We have her!

There is a baby sleeping in the bed.  Yes, we have Norah.  This whole experience has been very surreal.  We are still jet lagged but managing.  I am not sure what Barnabas wrote so I am starting from the beginning.   After rushing like mad to make it to the airport 2 hours early we had a wonderful experience at the ticket counter when they told us we had to have an extra passport photo to enter Vietnam.  The baggage checker lady had a conference with 4 other employees because of the "warning" that popped up.  Turns out they were mis-reading the warning... it says you have to have a VISA OR the other form with an additional picture. Not cool.  Then we had a mean security person who yelled at Barnabas for leaving the boarding passes in the laptop bag as it went through the x-machine.  Both our flights out of STL and LAX were delayed.  The international flight was much much worse than I thought it was going to be.  There was NO SPACE AT all in the seats.  We had a very large man sitting on the other side of Barnabas (and he did not get up to pee once on a 16 hour flight, I am convinced he must have had a diaper on) and so Barnabas was sitting on me and I was trying not to hang out into the isle.  And as far as that electrical outlet we were going to use to plug our laptop into to watch DVDs, forget it.  There was no leg room, some big metal box was under the seat in front of us and it was HOT on the plane.  We are talking, covered in sweat, toss and turn for hours with dehydration and leg cramps sweat.  I am so looking forward to the flight home.  At least we will get more leg rooms since the bassinet is supposed to be in front of us.  So it was super hot and we were so so tired and almost asleep at 3am STL time when they decided to bring us dinner.  The food wasn't bad for plane food and there was a lot of it but I fell asleep with the spoon in my mouth.  Then it was dark for a long long time.  Sleep was hot and restless but we managed to get a decent amount.  Sometime in the night there was a good 30 minutes or so of really rough turbulence.  It was the worst thing ever to wake up to.  I kept having "Lost" flashes of the plane breaking in half.   Then they had to make that emergency stop for gas at 4 am in Korea.  Nothing like some extra take offs and landings.  I so love flying.  And hey, how many people can claim they were in Korea, China and Vietnam all in one day?  So Hong Kong (or what we saw of it was beautiful), very cool weather and lots of mountains.  The airport was 1 million times better than LAX with cool architecture and clean open spaces.  We met the other CHI family who (probably) just got their 5 year old son and another family picking up their 10 mo old daughter with Dillion.  The other CHI family could not get on our flight and had to stay at the airport but we met back up with them this morning.  The flight into Vietnam was really rough.  Lots of turbulence and people "ahhhhing" when the plane felt like it was going to fall out of the sky.  But we made it and got through VISA review and customs without problems.  Both of our bags got here so that was a relief.  I needed drugs bad, my head was so congested from the pressure changes.

 

So then we are in Vietnam and it is CRAZY.  Nothing prepares you for this, not reading, not TV, not other bloggers.  You cannot imagine the chaos.  The traffic is INSANE.  I don't know how people don't get killed constantly but the drivers think nothing of it.  There is no hesitation or panic when a bus is coming straight at you.  Street lines, signs and lights are optional and honking is just everyone's way of saying hi.  Yeah, it is loud.  There is advertising covering every building and stores line every inch of the street.  All of them are open in the front and they seem to sell everything under the sun.  I have seen so many things... I don't know if I can even try to capture the intensity of it all.  There are mopeds with trees, 5 people, kids just standing on them.  There are people lining the streets eating or just sitting around.  I saw a police officer peeing on a bush and a GIANT rat running into a shop.  This thing was bigger than a squirrel.  It is all just so overwhelming.  So anyway, we went checked into the hotel and then showered and changed for the orphanage visit yesterday.  It was very strange ... lots of small buildings full of children.  The house Norah was in had probably 20 babies but caretakers were taking them in and out so they may have been from different areas.  Norah was being bathed when we got there so they brought her down from upstairs. I did not cry but Barnabas almost did.  She seemed so familiar to me.  I don't know if it was just the pictures or what, I just knew her.   She is very inquisitive and wants to see everything going on.  She likes fans a lot and so far does not seem to mind the A/C.  =)  She has a big lump on the top of her head which might be a boil.  It is missing hair around it.  She also has a cold and some chest congestion.  She sounds like a pug when she breathes.  =)  We got her feeding schedule and they have her eating 9 times a day.  Yes, 9, like every 2-3 hours she is eating something, a bottle, yogurt, cereal or juice.  I don't know how the caregivers fed the kids that much.  They must never get a break.  So we got to see her and Yen for like 30-45 minutes yesterday and leaving was not as hard as I thought it would be.  We were just so worn out.  We came back to the hotel and Barnabas went exploring while I took a quick nap.  Then we went upstairs to the Garden Rooftop restaurant for dinner.  It was good... we had some spring rolls with mixed greens which were super good and then I had a chicken dish with lemongrass and chilis.  Barnabas decided to be adventurous and had hot pot with tilapia.   He had not followed other blogs so when they brought an entire raw fish with a huge red pepper sticking out of it's mouth he was a little shocked.  He said it was good but it was really too much food for just one.  We really should have had the camera to get a picture.  Then we went to bed at 7pm and slept until 5 am.  I think I could have slept about 4 more hours but we needed to eat and get ready to get Norah at 7:30. 

 

Wow, this has gotten long.  So we had breakfast this morning and went to the orphanage with the other CHI couple.  They were able to stay until we had her.  We went into a room with a big table like a conference room and a statue of Uncle Ho.  We signed the book saying we would take care of her and then they brought her in, handed her over and snapped a few pics and that was pretty much it.  The other couple went on to another orphanage to get their son.  I kinda wish would could have gone.  Norah fell asleep on Barnabas on the way back and had to be woken up for her passport photo which she was not happy about.  We came back to the hotel and tried to feed her some yogurt and baby tylenol since she was running a bit of a fever and still sounding like a pug.  She was not really happy about either so Barnabas attempted to get her apple juice but it looked like some tropical drink and she was having none of that.  He went to the tax market and braved crossing the street by himself to get the formula which she also wanted none of and screamed everytime we put the bottle in her mouth and then I rocked her to sleep.  That is pretty much it.  Daddy and baby are sleeping on the bed and I am just taking it all in.   We have our G & R today in a few hours so I am going to try to rest until then.  We will post pics again later.  This is CRAZY!!!!  I better go check on my pug.