Be it ever so sickly/jetlagged/messy/overwhelming, there's no place like home

Well, I figured I might as well blog, since I can't talk.  Just another facet of my usual post-China trip illness...laryngitis.  TOTAL laryngitis.  Yes, I'm trying to bond/communicate with my new daughter using hand gestures only.  I suppose it would be funny if I wasn't living it.

So, to back up a bit, we got out of China.  It was a little touch-and-go for a moment when I came down with a smoking high fever in the wee hours of the morning before we were to leave for Hong Kong.  See, last adoption trip, I came down with the same miserable fever but I was already on the plane, bound for the US. It made for a horrible plane ride, but there was no stopping my return home at that point.  This time, I got the fever BEFORE we headed to Hong Kong, and for those of you who haven't crossed the border between China and Hong Kong, I'll tell you that they use this laser thingie to take your temperature before letting you cross.  They are pretty serious about this, and if you go on their immigration web site, you'll see it says they can detain and quarantine people with fevers.  So, to say I was terrified getting on that van is the understatement of the century.  I was so jacked up on motrin and tylenol, blasting the A/C, holding bottles of ice water in my hands.  When it came time to take my temp, I turned my head away from the scanner.  We made it through.  The girls puked on me 3 times in the van, but that was nothing compared to what could have happened if they detected my fever, so I'm OK with that.

A moment of relative peace on the plane.

The plane ride was, well, exactly what you think it was.  11.5 hours Hong Kong to San Francisco.  We had a tight layover in SFO, and the computers were down so they could not process immigrants as they usually do.  They had to do it all using paper.  That reminds me, I better check that everything was eventually entered correctly.  I don't want to find out a year from now that R was not processed properly at immigration.  What a hoot that would be, huh?  Then we had a 5.5 hour flight to Boston, where we were greeted by my family.  Just like last time, I stumbled off the plane, feverish and sick, sort of only half aware of what was going on around me, but happy to see the people I missed the most.

Since then, we've been trying to take it easy, get better from all of these stupid illnesses, and just hang out as a family.  Jet lag took 2 days to set in.  The first day home, I was like, "Booyah!  We beat you, Jet Lag!"  On day two, I was pretty much on the floor in a puddle, praying to the Jet Lag gods to leave this family alone.  R seems the healthiest right now...P is still recovering from whatever awful thing he had in China, E has some sort of respiratory thing, and I have an awful illness that seems to be getting worse before it gets better.

Girls' first breakfast together.  Goofing around already.

R had her first labs done on Monday.  Miraculously (or a lab error), her hemoglobin was 12.9.  So, no transfusion for her.  In the oddest twist of events yet, I took R's slot today in the infusion unit, and got transfused myself (my hgb was a pathetic 7, which in concert with the illness was kicking my a$$) while E was getting her transfusion.  The coveted mother/daughter transfusion day.  Good times.  R was along for the ride, and I think it was probably good for her to see her big sis and mama getting blood and having a generally OK day at the hospital.  Everyone at the hospital was so happy to see E back, and super excited to meet their newest patient, R.

R checking things out during E and Mama's transfusion day.

That's some mother-daughter bonding, huh?

So, nothing super exciting to report right now.  We're just living that sort of blurry first week home, trying to figure out the new normal, trying to get well, and trying to stay awake.

Sucking down every last noodle of Nana's chicken soup.

Really getting into her soup.