First Smile & Laugh!!!

Random Pics

A Walk in the Park

Yesterday was a good day here in Hanoi. After noon we went for a walk in the park and around the lake. It was so nice to get out and stretch our legs. The streets were so much less crowded than they normally are due to everyone being home with their family to bring in the New Year. The park was decoratored for the Tet celebration that must have been last night. I'm pretty sure of this since the owner of our hotel called our room three times between 9pm and midnight to invite us to see the fireworks then to go to the New Years Party. I politely declined each time.

When we got back to our room after our walk I started feeling horrible again. I'm starting to think it's not the outdoors making me sick but the indoors. The AC in our room blows right on our bed so maybe that's what is irritating my allergies so much. Brad went with Angie and Jacob to Rob and Mary Beth's hotel for dinner. Jack and I stayed here and chilled out. Ha, the owner of the Hotel, says that today (Saturday) the streets will be even more bare. I'm looking forward to it so we can get out again and have the city to ourselves.

Jackson does better and better every day. It's amazing how quickly they pick up on things (ie. crying). He has no problem now letting us know when he's hungry. He's also holding up his head a lot better. He even grabbed and held his wrist rattle.

He peed on our bed again. It's starting to be an every day occurance. We noticed it right away this time but Brad tried to cover him with the plastic part of the diaper instead of the absorbant part; go figure?!?

I told Brad that he would have to take some pictures of me and Jackson today (I am usually the photographer). At the rate we're going, Jackson won't even believe that I was here when we show him these pictures in a few years. Brad said he was going to just take a picture of me sleeping so he could tell Jack that he did everything for him while I just slept. Boy, that sounds just like Brad!

Raegan

Pictures from 2/14/07

French Hospital Visit

Today was a chill out day. We stayed in our room almost all day. At 4pm we took a taxi to the French Hospital for our appointment at 4:50pm (odd time huh?). The doctor said not to worry about the baby not laughing. He attributes it to him only being with us for three days. He gave us a medicine for his chest congestion, one for his nose, a cold cream for his skin, a standby medicine incase he gets fever, and a laxitive. He also ordered blood work to make sure there's no infection. If there is, we will go back to the hospital tomorrow to pick up an antibiotic. It's crazy how cheap things are here. For the visit, blood work, and five prescriptions it was $75.00! Brad says it's probably cheaper for us just to fly back here when we need medical attention instead of going in the states. HaHa Jackson weighs 12.2 lbs, is 24 inches tall, and his head is 16.9 inches around. What a man!

I can tell he's feeling better today and/or getting more used to Brad and I by the way he is so much more animated. He stares and talkes and even cries now. I'm curious to see how he does tonight. He actually cried for a bottle every three hours today and took 4 to 5 ounces each time. I wonder if he'll cry during the night or still sleep through. Above are a few pictures I took today in our hotel room. If the baby is doing better tomorrow will we venture out and do some shopping.

We went eat at a fancy restaurant tonight. Brad was treating since it's Valentines day, or so he says, but the couple with us ended up picking up the tab. I had a steak and mashed potatoes and Brad had a seafood rice dish. It looked similar to a seafood jambalaya.

I'll try to take pictures of the city if we actually leave the hotel tomorrow.

Raegan

A Few Pictures

Second Day with Baby

Jackson was better today. I think he wasn't eating because he didn't like the bottles that I brought. I borrowed a different style from Angie (the other mom that's here in the same hotel) and he's been eating ever since. Also, he doesn't cry to let me know when he's hungry so we've been having to just offer the bottle every few hours. Yesterday it was noon before he ate. That's before Rob told me that he may not cry when hungry. I thought it was because he wasn't feeling well; turns out I was starving him. We have an appointment at the French Hospital here later today to have him looked at. He is still wheezing pretty bad. The doctor that is with us (one of the dads) says that he suspects that lots of the babies have asthma due to the dirty air here. It's crazy how dirty, by the way, from the 10th floor of the doctors hotel you can see the smog - it's like a constant fog. We'll still take him in though just to make sure he's okay.

Yesterday both times we changed his diaper in the morning he peed on us (and the bedding and the floor and himself)! It was gross. He seems to be doing better in that department though since we had more than one messy diaper yesterday.

Our first embassy appointment (with US immigration) was yesterday at 3pm. I won't post details here but it didn't go as well as suspected. Please pray that we are not held up due to this. The office is closed for one week now due to Tet so we won't know if we were approved for several more days.

We didn't take any pictures outdoors yesterday but I'll post a few we have of us and the baby.

Jackson has the cutest cry. It's that sweet "I'm just a little baby and I need help darnit!" cry. [Oh my gosh, he just rolled from his back to his side! I got a picture for you guys. My baby's growing up so fast!] He has very little head control at this point. Hopefully, after some tummy time play this week he will start getting stronger.

After our appointment yesterday we had dinner at Rob and Mary Beth's hotel. It's a fancy, more Americanized hotel. The other two couples had the Italian Buffet and Brad and I had good 'ole cheeseburgers and fries. They had ketchup there AND ice in the coke! It was great.

I spoke too soon about his clothes fitting him perfectly. The first outfit he wore must have just run small. All the outfits since then have been big for him. The hats, they're a joke, they cover his head and all of his face! I should have gotten a picture of that too. It was funny.

Shaa, Jack and Brad are talking up a storm right now. The baby hasn't smiled or laughed yet (which we are concerned about) but he sure does look around and talk alot. Rob's baby that's about one month older than Jackson laughs. I wonder if it's a health concern or if he's just so used to chilling out without much stimulation that he really doesn't know to laugh or smile?

Alright, I'm going to sign off now so I can go play with them. Enjoy the pics.

PS. I am able to read all the comments. Blogger automatically forwards them to my email address. It was so nice yesterday when I opened my email and we had 16 messages from blog readers. Keep 'em coming.

Raegan

Pictures from Yesterday!

Our First Day as a Family of Three

Our first day as a family of three was wonderful. Jackson slept through the entire G&R and all the way back to Hanoi (2 hours). We got back to our hotel around 1pm and the men immediatly left to go apply for the baby's passports. We had lunch around 3pm then took naps. Our facilitators came back to our hotel around 10pm for us to fill out a few more forms that had to be turned in this morning (it's 2:58am here on Tuesday). This morning we will go have the babies' Visa photos taken then at 2:30pm today we will go for our first embassy appointment.

Now for the good stuff, Jackson is perfect. He's so cute and so good. Every now and then he will let out one little cry, only a seconds worth then he's fine. Brad said that he is warning us of what he could do if he didn't get his way, like cry all night long. He does still have the scabies but it's not as bad as in the photos we got a few weeks ago. His face isn't really that broken out but it is really bad on one of his hands. That hand is covered in bumps and what looks like tiny blisters. I put his medicine yesterday afternoon though and washed it off last night so hopefully it kills it all the first time. Last night he had a hard time falling asleep. We were ready to go to sleep around 12pm but he wasn't feeling it. We each held him for about 30 minutes before he quit crying. I don't know what was wrong. He was clean, fed, clean diaper, I had given him Tylenol Cold and Mylicon. I was clueless. I think maybe his tummy was hurting though because it sounded like a cry of pain. He didn't have a bm all day yesterday so I'm thinking that maybe the formula I'm using has him constipated. We'll see what happens this morning and take it from there.

His 3-6 month clothes fit him just fine. He looked so cute yesterday, all dressed up for the G&R. Today we will probably go for a more relaxed, casual look. Brad says he's wearing his LSU outfit but we'll see. I don't know if that is appropriate for his Visa photo.

He's not fat and not skinny, just right. I'm sure we'll get official measurements at his medical appt. though. He is taken really well to both Brad and I. He's alert; he likes to try to hold his head up and look around the room. He also likes to check us out. We haven't seen him laugh yet. Maybe today.

He has such bad congestion. When he takes his bottle especially, you can hear him wheezing really bad. I've given him several doses of Tylenol Cold & Cough but as of last night it wasn't phasing his illness. I wish I had an antihistimine incase it's his allergies. If it's not better today we'll see if we can get our hands on some Benedryl. One of the fathers traveling with us is a family physician so I may have to get some help from him.

For all of you who were worried about the "speech". It went perfectly, without a hitch. There were no ummms, no pauses, and it was intelligently worded. Of course Brad had nothing to do with it. Only one father was asked to speak on behalf of the group. Obviously Brad bowed out graciously without looking back.

The orphanage let me keep the outfit that Jackson was wearing when we picked him up. And guess what; it was that same red sweater that he was wearing in his pictures. I was so so fortunate to be able to keep it.

The other two babies are so cute too. They all seem to be really good and happy babies. They don't cry much and have just fit right into our families'.

We asked our facilitator last night for her best guess of when we might go home and she thinks that we should be able to leave by the 28th as planned, assuming everything goes well. Please keep us in your thoughts. We are nervous about our upcoming embassy appointments. That's usually where things go wrong, so we're not out of the woods yet.

PS Our skype still isn't working. We've emailed skype customer service and our adoption agency for help. Hopefully, we'll be able to call home soon.

Raegan

G&R Day!

It's here, G&R day! I can't believe it. We're so nervous. We've been up since about 2:30am. After dinner last night we packed the baby's bag since we'll be leaving so early this morning for his province. We had so much stuff that we had to use the duffel bag instead of his diaper bag! Can you tell we're first time parents or what??? We'll have breakfast at 5:30am and will leave the hotel at 6:00am. It's about a 2 hour drive to Thai Nguyen province. Our facilitator said that the ceremony will only last about 30 minutes so we should have plenty of time to get back to Hanoi and apply for Jackson's passport this afternoon. Then the wait starts. It should take about 1 week to get his passport then we can move on to the next step.

The food is good here at the hotel. The best we've had in VN so far. Last night Brad had fried rice with pork and I had mushroom & ham pizza. Both were really, really good. And they have Coke everywhere here. It sounds trivial but it's so nice to have something familiar.

I'm so nervous about not being able to comfort Jackson today. I know once we get back to our hotel and have time to get to know each other things will be just fine but I'm worried about today, in front of the officials at the ceremony. Hopefully, Jackson doesn't fuss too much so we don't look like complete idiots.

We're moving hotel rooms today. We were offered a bigger room. It's a twin room but they put the two twin beds together to make a king sized bed. We'll have much more floor space too to move around and to store all our luggage. While we are at the G&R, the staff here will move our things to the new room for us. They really spoil their guests here. When we first arrived here yesterday the staff met us at the front door and carried our bags to our room. I felt bad having them do that for us. They were each about 18 years old and weighed about 90 lbs. I felt like I should be carrying them and our bags! They are all very nice girls who speek good english.

The money here is crazy. We had to convert some yesterday to bring for our appointments today. It converted to three million dong. We're rich!! (For about three weeks anyway!)

The country (terrain, people, architecture) is so different here. I never imagined it would be like this. I would equate it to being just across the border in Mexico. Only no beggers and add about 1 million motorbikes.

Time for me to go. I want to try to rest again before having to get ready. I'm not able to log into blogger so I'm posting this via Mobile Post. Hopefully it works.

Raegan