We are Home

Lucie and I are home safe and sound. It is great to be home but we both miss our Voietnam buddies and it is yet another transistion. She is doing beautifully - definitely "attached" to her mommy, taking everything in and being her sweet happy self. I will try to update with our last pictures from Vietnam in a few days!!

The Home Stretch

OK, it is for real - we are leaving tomorrow at 12pm Hanoi time, going through Taipei, then LAX for 7 hours (ugh) and flying into Boston, arriving at 6:55 am on Monday, Sept 22nd. I am a bit wistful about all that we didnt do, but this wasnt a vacation, anyhow, it was a trip to pick up the baby girl I have dreamed of for so many years. I am head over heels in love with her and will work very hard to remember that during our 30 hour trek home. (Yikes!) We had a lovely PLAN dinner in the dining area of our hotel tonight - OK, lovely might be a strong word with something like 8 babies squirming around, but I feel blessed and lucky to have met such a wonderful group of people during this, the most important trip of my life.

I am so excited to bring Miss Lucie Hong home and start our real life together. Thank you to one and all for your support. I will update with pictures and further info when we get settled.

Martha

We are Coming Home Soon

Lucie, Annie, Madison, and Zoe, the fabulous "Phu Tho Four", finally got their Visas today!!!!! A year later and a few months lost in an orphanage, but the misery is already beginning to fade into a memory. It feels a bit surreal. I was just looking at the little book of pictures that got me through the past year and then I went and kissed my sleeping baby....amazing to think we are here in this place, getting ready to come home.

The dilemma of the day is when to leave...I found out tonight (it is now 10:10pm Fri) that we can fly home on Sunday (12noon). They cant promise me the "deluxe" class (very mini upgrade (poor woman;s business class) that I planned for to save on the expense of a ticket for Lucie). And it is only 36 hours away. It also nixes my plans to go to beautiful Halong Bay. HOWEVER, Friday feels like forever away. I wish I could spend the week and enjoy vacationing, but it is hard to imagine it feeling like a vacation, trying to continue to entertain and contain my ever-blossoming daughter in a small hotel room and resaurants...I will see if my travel agent can pull any rabbits out of his hat by tomorrow am.

I cant wait to show Lucie off to everyone back home!!

Random Pictures and Information

random pictures and, by the way, we have our Visa appt tomorrow morning at 10:00 am. We can try to change our flights when we get the visas in hand. I am hoping for Tues or so....
Loreen, Madison and Lucie



baby in a Bathtub





Water puppets show



Where is that buddha baby? But how we love a deliriously happy baby!




A throw/quilt for Lucie






Thats all she wrote. Off I go to organize paperwork. I am now feeling sad about leaving our wonderful group of friends. We will miss everybody but will be happy that we can spend lots of time with Alexi and her mama right down the road from us. YAY.

pictures

There is nothing like a little sleep and a passport

I think I feel much better today. We had a MUCH better night's sleep last night. I gave Lucie a tiny amount of cold medicine (I know, I know - it's very not politically correct, but she has been coughing/choking while she sleeps). All around much better night (just awake a handful of times and easy to get back to sleep). I had to wake her up this am to go to breakfast so we could get ready to go get her PASSPORT. YAY!! We have a scheduled/required doctor's appt this afternoon (also yay!) and they MIGHT be able to move our Visa Interview at the Embassy up to Friday (that would be the best yay ever!!!)

I will upload some random photos of our day yesterday, etc. I need to go boil water for her bottle and get ready for lunch and our next appt. Ok, maybe not - something is up with blogspot.com

Sleep Deprivation and Hotel Rooms

I am not trying to say that my first week of motherhood hasnt been absolutely amazing, however...I am starting to get tired of the living out of the small hotel room with a 14+ month old buddha baby who has now decided to express some of the less contemplative sides of her personality. We have to eat every meal out, except I feed her lunch in the room a lot. I have been having a "cafe vanilla freeze" for lunch every couple of days and then we go out for dinner by 5:30pm...another "wow, I cant believe it moment"...dinner at 5:30. I am very much looking forward to being at home and having a high chair. A stroller is a great substitute for a lot of things, but certainly not ideal.

My wonderful friends Joy and Loreen have been great supports and we usually go out together, but it occurred to us yesterday that our recent Hanoi burn out might be related to the fact that all 3 of us are traveling alone. Joy's picture was in my last post with her adorable daughter, Miss Personality, Annie. I will post Loreen tomorrow. We have also made other friends AND my PLAN friend from Roslindale MA (my town!!) just arrived on Sunday and picked up her baby girl yesterday.

Not that it isnt great fun to test one's pedestrian vs motorbike skills every day, but after our cab driver got lost today and just stopped the cab in the middle of who knows where and dumped the folded up strollers on the street, demanded his money and pointed us to follow some random woman on the street back toward our hotel. Very funny in retrospect and actually pretty funny in the moment, but we had just returned from out cultural excursion to the Temple of Literature, which by the way is not a museum with books...its a beautiful old (like 1070AD) academic institution that housed the likes of Confucious. Interesting and simple in its ancient elegance.

OK, I am off to bed...sorry no pics until tomorrow. Lucie has been fussing every couple of hours each of he past 5 nights - she has been sick (and gassy, I think) and maybe a bit freaked out, so I 'd best go catch some sleep while I can.

Tomorrow we pick up the passports for the babies, then they have a required medical exam, then our Visa interview at teh Embassy Monday. We are hoping taht we will be able to request earlier flights and get out of here a day or two before next Friday 09/26, my original leave date. Cross your fingers for us. Until we meet again.