought she was done to change her diaper, but when Matt went to change her it became evident she was not in fact done, and the diaper started to overfloweth--I ran to help, and while Matt ran to get a back up, I moved it away and was shot in the leg with you-know-what. I think she smiled. It was pretty funny, actually when all said and done and everybody was clean again. I know she will love reading this when she is 16. :)

Yesterday we doodled around in the room with fussy baby, and then at the appointed time, headed out with some others to take our laundry to a place the dads had found the day before near the city center. They were picking up, and we were dropping off, so we all went together. Interesting to say the least, it is so different how you can be on a busy street, with modern stores and then turn down a narrow lane and you will find women making food on little stoves by the sidewalk and just intimate daily life going on right at your feet. Many people live in the same shops that they work out of, by just pulling out a mat, so all of it is so intertwined. The "Laundry Place" turns out to be a tiny little 8' (if that) wide stall with a bike parked in front, that blocked the whole front, and the little lady comes out and weighs your dirty duds and charges you by the kilo. I think our good-size bag came out to be around 111,000 dong, which is around $7. Pretty good deal, seeing the hotel charges that for two items. I have been washing alot of small things in the sink in the room, like some baby clothes and diapers we use for burp cloths. I think I wash 6 of those a day. Word to people who will be traveling soon-bring extra, and bring the one-ply kind, not the pre-folded, as it takes everything a long time to dry in this humidity. You can get laundry soap at the store here, but I brought these little travel sizes that are the size of a travel shampoo (All Small & Mighty) and I'm glad I did.

When we got back yesterday, we walked down the street exploring a bit, the sidewalks here are pretty hard to navigate--there are scooters, raised grates, concrete debris and carts with things for sell all taking precidence over the area meant to walk--also, if the traffic is heavy people will drive their scooters right up on the sidewalk to get around it. We walked about a mile toward a baby shop I had seen when we were in a cab, but decided it was too far when we got to a certain point--the smog is really heavy and I had the baby in the Bjorn with a burp cloth over her mouth and nose. We realized today in the shuttle downtown that it was right around the corner from where we turned around--Oh, well, I may cab it next time. We ended up back at the mall with the "Big C", which was quite packed this time--I guess most everyone grocery shops on Sundays! Couldn't stand it for too long, so we had another coffee and Highland Coffee and headed back to the hotel--then we ordered room service again and (see above) ensued.

To go to the laundry place, the hotel shuttle drops us off at a place called Saigon Centre, another little mall with some upscale shops and cafes. That is where we bought M the new stuffed piggy and a couple of cute dresses that we paid more for than we would have in the States, but we can say they came from Vietnam-we are trying to buy her some things from her homeland that we can give her for future birthdays and such. The challenge is to keep them pack-friendly. :) There are so many things I would get if getting it back was not such an issue.

Well, after the poop, it looks like we have our baby back--for a while there I thought she had been replaced by the chick from the Excorc*st. She is a silly little thing with a sense of humor already.

Must go to bed now, but I am composing a post of Buttercup tidbits--little things we are finding out about our little girlie-girl.....

We are trying for a trip to Ben Thanh market tomorrow--we are running out of time in our stay in Saigon and we need to see a few things--if the little one is up to it, of course! New pics are on the Flickr site, so feel free to check them out--hopefully we can take some more tomorrow--haven't gotten out of the room a whole lot in the last day or so, unless it was to a little mall. :)

Matt & baby are sleeping......must get there too.....G'night!

Hi, from Saigon! (Ho Chi Minh City)

Hello! I think we are finally up and running again! Thanks so much to my bud Emily for posting for me! The hotel in Danang blocked all blogger sites and acted like they didn't exist, and I couldn't remember my code to post by email--yet another thing forgotten in our haste to leave...

Anyway, like Em posted, we had the Giving & Receiving ceremony on Wed, so buttercup is officially our daughter! Woohoo! She behaved wonderfully, and fell asleep right up until it was our turn. She said goodbye to all the nannies who I know will miss her and she them. She was all dressed in her fancy duds (which then got put in a ziplock to suffocate the critters!) The next day, Thursday, we left Danang to fly back to Saigon, so she had her first flight in Business class. There we learned our buttercup has some good lungs and knows how to use them! Man can our girl scream! I am really looking forward to that 11 hour leg of flight home! Not! I finally got her to sleep--it was only an hour flight, thank goodness. She will not take a pacifier, so we couldn't get her to ease her ears that way. I never understood a baby not taking a pacifier until now, if we try to stick it in her mouth, she gets mad and screams louder! Ha, ha. She is getting us trained, I guess.

We are doing good and all getting to know each other. We spent that night getting settled and figuring out we didn't have the easiest baby in the world, evidently--she must have been pooped that first night because it was a breeze to get her to sleep then--check out the new pics of the sleeping angel. Last night the benedryl that helped her itching the night before didn't work so well, so it was a little battle of the wills to get her to sleep....The next morning, yesterday, at 8 am sharp, we all met Quoc in the lobby to pile in two vans to go apply for the babies' passports, get the babies' medical exams done for the visas, and to have their passport photos taken. All went well--we are in good hands with Quoc. He left yesterday and will meet us in Hanoi. We have until next Wed to wait for the passports to process, so we finally have a little downtime to get out and explore. After we got back fromt the appointments yesterday we did just that--we went to Pho 24 to eat---what else, but some Pho (Vietnamese Noodle Soup), one of our faves--with Bethany & Kevin and their daughter, Leah and then we braved the traffic to cross to the little mall to do some shopping at the "Big C" store. It is like a smaller Vietnamese Super Wal-Mart. There is everything from groceries, to shoes, to electronic appliances. It was really neat and I love that everyone is getting ready for Tet and is so festive--liken it to shopping right before Christmas for us. We managed to buy Buttercup enough fancy red envelopes to celebrate Tet for a few years to come. This is where we found the adaptor that saved the day and is allowing us to charge all of our stuff now. Whew, one crisis averted. We shopped our little hearts out, going down every aisle and bought some food for the room, so when Princess M is sleeping (or screaming) we have something to munch on. We got some interesting different fruits to try--it is really a mystery because everything is really all in Vietnamese there. Most places tend to have English translations on the signs, but not in there, so it's gonna be mystery fruit! The little bananas they have here are so good! They are really tiny and sweet--I stock up at the breakfast bar in the morning.

We all relaxed and had coffee at Highland Coffee (for those of you that didn't know, Vietnam is the second largest producer of coffee and it is so rich and good here) before braving the traffic to head back to the hotel. The traffic here defies description--it is absolutely insane. I had heard all about it, and still I am utterly amazed. Picture 1,000 motorbike/scooters and a few cars and vans in a constant stream of traffic that never lets up, just jockeying for position and passing and weaving around each other (it's scary enough riding in a car/van from that view) and needing to cross to the other side. Well, the method is to just pick a moment and step off the curb into it and they will just swerve around you as you walk (hopefully)--the trick is to keep a steady pace so they can anticipate where you will be to get around you. I just keep my eye on the other side and keep walking--imagine that with a baby strapped to you! So far, so good, we have crossed twice! On the way back another dad had joined us in his trip for supplies and he got video as we were crossing--I hope to get a copy to show later. Don't worry everyone--that is just how it is done and you see young kids carrying toddlers across in the same way. I guess they just have to be very aware of what everyone is doing around them--it must work, surprisingly we have seen no accidents at all!



Today, after Breakfast we took little Miss M to the International Clinic to have her looked at because she is still really uncomfortable and itchy and it gets worse at night and makes it hard for her to go to sleep (not hard to scream though!) and we noticed a little wheezing when she lays down. One of the other families who have a son from her orphanage took him in this morning, as his scabies is causing some major skin issues and he ended up having a slight fever and upper respiratory infection--we thought we'd better get her checked. The doctor said she had no fever and didn't seem too concerned, but told us to stop the benedryl (it will dry her up) and gave us prescriptions for an antibiotic/anti itch cream for the couple remaining places on her and an oral antibiotic to combat any infection. All that for a total of less than $20 (with no insurance!). Hopefully she will get some comfort soon--we go for a recheck on Wed. before we leave for Hanoi. She was pretty good for the doc (who was very nice, but a little hard for me to understand), and the nurse asked how long we had had her, and when we said three days, she was surprised and said she looked like she was more familiar with us--a good sign! After we got back, she played a bit and took an almost 3 hour nap, so we have been nap-trapped for the day just hanging out in the room (and spending hours uploading pictures with the much appreciated, but very slow/low internet connection--So enjoy!). New pics on the Flickr site--I am trying to slowly, but surely catch up.... Here she is getting weighed at the Visa Medical Exam--7.5 kgs and 69 cm long!



Will try to update tomorrow--hopefully we can get out and explore a bit more-hope things are open on Sundays!

Love to all! We are doing well and are loving getting to see and spend time in Vietnam-These are some of the nicest people in the world-I will try to post a pic or two, but since connection is slow, it may not work, so check out the flickr site!

Hey,
Emily here posting for Kim.
So, I think we would all agree that Kim has kept us waiting long enough, right?
Well, it turns out that she has had a lot of trouble getting into her blog. And she blew out her adapter while drying her hair. So Auntie Em to the rescue!
Here is what she had to say:
***
Just let everyone know that we just haven't been able to post yet, but everything is fine, and we have our daughter and she is wonderful! She only woke up once last night --went to bed at around 9, woke up at 12:30 am and we gave her a bottle and then she was fussy and I think itchy,so it took us about an hour an a half to get her back to sleep--she finally fell asleep on my chest and I moved her on the bed between us and she slept until 6:30 am! We all got up and took a shower to wash off the scabies cream and she ate and then went to sleep for a nap and has been asleep for 2 hours! I think we will have to wake her up to grab breakfast before we leave.
***
They have already had their G&R and will post those pics as soon as she can. Here are
pictures of the new family!

Hello from Taipei!

Hi, All!
We made it to Taipei and are just waiting to board our flight to Saigon--We are at the Hello K*tty gate-it is pretty adorable. Hello Ki*tty everywhere and complete with a store and a playground. This is the first airport we have found a good internet connection. We are doing well--our flight was very long, but the service was great and coach wasn't too terrible! That is about as long as I ever want to stay on a plane, though! We are still wondering how it will be with a baby on our laps though--very different, I'm sure. I don't think any of this has quite fully set in yet--I think it is beginning to......We are with most of our travel group, so that is really nice. Well, better get back to the Hello K*tty gate and get ready to board for our last flight for the day! We are almost there! One more three hour flight and we land in the long awaited Vietnam....Till then, love to all!