Well….it’s finally the day! We are leaving for China.

 

Day 5 January 25, 2005

Today has been a long, exhausting day. First of all, Alyssa slept really well – she went to bed at 7:30 and slept until 5:30. She was up at 5:30 for the day. Chris and I were both up earlier than that, though, as we haven’t fully adjusted to the time change.

We went to the gov’t office today to finalize the adoption which is really great but to be honest we were so confused as to what was going on and everyone speaking Chinese that we didn’t really know if was final until after all was said and done.

There were many other families there as well from a different group so we were all trying to get passports for the babies, notorizing documents and finalizing the adoption. The good news is….Alyssa is officially ours!!

Chris and I tried to go to the grocery store but we didn’t give ourselves much time and I got side tracked by all the great baby shoes so in the end we only got bottled water and a bag of Ritz crackers. We haven’t been eating lunch because the days are so busy but we are usually starving so I was hoping to stock up on snacks while at the grocery store. We will try again tomorrow! I think we are going to the super Walmart tomorrow, too. Should be fun! I haven’t bought ONE thing yet (besides food) so I’m really anxious to pick up neat stuff for the boys and for Alyssa. I promised the 3 boys some “Chinese looking” necklaces and some cool dragon stuff.

Alyssa hasn’t been feeling well since we got her yesterday and she had a fever last night and was sweating all night. Finally, this afternoon, Yulin (our agency director) took Alyssa and I to the Hotel Medical Clinic but they thought we should go to emergency at the hospital. Well…let me tell you that was one experience I hope I don’t have again! First of all, the taxi ride there was INSANE! The drivers swerve ALL over the road as fast as they can and in the midst of all this are people walking and people on bikes jumping out in front of the cars. Horns are constantly blaring.

Anyway…we finally make it to the emergency and it’s unreal. I can’t really explain what it was like in an email but there were people everywhere and of course I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. They made us go in a room and put a thermometer in Alyssa’s bum for 3 minutes! Haven’t they heard about the ear thingys that take 5 seconds? So here we are sitting with Alyssa on her belly with a thermometer sticking out her bum and there are at least 4 other toddlers getting big needles in their bums all right there in a room the size of a bathroom. All the babies were screaming. Next we went to another room and tried to explain Alyssa’s symptoms (thank goodness for Yulin – she’s fantastic!). The doctor told me Alyssa probably had bronchitis but what they were prescribing her was very strong (Yulin told me this).

Luckily I had gotten a prescription for Zithromax before leaving PEI so we are going to give her that and hope she starts feeling better soon. She has been completely lethargic and we can tell she’s not herself. To make a long story short…we are safe and sound back in the hotel and Chris is now trying to trick her into taking the medication. We only have 3 doses to give her and she’s already spit most of the first one out! He’s singing to her right now and giving her a bit of milk hoping she won’t notice if he slips in a little medicine!

I’ll tell you about our food experiences later…we are really exhausted and I have to go make bottles and stuff. CBC is supposed to be calling us within the hour for a phone interview and we want to have Alyssa asleep by then.

Below are some photos of our day! We have many more but these are some of the highlights! We made sure to get lots of Daddy today as Alyssa is finally going to him. Thank goodness because my arms and body are getting so tired! She WILL NOT let us put her down but of course sometimes we just have to and she screams.

When she’s really upset she keeps chanting “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah…” over and over.

I will try and write a bit more tomorrow because we had a chance to talk with her orphanage director but I don’t have time to go into details right now!

Also…thank you everyone for sending us the beautiful guestbook messages and emails. It REALLY helps us feel connected to home and makes the time here much easier! (more...)

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