INS Interview done! Next stop Hanoi

We had our interview with Mary Anne Russell at the Department of Homeland Security. Everything went great. She is very preoccupied now with some big scandal that is brewing in two other provinces so she was a little distracted. She does seem genuinely concerned about the children and in making sure the process is legal and transparent.

So now I wait for Mr. Hiep to bring me the paperwork this afternoon. We could leave tonight but as long as I get into the embassy tomorrow afternoon all should go well. So we are going to try and book the 6:30 AM flight for tomorrow.

If Monday wasn't a holiday we could probably make our midnight flight on that day. But it takes a day to turn around the visa so it won't be until Tuesday that I get it. So we will have to fly out Tuesday at midnight assuming we can book the same flight a day later.

It's all downhill from here, thank goodness.

Still waiting for the INS interview

This morning we were getting our room cleaned up for two of the nuns who weren't at the monastary last Thursday when we stopped by. They wanted to see Henry, after having organized prayers to ask for a speedy process. One of the cleaning girls from the hotel came in the room and did a quick clean. They usually clean every day but we don't go out much anymore so they rarely get a chance. Later the two nuns showed up on their motorbike and spent around an hour in the lobby with us. Henry walked around the lobby with one of the nuns who held both of his hands. After they left it rained and rained. Around 6 I went down the street to buy dinner and the alley was like a river. There were places I was wading in water halfway between my ankles and knees. They have the flash rains like that around here.

The other two families had their G&R's today. Tomorrow they will have their doctor visit.

I might have gotten in today for my interview, but last Friday I gave the facilitator the wrong form. Yesterday he got the right form, but I suppose they took today to look it over. I am hoping that I get in tomorrow morning. I need to get to Hanoi by Thursday morning to keep the schedule. It takes at least twenty four hours to process the visa. Our plane leaves Hanoi Monday night, but Monday I've been told is a US holiday so the embassy will not be opened. So it must all be done by this Friday if we are to keep the schedule.

Henry's first book

Henry is getting used to being the son of a librarian--he browsed through his first book today.
He also likes to pull himself up to the window by the bed and look out the window. He can't see down to the street but he can see into windows across the alley.
Hopefully tomorrow morning I will have my interview with the INS lady. I think everything should go smoothly and hopefully it won't take too long. Then it's on to Hanoi probably the next day.

The Vicar's Fat Monkeys

This morning I was thinking about those two monkeys in cages outside the vicarage next to the orphanage where I picked up Henry. The two monkeys that were so fat and that we sat and watched while waiting for the vicar to finish his breakfast so that we could have our required audience with him. And about how the doctor here at the visa clinic told me Henry was malnourished. The nuns told me he was malnourished. The nanny Bao hired to take care of his son Kevein told me he was malnourished.

The workers at the orphanage told Bao they had run out of food to feed the babies and they were just feeding them the watery formula that I had been lead to believe was all Henry could or would eat. Now that he has been on solid food it has been a remarkable change, but I wonder why there wasn't more supplied to them at the orphanage? Presumably he has been in the care of the orphanage for nearly a year, their first report on his health is dated last January.

I'm haunted by those fat monkeys--would Henry have gotten better food if he had been a monkey rather than a human being? Where did all the money from the adoption fees get funneled to? Is monkey food that expensive that children must starve in order to have fat and happy monkeys?

Today was a pretty good day

When we first got Henry to the hotel last Monday after the screams and fear at the orphanage it was awful. After a couple of days I felt like a zombie--no sleep, no shower, no time to eat. And on top of it having to get ready and go to the G&R which was itself a fiasco but the paperwork went smoothly.

But things started getting better after we went to the doctor and I was told there's no reason to not put him on solid food. I was told he only drinks from the bottle in spite of being variously reported as thirteen to sixteen months old.

Now as it turns out the screams weren't entirely due to the trauma of being uprooted--he was hungry. He is malnourished. He has done remarkably better with the food. He has been pulling up more and tries to walk. He is happy and laughs--no more of the crying rages that had me fearful of being thrown out of the hotel.

It is exhausting to watch him like a hawk all the time, for fear he will fall off this high platform bed onto the ceramic tile floor. We tried putting him on the floor put it's like ice. As I was walking to the store today to buy some more baby food and contemplating how to repack our luggage (in happy anticipation of going home) it dawned on me that I should use the suitcases to create a playpen around the edge of the bed.
This has worked great. He likes to play with the buckles and pull himself up. There is still some monitoring required as he will probably soon learn to climb onto the suitcases and then the whole idea will have to be revamped. But at least I don't have to stay in a hyper vigilant mode that prevented me from getting any rest or relaxation. He has enjoyed playing in our little playpen. I didn't teach him to stand on his head--I'm not that dynamic and energetic at the moment. But it is something he started doing this morning. I did teach him to clap his handsHe enjoys his playpen area. I'm not sure where he learned to stand on his head like this, I'm not that energetic at the moment to do anything like this. But he started doing it this morning. I did teach him to clap his hands (see below) and as you can see it necesstated him letting go of the suitcases and standing on his own.
I can change his diapers now without him going into a screaming rage. He used to scream whenever we would touch his diaper. Now he can easily be distracted and doesn't even pay attention while he is being changed.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

It looks like this long trip is finally drawing to a close. Mr. Oppus has informed me that my new fingerprint clearance has been forwarded to the appropriate office here. The agency representative Mr. Hiep turned in my INS paperwork today to the consulate and he expects and appointment for me on Monday or Tuesday. Then it is off to Hanoi for the perfunctory interview at the embassy and thankfully then home to Texas. I picked up our tickets today to fly back on Monday the 12th, but they can easily be changed if we find we can leave earlier.

I really need to thank my mother for everything she has done for me on this trip and that she is doing for me now is helping me to learn to take care of a baby. This was not her dream for me. She would prefer I start my family in a more traditional manner by getting married. But that hasn't happened yet and this is the path I felt moved to take. I wanted to open my home and my heart to a child who needed love and support.

When I showed my mother the referral photographs for Henry her heart really went out to him. The dream was no longer an abstract idea of some child but it was now this particular child who looked so tiny and vulnerable. She has been supportive and loving and helpful. During this trip my mother has pushed herself beyond her limits, struggling through illnesses and injuries and exhaustion and stress. We have enjoyed traveling together and learning about Henry's culture as well as that of neighboring countries, but it has been long and tiring and stressful.

My mother has always been a great source of strength and love for me, I have always felt cherished and lifted up by my mother through good times and bad. So I really want everyone who reads this and who knows me to know that I could not have done this without my mother's loving support. I hope that she can enjoy her retirement years with the joy of a loving grandson and the continued love of a grateful son. I have always been able to count on her.

G&R and doctor's visit

Everything went well. The G&R was pretty quick, after all the waiting. I had Henry dressed in the nice white outfit Heidi gave me, but he messed it up while we were waiting so I had to change him. Then I just signed around twenty documents and it was over.

We visited the vicar at the church next to the orphanage, but did not go back in the orphanage. He had some monkeys in cages outside his office, Henry liked seeing them.

They took us by the monastary to pick up some stuff my mother bought. He loved the nuns. Sister Tweet grabbed him and carried him back to the part where visitors don't go and I could here Henry and the nuns chattering.

We were exhausted and came home, then in a couple of hours Mr. Hiep came by and we went to the doctor for the exam for the visa. I wondered why Henry wasn't standing or walking, he's at the very beginning of crawling and I do think he is closer to 16 months than the reported 13. The doctor said it is just poor nutrition, his legs don't have enough muscle mass for him to stand.

On the way back we decided to just get off at the Tax Center to buy food for Henry. I decided to keep him on the same formula but introduce more solid food to start the process of getting him rehabilitated. We went into Highland Cafe in the shopping center and my mother fell, the chair she was trying to sit in slid out from under her. It was a scary time but she is okay.

We are both so tired and want to come home. I bought tickets yesterday to fly home on the 11th, though I guess that means getting back on the 12th. Mr. Hiep isn't sure we'll make that but at least it's a date to try for. The route goes through Europe with changing planes in Paris. But just the one change. Flying back via the Pacific requires two changes if not three.