We have a daughter!

Welcome to the family Ava Ann!

Sunday afternoon we met the other 2 families in our travel group. There were supposed to be 5, but we found out that the other 2 cancelled because of the riskiness of filing the I600. Since we left to fly here on Wednesday, we missed the conference call with the other families and the adoption agency. It seems the US Embassy here in Vietnam is being really picky about the paperwork and looking for any little thing to deny or delay the visa processing. Needless to say, this made us a little nervous. All we could do was pray that everything would work out.

We were to meet in the lobby Monday morning at 6:15am. We missed breakfast because the buffet doesn't start until 6:30. So we just had crackers. It turns out our van driver overslept and did not arrive until almost 7am. We did sneak upstairs to grab some food since he was late.

Then the 3 1/2 hour ride to the orphanage. It doesn't take 3 1/2 hours because of the distance, it's because of the road conditions and traffic. We took motion sickness medicine before we left, just in case. We arrived at the orphanage and were given our babies. The nannies changed them into the clothes we brought and we all loaded into the van to go to the official building where the G&R would take place. The nannies held the babies. They don't like to give them up, but we knew that after that day we would have her all the time. The G&R took about 20 minutes for all 3 families. We signed the paperwork and we are now her legal parents. Hooray! Then we went across the street for lunch and again the nannies held the babies. It was authentic Vietnamese food, so I wasn't going to eat. But I did have some pork/vegetable spring rolls that were delicious. The officials from the orphanage were there also and it seemed to take forever. Then we went back to the orphanage to talk with the nannies to find out about the babies schedules, etc. The coordinator from the adoption agency, who lives here in Vietnam, said he would be back in about 2 hours. We were all ready to leave after about 1 hour. There was only 1 nanny who spoke English. The nannies keep the babies so bundles up, they were sweaty. They always think they are cold. It was probably around 75-80 degrees. When we got there, Ava had on a long sleeve shirt and a sweater over that, and of course a hat. They are very concerned about the sun and always shield the babies from it. The coordinator showed up about 3 hours later. By then it was dusk and the mosquitos were starting to come out. We all had on mosquito spray and had reapplied since we had been there. Then the long 3 1/2 hour drive home with 3 babies in the dark. We were exhausted, but all the babies did well. They were quiet. We arrived back at the hotel around 8:30pm. It wasn't until that time that it really hit me that we are the parents of a baby girl. She is so adorable. We ordered room service and then gave her a bath. She had a bottle and went to sleep at 10pm. I expected to be up during the night with her, but when she didn't wake up, I got up to make sure she was still breathing. I woke up at 5:45am, the same time I have been waking up every morning since we have been here (without an alarm). We showered, etc and she was still sleeping. We woke her up at 7:30am so we could feed her and go to breakfast before Mark had to leave at 9am. At 9am the guys were picked up to go apply for the babies passports. Ava and I went back to our room. We took her to the SOS clinic this afternoon to have her checked over. She has had a stuffy nose and a little rattle in her chest. But the doctor said she is fine. We were glad to hear that. She hasn't slept much today and seems a little more fussy. Hopefully she'll sleep good again tonight.

Back to the I600 issue I mentioned earlier. It seems that some of the parents adopting from other agencies or from other provinces are having problems. This morning we talked to some others who are with our agency and adopted from our province, but have already been here 2 weeks. They were waiting for their last appointment at the Embassy and found out they get to go home Friday. So that's 3 weeks for them. So it looks like we will probably be here that long also. I won't know more until it gets closer to that time.