Beautiful Bella...

What a day...

We got up this morning and hung around the hotel. We did a little shopping at this place around the corner that we like real well...the guy there always talks to Miss Chloe-Belle! We talked to another family who got here on the 22nd of May and gets to go home Tuesday. My new best case scenario doesn't seem to be looking great. Most people are saying that their interviews have been exactly a week apart. If that happens then we will miss our flight on the 11th and have to stay until Wednesday, if we can even get on that flight. Japan Air is booked until after the 15th...that sucks. I'm starting to think that I'll never get out of here...

In the afternoon we went and hung out at a mall. We had dinner at an italian restaurant. I had pizza and potato soup. Well, turns out Chloe finds potato soup to be quite tasty...she ate half the bowl! So, we stopped at the citimart and I'm going to try her on some baby food, I bet she likes that!

Morning Shots

In Chloe-Bella's Defense...

I feel like I should cut little miss Bella some slack. I don't know that she is more cranky than normal...it's just that I'm the only one who has to deal with it. I'm sure she would have been just as cranky when her daddy was here if she were in the same circumstances.

Meaning, she wants to be held all the time. And she prefers for you to be up walking when you are holding her. Now that wasn't so bad when both Mark and I were here. We could kind of pass her off. Now it's just me and I'm not really into holding her and walking 24/7. So I try to lay her on the bed and entertain her in other ways...but she's not so much into that. So we end up standing and walking most of the day. But there are times where I simply can't hold her: When I take a shower, make a bottle, clean up, etc. So those times I have to put her down, and like I said, she's not so much into that. Before Mark left, I could just hand her to him and all would be well... So basically, she just hasn't been getting her way as much. But she's so cute, even when she's crying! (See picture in prior post)

So if all goes according to plan, the best case scenario is that I will be home on the 12th. And I can't wait. There are a few things that I am completely looking forward to:

• Being able to eat a meal in peace. I have three basic options right now: 1) hold her while I eat. (This is a little difficult when you have to eat with chopsticks. Plus she's typically crying when I do this, as I'm not standing up) 2) Put her down and eat, but I end up shoveling everything into my mouth as she is crying the whole time. And she is mobile right now, so I can't just leave her on the bed and not worry about it. 3) Wait to eat my food until she is sleeping. Then I end up eating cold food. As you can see, none of these situations are ideal.
• Being able to take more than a two minute shower.
• Being able to use the restroom when I want to...

So Chloe got up about 8:00 am today. By 4:00, I was completely stir crazy, so Chloe and I walked all the way around the lake. Bella is pretty hit and miss as far as the stroller goes, so I thought I would try the snuggli pouch again. I figured out how to get her in it facing out...and she LOVED it. I walked around the whole lake and she didn't get fussy once! Nice!!!

We hung out in the lobby for a little bit with the other families. Of course all the Heart Hotel staff had to hold Chloe, which she loves. About 7:30pm we did a little shopping with another family. There was a street that was closed off to motor bikes, so we thought that would be fun. Against my better judgement I took the stroller instead of the snuggli...big mistake. We just ended up holding a little baby and pushing an empty stroller. Spoiled! She would cry and cry in the stroller...to the point almost hysterical crying. So I would pick her up and instantly she would be smiley...no tears! Sneaky little thing. If I were at home I probably wouldn't give in so much, but in Hanoi everybody would swarm us and try to pick her up to get her to stop crying.

Last, at about 10pm tonight, I received Bella's dossier. It has all of her official paperwork in it, in both english and vietnamese. It tells of the circumstances around her abondonment and life subsequent to being placed for adoption. It was nice to read, but sad. Sad in that Bella is such a precious baby, I can't imagine what it must have been like for her birthmother to give her up, it must have been bery hard. I can't imagine anyone looking at her and being able to. And I can't imagine what it must have been like for her to be just left somewhere, how scared she must have been... I just hope and pray that Chloe realizes that she was always loved. First by her birthmother, then by the nannies at the orphanage, and by us.

Let's Play a Little Game

I think I found the perfect rug for Chloe's room. Want to guess how much it cost? It was hand made....

We also had some quilts handmade here for her...they were $12/quilt...

Pictures...

Bella-Baby...

Thursday: Didn't do much. Tracked down some extra paperwork that we needed for our interviews. Found out that my paperwork didn't get submitted in time for me to have my interview Friday. Took a nap when Chloe napped.

Friday: Went to Japan Airlines because our travel agent won't help us. Watched The Ringer. Purchased Pirates of the Carribean 3. Hung out at the hotel while the rest of the families had their first interviews.

Our first interview will be Monday. Our medical will be on the 7th. It looks like the earliest I will get home will be the 12th. That will make me gone for over a month... On the bright side, when else will I ever be able to have been out of the country for a month!?!

Some random pictures of Chloe-belle:

Wednesday in Hanoi

So I have to say that since I have been over here, I've found a lot of things:

• I can't keep my days of the week straight
• I never know the date
• I think that dinner that costs more than $3.00 is too expensive
• I've learned that I never really forgot all those barney songs. Some kids channel is mostly all that I have on over here, and I find myself subconsiously (sp?) singing along with them all....

Chloe has been a very good baby today. We practiced crawling today. I put her on one side of the bed, went to the other and tried to call her to me. She really WANTS to crawl, but most of the time just ends up crawling in place. But with much effort, frustration, and tears, she made it over to me. It took her about 10 minutes, but she did it! And she was really excited when she did!

So, did I mention that everyone tells us that Chloe is older than she is? Well, I asked Thuy about it, and she explained to us that most babies from orphanages are more developed. They have to learn to play with themselves, entertain themselves, feed themselves (hold the bottle), so they naturally develop faster. Most Vietnamese babies are very spoiled by their parents, and their parents do everything for them until they are much older. So just because she is more developed, doesnt' mean she's older. Although she probably is, just not by much.

Anyway, I found that interesting.

We go pick up the babies' passports tomorrow. We go for our first embassy interview on Friday at 1:30. Our medical appointment will be either Monday or Tuesday. Our second interview will probably be Wed or Thurs, and then the Visa would be issued the NEXT day by 4, meaning Thursday is probably the earliest we could leave, getting back Friday. Possibly we won't be able to leave until Friday... Of course this is all best case scenario...

Being Alone...

So I've almost made it through my first whole day by myself with the baby. I think you guys might hear from me more now, as when Chloe is napping, I don't really have much to do...

So today we went and applied for the babies' passports. This part of the government seems VERY efficient, more so than the US!!! Four families went to apply for the passports and we were in and out in about 10 minutes. Nice! Then we went to get the babies' pictures taken for the Visas and medical exam. That, again, took maybe 10 minutes. So we got everything done, and including travel, in about 30 minutes. I think that's the fastest we've done anything so far. We spent about 30 minutes earlier this morning doing paperwork. So we're done with all paperwork!!!!

So I thought we would have been more adventurous as far as eating goes. But really, we've been quite lazy. We basically have our two main staples, and then a few we throw in every once in a while.

Today I had cashew chicken for lunch. For dinner, a club sandwhich, french fries, and an apple crumble tart thing. Pretty good...

I talked in another post about how much I love the pineapple here. I try to stay stocked up in it. Chloe and I went for a walk today and got some more. While the lady was cutting it up, we got pounced on by the lychee lady. She unpeeled one and had me taste it. It was pretty good. You just peel the outside off, there's a seed on the inside like in an avocado, and the fruit that surrounds it is like the texture of a grape.

So the lady offers me this HUGE bag and tells me 20,000 dong. I tell her that's too much. Not the money, the amount of fruit. So she splits it up and hands me about 1/3 of the fruit...I ask her how much...she says 10,000 dong. (At this point, I'm wishing the pineapple lady would get done). I offer her 7,500 instead. She says no, 10,000 dong! I tell her to forget it and start to walk away. Pineapple lady hands we the pineapple and we start to leave. I still have the money in my hand and the lychee lady starts following me, hollering something. I turn around and she takes about 4 of them out, shoves the bag in my hand and snatches my money. I guess I can't complain too much, as it cost approx $.45, but I'm pretty sure that I just got ripped off by the lychee lady. I paid the same amount for these things that I paid for the AWESOME pineapple...

But what do you do???

Back to the post topic...being alone. We bought a stroller, so it's nice for going on some short walks with Chloe. We keep them pretty short, as she doesn't like being in it for long. But mostly I'm just hotel bound. (And Mark thought HE was stir crazy being in the room...) The other families here have been awesome, helping out whenever they can. I've had every meal delivered to my car, visits, help lugging my bag around, etc. So that is totally awesome.

Chloe is constantly crying...the only thing that soothes her is if I am standing up walking around with her, or feeding her. Most of the time only the bottle works. I feel like I am WAY over feeding her. But she throws up so often, I'm not sure if the bottles count! She also regular spits up. I've considered whether this vomiting is due to overfeeding, but I don't think so, as she's been doing it from the very start, and we've only been giving her 4 oz at a time.

I guess its unfair of me to say constantly. It just seems like constantly. She's such a funny baby. She's either REALLY, REALLY upset and crying, or she REALLY, REALLY happy and laughing. She's so adorable when she's happy. (She's adorable when she's not too :) ) I think we'll have a lot of real good bonding time.

So Chloe's "birthdate" is 01/02/2007 . Thuy elaborated that by birthdate, it simply means the day that they were found abandoned...they don't try to estimate the baby's age. For example, in our group, there are two babies' whose birthdates are two days apart...they are both just 3.5 months. But if you look at the two babies', they are so obviously further apart in age. So its possible that one was abandoned right after birth, while the other baby was taken care of for awhile.

Everybody (vietnamese) seems to think that Chloe is older than what she is as well. In about a week or so, she'll be about 5 months old. I really have no basis to say whether she is or not. She is small, especially in comparison to all but the little 3.5 month old baby. Some of the clothes that were too big for Chloe were too small for the other bigger 3.5 month old baby. So who knows... I just thought that was interesting.

Anyway, I'll end with a few pictures of the day:

Advice Needed

For the most part, Chloe is a very good baby. She has her moments, but nothing out of ordinary. She likes to be held ALL the time, and not just held, but held while you are standing up. Otherwise she'll scream. But she's getting better. I think she's just used to all the attention right now and likes it!

What I need advice on is this...

Chloe throws up after every time she eats. Its always either one of two consistancies: Completely clear liquid, sometimes with speckles of formula in it, like the water completely seperated from the formula; or thick and pasty, like the formula without water. Notice I am saying she is vomiting and not spitting up. The stuff smells like vomit--you know acidic and gross??? I was thinking she might be having a bit of acid reflux, but the problem is that she doesn't seem uncomfortable or cranky while she eats or after. When she throws up, she doesn't seem uncomfortable either. Its the vomit smell that has me curious. I guess it's more of a convenience thing right now, as no bib or outfit can be used twice. When you calculate how often she has a bottle, and it happens everytime she eats, you can see that it really adds up. And it's always the vomity type stuff, not regular formula spit up. I can definitely smell the acid in it as well, so I'm curious why its not hurting her little throat...

I'm wondering if it might be something that goes away when we switch her to her new formula...

For now, we've just been feeding her more upright and trying to keep her upright for about 30 minutes after eating. It helped a little, but the problem is still persisting. But maybe this is normal in some babies...not sure...

Anyway, feel free to offer your thoughts....

Random Stuff

So Chloe has been really good about sleeping through the night. She'll wake up a few times for a bottle or diaper change, but in all, she usually sleeps about 12 hours at night. Notice that I said usually. She's been up since 6 am today! I'm trying and trying to get her to go back to sleep so that I can take a shower, but doesn't look like that's going to happen. (Her going back to sleep, not me taking a shower)

So yesterday's G&R definitely did not happen exactly smoothly... We were supposed to be ready at 830am for a G&R at 11am. At 830am we found out that it was postponed and that we would leave at 11am. At 11am we were told it was delayed again, now we leave at 2pm. At this point I didn't have much faith that it would happen...but the van showed up! So we all piled in and made our way to the province.

Did I mention that it was SUPER hot and SUPER humid over here??? Well, it is. So we FINALLY get to the department of justice and Thuy tells us that we all have to wait outside until they call us up...no waiting room. And by wait outside, I don't mean in the van with air conditioning, I mean OUTSIDE. So that was fun...

We finally got called up. We started out by filling out some paperwork, signing some forms. The guy doing the ceremony definitely wasn't happy with us...he lectured us about how by law, they have so many days to process the paperwork and that they were actually early, not late. When you tell that to people who have just been sitting in country for 2.5 weeks, it really doesn't mean much...

They asked us if we changed our minds about the adoption, we of course said no. Then they have us the signed adoption decree. That means that Chloe is officially ours, according to Vietnamese law!!!

So today we are going to go apply for the passports, visas, and have visa pictures taken. I think we are back to expediting the passports...we'll see.

Well I gotta run and try to get a super quick shower. Love you all!

FINALLY...G&R!!!

First, I wanted to apologize for the lack of updates. We were supposed to have our G&R on Monday, the 14th. As you know that didn't happen. But we finally had it today. So basically we spent two weeks in country accomplishing not a single thing, procedural wise. Meaning now is when our "in country" time starts.

We have had Chloe since Friday, the 18th. We shouldn't have had her before the G&R, but we got her on a medical pass. She definitely has her fussy moments and she's been pretty congested. I also think she's teething. So basically the last week and a half has been spent waiting for news each day on a G&R, waiting for it to be meal time to go and eat, and then waiting for it to be bedtime. Therefore, I really didn't feel like I had anything that I could post yet. We wanted to wait until the actual G&R to start posting about Chloe.

IN GENERAL

Chloe has definitely kept our hands full. We've spent the last week trying to develop eating, napping, and sleeping routines. And let me tell you, this child will sleep through ANYTHING! Jackhammering, bumpy roads, horns, you name it. To get her to go to sleep, I have to take her set of plastic keys and rattle them loud and non stop until she's asleep. The second I start she closes her eyes, and if I stop before she's asleep she'll pop them back open.

She has gotten pretty spoiled with wanting to be held all the time. Her favorite song right now is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. In the time we've had her, she's learned to roll over from her back to tummy. She used to roll over and her arm would get stuck underneath her, but she's finally learned to get it out.

I will post about the G&R sometime tomorrow. We had a rough night once we got back to the hotel. She slept the whole 2.5 hours drive back to the hotel, then was quite upset once we got here and I put her to bed. She probably cried for a solid 45 minutes.

Mark left the department of justice early in order to make his flight back tonight. So I'll be on my own for the next couple weeks.

I'm gonna get some sleep, as I'm all about sleeping when she sleeps. I'll leave you all with some pretty cute pictures. I have to say, I think she's the most adorable baby ever...I am not biased or anything:). She's got the cutest little crooked smile. And it's super cute how she likes to suck on her lower lip. Can't wait for all you guys to meet her! Hopefully we'll make the flight back on the 6th, getting in on the 7th, but that's being VERY optimistic...

This is Chloe after we got back to the hotel at close to 11pm. Not in the mood to sleep...

Day 11 &12

First off, Mark is feeling a lot better. It was basically a 24 hour thing. So that's good.

Again, things aren't progressing at the rate we expected, so I wasn't able to do the substantial update I thought I would be able to do.

Monday: We really didn't do a lot. We waited around until about noon to see if we would make any of our appointments. But we didn't. So we went to the market and did some shopping for groceries. On the way back we bought 2 pineapples from a street vendor. I have to tell you, pineapples in Vietnam are the best ever. They are so, so fresh, I've never tasted anything like them. And the ladies peel and chop them right in front of you. They do it with suck skill that when they take the outside off, they don't take ANY of the fruit with it!!! It's crazy! But it only takes them about two minutes!

After that, we ordered some pizza for lunch. Then we did a little more shopping. That's about it...

Tuesday: Again we waited until noon at the hotel. Then we went over to this dvd store and got a bunch of dvd's to keep ourselves entertained. We went back to our room and watched Chaos. It was was pretty good. We had never heard of it before...It had Jason Stathem, Wesley Snipes, and Ryan Phillipe in it.

Then we took a taxi with the other families over to a mall. We had dinner at an italian restaurant, which was pretty good. I think we'll definitely go back. Did I tell you guys that we had KFC the other day as well???

We came back to our room and watched Employee of the Month and then went to bed.

And again, now we're just waiting around the hotel room waiting to hear whether anything will happen today.

All that being said, looks like Mark is definitely coming back early. I think he'll get into Indianapolis on Tuesday at 3:40 or so...

Day 10-Continued

So it's almost 7pm Sunday night here...

Mark still is not feeling well. He's been having GI issues and has been throwing up all day. He's got a bad headache...I'm assuming from all the fluid loss. Another family gave him something to stop the vomiting, so that's been a little better, he's trying to drink some pedialyte. He hasn't been out of bed all day and we started him on some antibiotics, just in case. We're hoping it's just a one day thing...

I'm not sure what exactly made him sick. Yesterday we had breakfast in the hotel, same as normal. We got carryout from a resteraunt that we've frequently eaten at for lunch, and then we weren't really hungry for dinner, so we got an ice cream cone. If it is food related, it would make the most sense if it were the ice cream cone, but I had one too, although a different flavor. But I also tried some of his as well.

Anyway, hopefully he's feeling well enough to get out of bed tomorrow. I'll keep everyone posted...

Day 10

Well, today wasn't such a great day for some of us...

Mark got pretty sick last night. He hasn't been out of bed all day today. Hopefully he'll start feeling better soon. I don't know if it was something he ate, or what... Because of that, we've just basically stayed in the room all day. I went to the market to get him some sprite and crackers, hopefully he'll be up for eating some later.

So that's all for now...Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Day 9

Today was pretty much a lazy day. We stayed in most of the day. We had breakfast in the hotel, ordered in for lunch, then just had ice cream for dinner. No real shopping. Today was kind of rainy...

I don't really have much to update, so I'll leave it at that. I'll probably do a short update tomorrow, then Monday, hopefully we'll have a substantial one...

Thanks everyone who is helping out at home, we really appreciate it. Hope Sammi and Raj aren't being too difficult.

We're going to have a lot of organizing to do when we get home for Chloe's room. Going through what actually fits her, etc.

Day 8-Friday

So it's 10am and as far as we know, the G&R is still on! Unfortunately, I think that most of our clothes are going to be way too big for her!!! We'll let you know how it goes and post pictures later...

In the meantime, any updates on Sammi and Raj would be greatly appreciated!!!

Day 7-Thursday

We missed breakfast today and decided to make an early lunch. I was a wimp and just got a chicken club, while Mark had a Bacon Burger. What is a bacon burger, you ask? Well, it's a not a hamburger with bacon! It's actually just a bun with lettuce, tomato, melted cheese, and a lot of bacon!

Afterwards we took a taxi to the museum of ethnology. My camera ran out of batteries while we were there, so we didn't get a lot of pictures. I haven't searched through our stuff for them yet, so I will post pictures later. It was definitely interesting...

Thuy told us that if we take a taxi, we should stick with CP taxi or Hanoi taxi. Some taxis will drive you around for a long time to run up the meter or will try some other scam. So we tracked down a CP taxi and headed out. It was about a 10-15 minute drive. It ended up costing us 80 dong, which is $5. While we were there we saw another lady from our agency who had come out by herself...we decided to split a taxi back to the hotel. When we went out, we didn't see either of those two taxi companies, so we just picked one and went. He ended up charging us 140 dong...twice the price as what we paid getting there!!!! Oh well though, what can you do?

GOOD NEWS! Supposedly our G&R is on for tomorrow at 3pm. We'll head out the orphanage at noon, have the G&R, then take Chloe home with us!!!! Keep your fingers crossed! After the G&R we have to apply for her passport, have two exit interviews, a medical check, and get her visas...then we'll get to come home.

Hopefully not, but it looks like Mark will be coming back by himself... :(