Wednesday part 2

Hi all. Bryce is down for nap in his crib! It’s so hard not to hold him but I know it’s best for him to get used to the crib. Yesterday, Jon went to apply for Bryce’s passport and tomorrow is our first embassy appointment. They will ask us some questions and then send our paperwork down to Ho Chi Minh City to be approved. Next week Bryce will have his medical evaluation to receive clearance for travel. If a child has communicable diseases they will not grant permission for travel. Then we wait until for our approval from Ho Chi Minh and the embassy will call to schedule our second appointment. If all goes well, they will grant Bryce’s visa that we can pick up the next day or so and then be free to travel home with our precious baby. Kaitlyn is doing well. She is enjoying spending so much time with Nana, Papa, Ikie and Jenny. She is also getting to play with her second cousins, friends and extended family. Of course she misses mommy and daddy but understands that we will be home with baby Bryce before too long! Thanks for all of the comments. We look forward to them everyday!

Wednesday

I am so tired of people here telling me what I’m doing wrong with my baby, especially when they are speaking in Vietnamese! The Vietnamese culture is incredible. The crime rate here is almost nonexistent and the people here are so kind. HOWEVER, they have no concept of personal space, take the baby from your arms without asking, and like to tell you what you are doing wrong. I have acclimated nicely to the first two but am having trouble accepting so much criticism about my mothering abilities. I’ve been told a couple of times that I look too young to have a baby which I think makes me a little more susceptible to people offering their advice. Last night at dinner with the two other families I was the only one who had the privilege of being targeted for advice. I had two people tell me that he was cold (although he was the only one at the table wearing a coat and hat) and one woman told me that he was too small and that I needed to feed him more. I had another lady in the elevator tell me that he was probably afraid of me. The nannies covered his outfit up for the G & R on Monday b/c they said he was too cold although it was 80 plus degrees and I brought long pants and a hat (for all of you that were wondering the yellow jacket and pink pants in the pictures were not something I brought for him). The list could go on….

It’s been above 70 here the whole time we’ve been here and the humidity makes it feel like ten degrees warmer than that. People here think this is cold. When you watch the hundreds of motor bikes zoom by on the street you see that most people are wearing winter coats. They remark at how chilly it is when to us it feels like summer. I brought mostly summer clothes (and of course hats) as it is hot here but the local people will not let me leave the hotel with out him bundled up, regardless of how much he is sweating. So we just smile (or in my case bite my lip and nod) and say thank you.

Other than the unsolicited advice, the Vietnamese people are wonderful. They are so helpful and are extremely hard workers. They work so hard to ensure you are happy. A young man brought a fruit tray up to our room the other night and spent three or four minutes arranging our plates and silverware on the table to ensure that they were perfect. The whole time he was saying, “I want bring you fruit. Hope this is good. Thank you. Thank you for coming.” They are so cute and sweet and so different from Americans!

November 6

Well, I would have written sooner but I’ve been holding my precious little son 23 of the last 25 hours! What an amazing experience this is! He is absolutely adorable and is so good natured. The experience at the orphanage was very overwhelming yesterday and there are SO many babies there who need homes. I so desperately wanted to take a few more with me. However, we have been blessed with the most precious little boy. I’m in awe of how God prepared our son for us. He was born on the other side of the globe a few months ago and now HE has finally allowed us to be with him! I’m so humbled to think that I have the honor of raising this precious boy who was born to another woman in a country that I knew very little about. I am so excited about sharing my son’s heritage with him in the upcoming years and telling him about this extraordinary woman who loved him so much that she sacrificed her own happiness so that he could have a better life. How blessed we are indeed!. We are staying in hotel where many employees speak some English. They even have cabs waiting for us in the parking lots at all times. All you do is tell the door man where you want to go and he translates that into Vietnamese for the cab driver and off you go! I can’t even tell you what a relief that is! We took Bryce to the international medical clinic today which was and adventure. From what I could understand (which wasn’t vey much)Bryce has a rash, an upper respiratory infection and a small laceration in his ear. He is only 9 pounds! However, none are serious and we have antibiotics to hopefully clear them all up. They want to see him again in 2 days. The Giving and Receiving Ceremony (the actual adoption preceding)was amazing. I’ll share more about that another day. Tonight is Authentic Italian Cuisine Night at the hotel so we are meeting the other families for dinner in just a few minutes. We are really looking forward to a good dinner! Love to you all.