April 2, 2005

Still waking up at 3 am, but it's ok because it gives me time to write down my thoughts from the busy days. We meet Wendy today to 10 am to do Susanna's medical exam. This is for getting a visa to bring her into the united states. I am glad we get to do this today because I'm a little worried that she has an ear infection. When she woke up this morning, she took a bottle which was great since she hadn't had one since yesterday morning at 6. I think part of it is that she is grieving in her own way and part of it is she doesn't feel well and her whole routine is upset. After breakfast I left her with Jimmy while I took the laundry out to be done. Then Jimmy said that he'd like to take the morning to just wander around and since only one parent needed to go to the exam, that worked out. So he took off for the morning and I borrowed a stroller from another couple in our travel group. Sanna has been really fussy, so I didn't know how she'd do. She was ok as long as we stayed moving. Mostly she's just wanted to lay on my chest and rock. We walked to a place where we had to set the kids down on a high chair and have their picture taken for their visa. She wasn't having none of that. They finally let me hold her and we did get a decent picture. Then we went to the medical exam. The place was crawling with adoptive parents. It was so busy. Wendy split us up into 2 and 3's and sent us each to one of the three stations. At the first one they checked her heart and lungs. She had fallen asleep by this time, which was good, because they can't hear her heart if she's screaming. Then the had me undress her and they checked to make sure she had feet, hands, arms, head and neck. Yup, she had them. Then they took us to the next station and took her temp and weighed her. By this time, she was screaming, so I have no idea what the results were. They would have been in metric anyway. Then we moved to the last station, where they looked in her eyes, ears and throat. The doctor said she maybe had a little ear infection, but mainly just a cold and sore throat and to give her tylenol. After that I went out and found our guide, who said if I was done and could remember my way back, I could go to the hotel. So I put her in the stroller and drove her screaming at the top of her lungs back to the hotel. Once I got her back she took some tylenol and we rocked to sleep. Jimmy had gotten back at that point so we went to Lucy's for lunch. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and Wendy called to say that we were going to walk to the Jade and pearl market after lunch. Jimmy had walked all morning and Susanna was a basket case, so I left her with him and went with the group. It was a great trip, but I'll have to write about it later because we are leaving for the zoo in half an hour. Tomorrow we are visiting the orphanage for the day.

Catherine