November 29, 2012

The afternoon started with us leaving the resort at 3:30 pm. All 3 families piled into a taxi along with our guide who would take us to the orphanage to visit our children.  The plan was to meet the children today and than receive them forever tomorrow.  Our first stop along the drive was to pick up diapers and formula to bring to the orphange.  We also brought with us a bag of clothes and toys from home for the children living in the orphanage.  Shae-Lee was grinning from ear to ear, she kept saying, I just cant believe we are finally going to meet my baby sister.  I think this wait for her has been the longest and hardest, and she was so thrilled to be moments away. We finally arrived at the orphanage.   Everyone was so excited after all these years to finally be walking up the concrete stairs to meet the Director who would than bring us to the children, still so unbelievable that we were moments away.  It didnt feel real.  As we all walked into the Directors office, she offered us a cold drink of water. We all eventually sat down and our guide talked to her.  We had no idea what was being said.  Our guide Thuy, than gave us the most amazing news, the director granted permission to take the children home with us tonight.  Needless to say, we were in complete shock.  The wait for us to meet our children, had been one continuous delay after another so to be told that we would actually be given permission to bring our children home with us, 1 day early, away from the concrete walls and wooden cribs without bedding that they were currently living in was the most wonderful news.  The 4.5 years that it had taken us to get to this place was filled with delays and dissapointment, so for the first time,  to receive such a surprise was completely unexpected. We thanked our Director over and over, the power was in her hands and it was very kind  of her to use her power in a positive way.  The time had now come, we were now to meet our children.  We once again, walked down the concrete steps, outside along the wall and through the concrete courtyard, we were shown the rooms of our children, and there she was, our beautiful Bao Yen.  We picked her up and of course Shae-Lee couldnt stop grinning.  Her baby sister, the one she has been waiting months for, was finally with us, and she would be with us forever.  We didnt receive much of a reaction from Bao Yen, she came to us, she sat on our lap, Shae-Lee spent time holding her.  Bao Yen was still in her element, she had been use to many caregivers, so we were probably to her, just another caretaker.  The time we spent at the orphange was approximately half hour, we took pictures, the nannies took turns holding the children again.  We went out to the concrete courtyard, many children came, they were all fascinated with us.  The time had now come to leave. We said our Good-byes, the nannies gave the children kisses and we once again piled back into the taxi, but this time with a armful of children, seemed very surreal.  On our route home, we stopped off at the same store to buy some formula, we were completely unprepared to accept our children today so we needed to buy milk for our babies to drink.  I call them babies, they are two years old, but they are toddlers in a 12 month old body.  They are babies in every sense, there diet consisted of rice and milk, they didnt receive the nutrition they require to grow.  There development will catch up, but in the meantime they will need to learn to eat solid food, food that will strengthen them and allow them to catch up in there development.  I have no doubt that now that they have been removed from there current living situtation they will thrive and grow in a fast way. They just need the proper nutrition to get them back on target.  Once we got back to the Hotel, everyone was estatic, everyone was thrilled to be able to walk into there rooms with children in hand.   We made plans to meet for dinner in a short while, we have come to know the other families quite well and our time is often spent together so it was nice to be able to have dinner tonight with our children with us this time instead of just talking about them.  Tomorrow would be the big day, the Giving and Receiving Ceremony at 4:30, the day that would finally make us a family of four.

On our way to meet Jayda Bao Yen

Buying milk and diapers for the orphanage

Directors office

Minutes before meeting Jayda

And here we are, a family of four

Guess Who's a Big Sister!!!!

We are just heading to the pool, but we wanted to give you a sneak preview because I know all of you have been waiting so patiently to see pictures.  We'll post more later

The Anticipation

Our day started at 5:45 am.  We had to wake up really early to catch our flight at 8:40 am to Dong Hoi, Quang Binh where we would finally meet our beautiful baby girl. Our taxi would pick us up at 6:45 am to get us to the airport an hour before our flight. We were travelling to the airport with Mary, who was also in Vietnam to adopt her daughter from the same area as Jayda.   Heading to the airport during rush hour traffic is never fun,but we eventually made it.  Of course, excitement always follows us.  We met our guide Thuy, who was running late because she also got stuck in the rush hour traffic.  We showed our E-Ticket  at the Vietnam Airlines counter, it seemed like hours (which was actually probably only 10 minutes) as the lady at the counter thought it would be good to make us sweat a little as she scrutinized our passports, holding them close to her face, scanning every detail of our passport. At the end all was well and we received our Boarding Pass.  As we passed through security, I never even thought that they would follow the same liquid regulations as we do in Canada, but yes they do.  I was carrying several large bottles of lotion  and soap that was well over the 100 ml limit and were being brought as gifts to present to the Director of the Orphange.  As our flight was soon to leave, this was a little bit of a problem as it was too late to check this in as baggage.  Our wonderful guide Thuy, to the rescue, emptied out her backpack, threw in all  of our large bottles of lotion and soap and ran back to the ticket counter.  At this time, they were making a last call to board the shuttle that would take us to our flight.  We watched and watched for Thuy to return, and whatever tricks she pulled, she returned back with her backpack with all of our lotions and potions and was able to receive permission to carry it on our flight. Whew!!!  Finally, we boarded our plane, the last leg of our journey to finally meet Jayda Bao Yen!!! Our flight was short and uneventful, only 1.5 hours long.  As we exited of the plane, it felt like we were in the Tropics, a far cry from cold and rainy Hanoi.  If we had known what a beautiful place Dong Hoi was, I think we may have planned our trip a little differently and flown here as soon as we arrived in Vietnam.  Our taxi was a short ride to our resort, a interesting ride, a very quaint little town with not much to do.  As we pulled up in our taxi to to the resort, it felt like we were finally in paradise.  An unbelievable place, beautiful white sandy beaches, warm tropical breeze, absolutely gorgeous.  As we arrived and checked in, we were told our rooms were not quite ready so we decided to enjoy lunch on the sandy beach.  We finally met the other couple , we had been corresponding with by email, they had been staying here for a few days earlier, they have already been in Vietnam for the past 3 weeks waiting for the adoption to be official, they also have a son from a previous adoption from Vietnam
After lunch our rooms were finally ready, we were excited to get settled in, put on our shorts, hang out the beach until the time that we would finally take our final taxi to meet Jayda.  It has been a long journey, but so worth it, now that we are only moments away. 
Enjoy the Pictures.  Some of them are in mixed order, not sure why

Waiting for our Taxi

Amazing how awake we look with little sleep :  )

Our flight to Dong Hoi

Waiting to Board our Plane

Official Document

Taking a picture of a butterfly

Add caption

Exiting off our plane in Dong Hoi

 Having Lunch

Pictures - Finally

So after all the time we spent yesterday looking for a USB cable and than purchasing a card reader Cliff noticed a few minutes ago that we could just insert the memory card into our laptop, that was kind of silly of us that we never noticed that before.  Anyways, here are a few pictures from yesterday. Just so you have an idea of what it is like here.  :  )

Getting ready for take off out of YVR

Ready for breakfast in Hanoi after only a few hours of sleep

Being silly, because we are really tired!

Standing in front of our Hotel