Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I have to be honest, these were not words that I uttered prior to marrying P.  But now it's just another of the many different holidays we celebrate in our house.  Of course it's even more fun now that E can decorate the house, and I can decorate her in an adorable St. Patty's Day outfit!

Baba and his Lucky Charm.

"Didn't you make me hold one of these heavy, cold things last year
to take a dumb picture?"

The only Irish thing that Baba wanted for the day.  He requested tomato
bruschetta and Italian sausage and butternut squash risotto for his dinner.
Hey, it's his day!

What family doesn't round out the St. Patty's Day festivities with
a stop in Boston's North End?

E and Mama doing the grumpy face.  Notice rather than green, I'm in
a Carmela Soprano velour sweatsedo.

We did this silly picture ONCE at a cafe, and now we have to do
it **every** time...

Zeppole (for me) and cupcakes (for them) with a pound of green frosting.

After 75 long days...

...we got LOA!

It's taken us a little while to get over the fact that pretty much everyone else got theirs in around 30-something days, but as my dad said, it's not like we can go back in time.  We're a little frustrated to think that little R will probably require 1-2 more transfusions in China (assuming she's getting them) as a result of all of these delays, but as we've come to learn with adoption, it's out of our hands.  We can look for someone or something to blame, but one thing we know is that it's not anything we did or didn't do...we worked as quickly as we could to do our part, and the rest was up to someone else.

So, now it's on to celebrating and being thankful that we are one step closer to our little daughter whom we can't wait to hold and love and bring home.  Last night E said, "I want to marry Ro-rie when she gets here!"  Hopefully it won't be too much longer!

We left the house finally

OK, for the past several weekends around here, it's either been a blizzard or snowstorm or some other form of icy pellets falling out of the sky that's kept us from doing anything too exciting.  As soon as we heard that we were finally going to get a break this weekend (and a break means just not blizzarding...we'll take 40 and gray out), we decided to get outta town.  Not that far outta town, but out of this house nonetheless.

Baba has been dying to take E back to a pool, especially ever since she started "swimming" in the bathtub every night.  I absolutely abhor (yes, the emotion is that strong) indoor pools so I figured I'd just sit in the overly hot and swampy indoor pool-atorium and cheer from the sidelines (assuming I didn't pass out from the chlorinated heat).

We had a nice hotel all picked out, but when I called them to make a reservation, we found out that the indoor pool was closed this weekend.  Since we had already told E that we were taking her to a hotel with a pool and she was jumping up and down saying "pool peeeeeze, pool peeeeeze" fully clothed but wearing her floaties, we figured we better find a substitution quick.  That's how we ended up at a Hampton Inn on 28 in West Yarmouth.  Now, I'll go ahead and say that the hotel was really lovely, but Baba noted that "before E came into our lives, there is no confluence of circumstances that would land us there.  Ever."  Not that we are being snobby, but the indoor pool would have been a non-issue, and we would have been at a B&B or luxury resort with good off-season rates rather than a chain hotel on a highway.

So we packed in the car and headed to the Cape for a weekend of fried seafood, candy, and chlorinated fun.  When we checked in and found out that there was a boys hockey team taking over the hotel for the weekend, we thought we were in the Seventh Ring of Hell, but it turned out that they were off playing hockey most of the time.

The weekend was deemed to be a success because E absolutely LOVES hotels and hotel rooms.  I mean, when she plays with her blocks, she doesn't build the usual towers or houses, she builds "hotel room" and "outside of the hotel."  She loves reading the free tourist guides, drinking complimentary tea in the lobby, playing with the phone and radio, putting things in and out of the mini-fridge (it's right on her level), using the elevator, and getting to sleep with Mama and Baba--we got one king bed because two doubles just turns into the 3 of us crammed in a double bed.  She loves using the card to open the room door.  All of this is so ironic, considering in China she hated every single thing about the hotels, and just the action of P taking the card key out of his pocket to open the door of our room would send her into screaming fits.  We've come a long way.

This cutie loves hotel rooms.

E and Baba had a nice time swimming around, although Baba said E was overly concerned about things getting stuck in the pool filter, to the point that she had to "save" any pool toy or ball that floated in it's direction.  She was like the maintenance crew.  Every time E got a noodle for herself to float around on, she'd pull another aside and say, "This one for Rorie!"

See those noodles in the filter?  As soon as we took the pic, E had to
go and "save" them.

E and Baba having a blast.  I was sitting in the 90 degree swampy pool
area and melting.  I know, I know...what a "stick in the mud."

E and Baba's idea of a post-pool treat.

Mama's idea of a post-pool treat.  (Look at E in the background...I think
she thought I was taking a picture of her.  Oh, no, not this time, sweetie!)

Since it was a balmy 40 degrees out, we were able to walk on a few beaches.  We ate at our favorite fried seafood place, where E did a mean job with some fried clam strips.  Give her fried food, she eats.  We stopped by to visit a statue of a bear outside of the Zooquarium, and all she talked about for the rest of the weekend was the "Angry Teddy Bear" that was following us, chasing us, coming to get us.  We also spent some time visiting Falmouth, a lovely town that we are not very familiar with.  We shopped and ate on it's quaint Main Street and drove around taking in some breathtaking ocean views.

Outside the Zooquarium.  Anyone remember when they used to just have
a friendly dolphin statue out front?  Maybe they should go back to that.
Check out the look of fear on her face.

Even today at the supermarket, E was asking if the "Angry Teddy Bear"
was still following us.

True New Englanders on the beach in March.

It was really a great weekend, but we are all missing R very, very much.  E talks about her constantly.  Last night, she asked where R was, and I told her in China.  Then she asked where she was going to sleep (referring to our hotel room).  I asked E where she thought R would sleep, and she pointed to the couch.  We said, "NO!  R isn't sleeping on the couch, she's sleeping with us!" and E said, "But where will she FIT!?!?!"  We'll make room...

Rorie will fit in just fine.

Cardiac MRI & Ferriscan for Dummies

Yay!  E had her first MRI to look at the iron in her liver and heart and it went quite smoothly.  While it's still fresh in my mind, I thought I'd write an "educational" post detailing our experience in case any newbies out there want to learn more about it.  I'll make a disclaimer that this is just how it was done at my hospital, and that I know it is not done this way everywhere.

Day 1--Pre-Op
The day before E's MRI, we had to go in to the hospital for a pre-op visit.  This is only required because she was receiving general anesthesia for the test.  It's a long and somewhat miserable visit for what seems like very trivial things.  I've heard this part is not a requirement at other hospitals, or perhaps it is done on the day of the scan.  I can understand why parents get bent out of shape for having to drag themselves in to Boston for this visit, but I also understand why it could be important.  I think some parents have complained about this visit and gotten out of it, but for E's first time under general anesthesia I was OK with it.  It was a lot of waiting to answer a few questions and to have height/weight/vital signs.  That's it.  I guess from the hospital's perspective, if they let you do it day of and you get bumped out for some reason, then they've got a much-coveted MRI spot that is left unused.  And, I also feel that given how serious general anesthesia is, it's nice that the anesthesiologist has SOME idea about E before we get there.  In the future, it would be nice if they would do the questions over the phone and do vitals upon arrival for the scan.  Wishful thinking.

Day 2--MRI
To me, the MRI itself is no big deal at all.  I've had several myself (without anesthesia or even anything for that matter) and it's just laying there perfectly still in the tiniest space ever, stuffed in with some water bags, with a lot of loud noise.  When you are awake for the scan, it's quite "interactive" in that you are really sort of running the scan yourself.  The tech tells you "OK, T, you are going to do 5 breath holds now.  Do them at your own pace.  Squeeze the buzzer at each breath hold and I'll tell you when you can breathe again."  Or, "OK, T, you are going to hold your breath now for 12 seconds.  Go ahead when you are ready."  In between you get to listen to Rascal Flatts or if you have the goggles you can watch a Dora video (it's a children's hospital).  Inevitably your nose gets itchy and you can't scratch it so you are wiggling it with all of your might to no avail.  This goes on for an hour and then you get up-albeit a little woozy-and you are free to go.  I always treat myself to a post-MRI coffee.

E's MRI was a whole different ball of wax.  Injecting (literally) the anesthesia piece into the whole thing really ratchets up the drama, if you ask me.  So, as a parent, E's experience was much more about the general anesthesia than anything else.  We arrived at 9:30am and left the hospital after 3pm.  The time you get called back for the scan depends on how the case before you is going.  We were called back to a somewhat scary room a little after 10.  I say scary because it's full of machines and tubes and syringes and stuff that I know is to make you go to sleep.  It also has a TV, so E was glued to that it didn't notice any of the stuff around her, which was great.  The rather gruff anesthesiologists came in to chat with me and had me sign some consent forms.  They gave me two choices for E going to sleep.  (1) Put a mask over her face, she takes a few deep breaths of yummy tasting air and goes limp in my arms.  (2) Give her a drink of terrible tasting Versed, she gets really woozy, then the mask goes on and she doesn't care.  The anesthesiologist told me that if it was his kid, she gets the mask and that's it because the Versed takes longer to wear off, so if she wants to be out playing in the afternoon, go with the mask only.  I asked him what if she pushes off the mask and he said, "I don't mean to sound cruel, but the mask always wins."  OK, so I went with the Versed first.  They gave me the honors of squirting the Versed into her mouth and to this moment that's all she talks about or remembers about the day.  That Mama stuffed that horrible tasting poison into her mouth.  She sat on my lap and within ten minutes was like a drunk little puddle, her eyes all far away and talking a little funny.  At that point, the nurse came in and said, "OK, it's taken effect.  Give her a kiss and it's time to go."  Basically the moment I dreaded all day.  So I kissed her, the nurse took her, E was barely with it at all but she blew me a kiss with a very noodle-y arm, and I walked away miserable.

After all of that heart-wrenching drama, I'm told what goes on is that she gets the anesthetic gas (anyways), the nurse changes her into a johnny and takes the bow out of her hair, she gets two IVs, she gets the breathing tube, they suck the extra air and Versed out of her stomach, they tape her eyes shut, and off she goes for the scan.  The nicer of the two gruff anesthesiologists controls her breathing and yes-you guessed it-"pauses" the breathing machine for the breath holds.  It's one thing to hold your own breath, totally another to think of a machine stopping your kid's breath.  The anesthesiologist even agreed with me that it's scary when you really stop and think about it.  So don't.  But of course I did.

The prep before and after is about an hour and the scan is about 45 minutes--part of the time to look at the heart, and part to look at the liver.  It was our luck that the machine was running slowly so it took an hour.  In fact, the two scans after us had to be cancelled.  So she was away from me for 2 hours total (AGONY).  I paced, drank coffee, and peed 25 times.  The nurse calls when there's about 15 minutes left so you are there and ready to leap to action when they say she's done.  (I was ready to leap the entire 2 hours).  They called me back and she was with a nurse in a dim room kinda out of it but awake, holding a heart-shaped balloon.  When she first tried to talk her voice was scratchy.  She seemed pretty happy but a little confused about where the IVs came from.  Then she remembered that the nurse promised her some Dora later so she started asking for that and all was good with the world.  She refused a purple popsicle but quickly drank 2 apple juice boxes, water, ate a bag of oyster crackers and a graham.  Then she asked for Goldfish crackers in my bag.  No nausea, no issues at all, really.  The anesthesiologist came back to give a quick look and said, "if she's scarfing all of that down with no problems, she's good to go."  E was happy to get the IVs out, but a little sad that leaving meant goodbye to the Dora video.  That was the biggest trauma for the day for her (besides the Versed).  For the rest of the day she was totally fine.  ie, chatting the entire ride home, back to dancing in her princess dress, eating snacks, and generally causing trouble.

The next day we got a nice call from the staff to check in on E and to answer questions.  E was feeling absolutely normal, and the only lasting issue was that under one of her eyes was a tiny bit red from the tape.  I had noticed this yesterday a little bit and thought it might be from rubbing her eye, but I can tell today it's from the tape.  If that's all I've got to complain about, we're all good.

So, that was our experience with MRI under general anesthesia.  To me, any experience where your child goes under general anesthesia is going to be the pits, but I felt like the whole thing went as well as it possibly could.  I can say with certainty that the experience was actually more traumatic for me than for her.  At 3, she really didn't know what to be afraid of, whereas I was a wreck.  I'll definitely take it a little calmer next time.  Maybe....

Post-MRI.  I got that bow back in her hair right quick.

Watching Dora and having snacks.

Chinese New Year!

We have been very busy here preparing for our first real Chinese New Year celebration as a family.  Sure, we were together as a family last year to welcome in the Year of the Dragon, but we had just returned from China and we were also in a whole world of chaos so I don't think we were too worried about noodles or sweeping or red envelopes.  But this year was very different...bring on the Year of the Snake!

E and I made quite a few trips into Chinatown for candies and envelopes and special ingredients for our feast.  We always stop to share a milk tea and a delicious pork bun in one of the little authentic bakeries that line the streets.  I say share, but I rarely get a bite of that pork bun.

Since we had plans to go to the Good Hope Adoption agency CNY party on Sunday, we decided to do our CNY feast on Saturday night.   A little tricky since we were hit with a blizzard, but luckily the driving ban was lifted in time for the party to go on!

So, Baba spent pretty much the entire day digging out of over 2 feet of snow, while I prepared the feast. We took E out briefly to see all of the snow, but when she realized that the drifts were big enough to swallow her whole, I think she decided once and for all that she's more of a beach person than a snow person. (Not that I'm influencing her or anything.)

Hei La Moon last weekend for dim sum and CNY shopping.
Just getting warmed up!

You should have seen me fighting the ladies in Chinatown to
get the ones with the leaves attached.

"This is fun but you can get me outta here now!"

Baba way more into making snow angels than our little angel.
She's like, "Tell me why we're laying in this cold stuff again?"

My little sous chef helping with the egg tarts.

Hand-made dumpings and spring rolls.

Chinese broccoli.  That's my Mai Tai in the background.
No, not Chinese, but delicious nonetheless.

Char siu, noodles, cabbage, rice, chicken...
I said to P that cooking a huge meal like this is like the
Super Bowl for a home cook!

Chinese egg tarts.

So after a fun night of eating and drinking we were up again today to do it all over again to celebrate CNY with our home study agency friends.  The drive down was a little dicey with post-blizzard messes everywhere, but it was well worth the trip to see some old friends and to make some new ones.  E had a great time handing out the red envelopes to everyone, and eating more Chinese food.  She loves her Chinese food!  The only thing she absolutely did NOT like was the dragon dance...she was yelling for us to take her out into the cold, snowy parking lot until it was over.  We stayed inside and braved it, but she was not very happy and was yapping about it the whole drive home from Cape Cod.

This kid loves anything on a stick.

Scissors.  Still the favorite activity.

Get outta here, dragon!

And of course a happy new year to our little R during our long LOA wait...

Emmie Day

I've started this post 3 or 4 times now, not knowing what to say, not able to see the screen through my tears.   Tears of joy that I have been so blessed to live my dream, to hold my sweet daughter in my arms and hear "Wo Ai Ni".  Tears of sadness when I think of how badly our terrified daughter was suffering last year at this time, and that someone had to say goodbye to her for us to welcome her into our lives.

We remember the moment as if it was yesterday...the dinging of the elevator in the Nanning Marriott, the heat in the room that we couldn't control, our guide taking the camera, the balloons lolling about on the green carpet, everything seeming to move so slowly but then it was all going so fast and we heard the faintest cry from the hallway and we knew it was happening...

And there she was.  Beautiful, scared, profoundly sad, wanting candy and to pick up everything she could in her tiny hands and get out of that hotel room.  And we realized that the journey we thought we had been on since May 29, 2011 was really just a lot of paperwork.  The real journey was just beginning.

January 9, 2012

E packed her bags to leave more than once on the day we met her and the days that would follow. She stood near the door and hung on to the doorknob crying an awful cry.  I cried that same awful cry on the floor of the hotel bathroom days later, and it was then that I knew E was even more special than I dreamed was possible.  She caught me in that moment, and through her own pain comforted me, wiping my tears away.  We were going to be OK.

It's hard to believe today that during our time in China, we barely saw a smile, heard a peep, or did anything besides try to calm and comfort our deeply distraught daughter.  Today, Emmilene lights up every place she walks into, warms the heart of every soul she touches, elicits laughter from every stranger, and gives love right back to those who love her.  She is courageous, compassionate, silly, bright, chatty, and affectionate.  All of this was wrapped up inside of her in China as she held on so tightly while her world was spinning out of her control.

In those first days, you wonder if your new child will ever come to accept you and your love.  Now E comes to us to kiss her boo-boos, to hold on to her tightly at her transfusions, to read her stories, to play, and to sing songs over and over.  She loves bath time with Baba and cuddle time with Mama each night.  She offers kisses and hugs and smiles at bright as the sun.

So today is a remembrance of the day we became a family.  We were going to call it "Family Day," but with little Rosalie on the way we decided to call it "Emmie Day."  It's a day to thank the people who took care of her while we waited, and to look back at just how far this amazing little child has come.  We'll think about all of the incredible memories we already have together as a family, and about all the wonderful things that lie ahead.  And Patrick and I will take a moment to quietly stop and think about just how lucky we truly are.

What a year it's been, and it's all thanks to you, our beautiful first daughter.  You have brought more joy, fun, happiness, and love to our lives than we have ever known.  We love you more and more with each passing day, minute, and second.  Happy Emmie Day!

January 9, 2013