Sat. 6/6/09
Loaded up on food at the breakfast buffet again. The kids eat their weight in watermelon and noodles every day. Jenna prefers to eat her food with chopsticks most of the time. I can’t seem to get the hang of using them. Sarah isn’t picky. Whatever can get the food to her mouth the fastest is her preferred method.
The dreaded medical exam day has finally arrived! Jenna and Samantha stay at the hotel with Peggy, Diane’s sister. There’s no need for them to come with us. They’ll be much happier watching a video. Four families meet Molly in the lobby at 9:15 am. A new family flew into Guangzhou yesterday afternoon. This is their second adoption, too. Their older daughter is 4 yrs. old and is from Hunan province. This is the same province that Jenna and Samantha are from.
We all walk 2 blocks to get the kids’ photos taken for their visas. We’re done in 5 minutes. We walk one more block and we’re at the Medical Exam Building. It’s 9:30 am. We seem to be the first group here this morning. Hopefully, we’ll get done quickly. Oh, I forgot . . . we’re in China!! Nothing gets done quickly here. Surprise – no temperature checks today. What’s up with that? We sit and wait. We pass the time talking with the other families and swatting mosquitoes. Another group of 6 families come in and they get to go first. Bummer! Finally, it’s our turn. There are 3 stations to go to: Ear/Nose/Throat; height/weight/temperature check; and checking out internal organs and listening to the heart & lungs. Sarah passes all of them with no problem. Next come the dreaded shots. We sit and wait and wait and wait some more. Finally, our turn comes. Molly talks to the nurses about the shots. Sarah understands what they’re talking about and tells Molly “no shots” and starts to cry. It’s really hard to watch her getting stuck 6 times. She gets two shots in each leg and one shot in each arm. She cries for a couple of minutes. We distract her with candy and goldfish crackers. She stops crying and starts to chow down on the snacks. Sarah is one tough kid!! We have to wait 30 minutes to see if she has a reaction to any of the shots. Thirty minutes later, we leave the clinic. It’s 11:45 am. We were at the clinic for 2 1/2 hrs!
Back at the hotel, we hang out in the hallway with the Barths. The kids are running around. Jenna is practicing her sommersaults on the hard hallway floor. Sarah imitates her and tries a sommersault, too. She tries to tuck her head and rolls sideways. It’s pretty comical. Jenna watches Samantha doing back ward flips with her dad. She holds onto her dad’s hands and walks up his legs and does a backward flip. Jenna soon masters that skill with Tim. Sarah sees big sis doing something new and wants to try it, too. She doesn’t have much luck walking up Tim’s legs. She's too wobbly. Tim helps her out. Remember, this kid had 6 shots about an hour ago. She’s a trooper!!
After lunch, Jenna and Sarah are chasing each other from one bedroom to the other bedroom. All of a sudden, we hear Sarah screaming. She put her hand in the hinge side of the door when Jenna was shutting it. Four fingers have crease marks on them. I grab a cold beverage out of the mini refrigerator to ice it down. We don’t think any fingers are broken because she can move them. She cries for a really long time. It’s hard to comfort her with words because she doesn’t understand us and we don’t understand her. We call Molly to see if she can stop by and she calls the front desk to send us up some ice. We take Sarah out for a walk to distract her. It seems to work. She plays with the ice bag and calms down. This has been a really hard day for Sarah. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a calmer day for all of us. The rest of the afternoon passes uneventfully, thank goodness.
We meet up with 3 families for supper at La Dolce Vita (Italian place). They have great pizza and spaghetti. We order the vegetable soup for Sarah. She likes it a lot. Jenna eats most of the spaghetti (Sarah got a little bit) and then wants to eat our Margherita pizza, too. Both kids are bottomless pits. Maybe if we quit feeding them they wouldn’t have so much energy. It’s worth thinking about . . . .
The kids are finally in bed around 8:15 p.m. They fall asleep almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Tim and I haven’t quite figure out why the hotel has thick comforters with no sheets on every bed. Remember it's very hot and humid here. We're guessing it’s because people keep their rooms very cool with the air conditioning. Just another of life’s mysteries.
Gotta get to bed and catch up on my sleep. It’s almost 10:30 pm. More paperwork is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Finally, the two I-800 families catch a little break. We have less paperwork to do here since we did more in the U.S. We’ll get to meet the other two families that flew into Guangzhou today.
The dreaded medical exam day has finally arrived! Jenna and Samantha stay at the hotel with Peggy, Diane’s sister. There’s no need for them to come with us. They’ll be much happier watching a video. Four families meet Molly in the lobby at 9:15 am. A new family flew into Guangzhou yesterday afternoon. This is their second adoption, too. Their older daughter is 4 yrs. old and is from Hunan province. This is the same province that Jenna and Samantha are from.
We all walk 2 blocks to get the kids’ photos taken for their visas. We’re done in 5 minutes. We walk one more block and we’re at the Medical Exam Building. It’s 9:30 am. We seem to be the first group here this morning. Hopefully, we’ll get done quickly. Oh, I forgot . . . we’re in China!! Nothing gets done quickly here. Surprise – no temperature checks today. What’s up with that? We sit and wait. We pass the time talking with the other families and swatting mosquitoes. Another group of 6 families come in and they get to go first. Bummer! Finally, it’s our turn. There are 3 stations to go to: Ear/Nose/Throat; height/weight/temperature check; and checking out internal organs and listening to the heart & lungs. Sarah passes all of them with no problem. Next come the dreaded shots. We sit and wait and wait and wait some more. Finally, our turn comes. Molly talks to the nurses about the shots. Sarah understands what they’re talking about and tells Molly “no shots” and starts to cry. It’s really hard to watch her getting stuck 6 times. She gets two shots in each leg and one shot in each arm. She cries for a couple of minutes. We distract her with candy and goldfish crackers. She stops crying and starts to chow down on the snacks. Sarah is one tough kid!! We have to wait 30 minutes to see if she has a reaction to any of the shots. Thirty minutes later, we leave the clinic. It’s 11:45 am. We were at the clinic for 2 1/2 hrs!
Back at the hotel, we hang out in the hallway with the Barths. The kids are running around. Jenna is practicing her sommersaults on the hard hallway floor. Sarah imitates her and tries a sommersault, too. She tries to tuck her head and rolls sideways. It’s pretty comical. Jenna watches Samantha doing back ward flips with her dad. She holds onto her dad’s hands and walks up his legs and does a backward flip. Jenna soon masters that skill with Tim. Sarah sees big sis doing something new and wants to try it, too. She doesn’t have much luck walking up Tim’s legs. She's too wobbly. Tim helps her out. Remember, this kid had 6 shots about an hour ago. She’s a trooper!!
After lunch, Jenna and Sarah are chasing each other from one bedroom to the other bedroom. All of a sudden, we hear Sarah screaming. She put her hand in the hinge side of the door when Jenna was shutting it. Four fingers have crease marks on them. I grab a cold beverage out of the mini refrigerator to ice it down. We don’t think any fingers are broken because she can move them. She cries for a really long time. It’s hard to comfort her with words because she doesn’t understand us and we don’t understand her. We call Molly to see if she can stop by and she calls the front desk to send us up some ice. We take Sarah out for a walk to distract her. It seems to work. She plays with the ice bag and calms down. This has been a really hard day for Sarah. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a calmer day for all of us. The rest of the afternoon passes uneventfully, thank goodness.
We meet up with 3 families for supper at La Dolce Vita (Italian place). They have great pizza and spaghetti. We order the vegetable soup for Sarah. She likes it a lot. Jenna eats most of the spaghetti (Sarah got a little bit) and then wants to eat our Margherita pizza, too. Both kids are bottomless pits. Maybe if we quit feeding them they wouldn’t have so much energy. It’s worth thinking about . . . .
The kids are finally in bed around 8:15 p.m. They fall asleep almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow. Tim and I haven’t quite figure out why the hotel has thick comforters with no sheets on every bed. Remember it's very hot and humid here. We're guessing it’s because people keep their rooms very cool with the air conditioning. Just another of life’s mysteries.
Gotta get to bed and catch up on my sleep. It’s almost 10:30 pm. More paperwork is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Finally, the two I-800 families catch a little break. We have less paperwork to do here since we did more in the U.S. We’ll get to meet the other two families that flew into Guangzhou today.
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