First week alone

This week Dan went back to work. Yesterday and today he was working from home locked up in the office, so I wasn't technically alone. But I was taking care of Gianna all day long with only occasional appearances from bố when he wanted lunch or had to use the bathroom. She didn't know he was in the office. To her, he just magically appeared every once in a while. She threw a lot of "bố loi!" tantrums the first day. Today wasn't as bad. She wants to go outside a lot despite the freakin cold weather. We kick the ball around the backyard and she plays with sticks. Inside, she enjoys putting things on coasters and building block towers. We watch Xuan Mai starring in a Vietnamese version of Little Red Riding Hood. She always gets scared by the wolf and comes to get comfort from me. Score! There is another Vietnamese kids story we watch where a girl's mother dies and an angel takes her to heaven. Gianna cries at that part.

This morning we took her back to visit the daycare near our house. They got her involved in craft time and she made a little picture with the other kids using finger paint and stamps. There was one Indian kid that didn't speak English like Gianna. He was missing his mom and refused to take off his coat. It was cute, like he was expecting her back any minute and wanted to be able to leave at a moment's notice. Since it seems like she will fit in there and they have reasonable rates, we signed her up to start Dec. 1. We'll send her part time the first week to make sure she's OK, then she'll go full time the next week if all goes well.

We are still trying to get some of her medical problems worked out. You know how it is when doctors are supposed to communicate with each other but somehow the reports/results never make it to their destination. Stupid doctors. Today I learned that our insurance company only approved 5 PT visits for my shoulder when my doctor wanted me going much more often than that. Stupid insurance companies. Add that to the list of things the insurance company is supposed to cover but really doesn't. I already had two visits, so that leaves three more to go. The rest will have to be out of pocket. Curses to all you insurance companies!

Playing outside

The weather has been warm the past few days, so Gianna has ventured outdoors. This morning she was quite impressed by the local wildlife, a gray squirrel tangling with the neighbor's cat. She actually took to the grass and chased Bruno around the yard--hooray! We've been spending some quality time splashing in puddles, digging up worms, and looking for salamanders in the flower beds before the weather turns cold again this week.
This afternoon we watched some Xuan Mai DVD's. Apparently Xuan Mai has a monopoly on Vietnamese kids music because every random DVD I ordered featured Xuan Mai in some way or another. Gianna loses interest in English kids programs like The Wiggles, Sesame Street, Veggie Tales (the worst), but will sit through an entire Xuan Mai DVD singing and dancing along. We're not trying to encourage a lot of TV watching, but its nice to see she has some sort of attention span and we want to make her feel comfortable. Hearing a little Vietnamese every day helps make things easier for all of us. We also got two CD's for her to sing along--starring Xuan Mai.

Late in the afternoon, bà and ông Schmidt came to visit along with chị Cori. They brought lots of presents and we got some Indian take-out for dinner. They threw ball and played blocks with Gianna for a while. She was interested in them, but a little overwhelmed by three new people in the house. She's making advances one little step at a time, but is still very shy.

First post-placement visit

This morning we were trying to brush Gianna's teeth and I had been getting ready to blow dry my hair when our social worker arrived at the door. So much for being ready! She visited with us for less than an hour asking questions about how Gianna is adapting to life in the US. What are her eating and sleeping habits like, how is she developing, is she speaking any English, how does she like the dog? We discussed her upcoming transition into daycare and how we planned to maintain her cultural heritage. We have several bilingual books and games for her and I have ordered some Vietnamese kids DVD's and CD's. I handed over the required parent's report and family photos, and we said see you again in a few months.

Yesterday was my first trip to physical therapy for my shoulder. They did a full evaluation, took some measurements, and assessed the work to be done. Both shoulders are very weak, but the left shoulder is really out of sorts. The scapula is sitting higher than the right and leaning forward. Sparing any more gory details, they are not sure how fast or how much it will improve. So we are starting out very slow and will see what happens.

This week we had a few more visitors and kind souls that brought us food--THANK YOU!!! Our friend Caren brought over a meal and a bag of goodies for Gianna including a pack of kiddie plastic utencils that she played with the whole time Caren was here. She also gave some ABC 123 bath toys that stick to the wall; they are fast becoming the favorite. Georgie stopped by today with some food and was able to dance with Gianna--hooray! Today we also met a bunch of people from L'Oreal for coffee. Once the group had gone back to work, Gianna really opened up to my friend Barbara, laughing, tickling, and walking around. She is really starting to be more comfortable with people, at least on a one-on-one basis. Last but not least, ông Schmidt stopped by after work yesterday. He was the first Schmidt relative to meet Gianna. She let him play magna doodle with her, but eventually went to "sleep" until he left. Then she was wide awake waving and saying "bye-bye" as he pulled out of the driveway. What a stinker. We have a few more visitors lined up for this weekend, so I'm anxious to watch her social interaction grow.

Dan's last week

Dan goes back to work next week, so we've been trying to transition Gianna over to me and figure out what we are going to do for long-term child care. She has been interacting with me a lot more lately. I hear her calling Mẹ about 25% of the time instead of Bố. Yesterday she let me take her to the potty and feed her lunch as Dan was outside wrangling leaves. But with my shoulder out of commission, its very difficult to hold her and carry her as much as she desires. Usually when she begs to be held, I sit down on the floor and offer to let her in my lap and have me hold her that way. But that's usually not what she wants! So, as the docs suggested, next week my mom will be here to provide assistance. I start physical therapy tomorrow, and have another session scheduled for Friday. So that's another reason we'll need a second set of hands for a while, PT appointments.

On Monday we went to see the local pediatrician and visited a prospective daycare today. The pediatrician was disappointing. Gianna has a few health problems that they discovered at CHoP, but he did not really address them as comprehensively as CHoP suggested. The daycare was refreshingly diverse--only one white kid in the bunch! They have a lot of kids that do not speak English and seemed to be sensitive to the fact that Gianna is from an orphanage and may have special behavioral needs. In the next few weeks we plan to stop by often to get her comfortable with the teachers and other kids. Then starting in December, we'll see if she will stay there a whole day without mom and dad.

So far we've had three visitors: Ba and Ong Landis, Priscilla and her son, and our friends Georgie and Val. Gianna is still very shy around strangers. But she needs to start meeting people, so please come visit! A big thanks to the visitors we've already had and to those that have sent cards and gifts. Gianna loves getting mail, and we are all very grateful.

Thursday we meet with our social worker for the first post-placement visit. I think there is also a 4 and 6 month visit, then 1 year and that's it. We'll have to send a report with photos to her orphanage in Vietnam to let them know how she is doing at every visit and every year until her 18th birthday. Its quite a commitment to that orphanage! So here is the family pic we took today to be sent to Vietnam (sans Bruno) and a series of pics when Gianna is doing one of her song and dance routines. This one was a counting song, as she was playing with her bilingual domino puzzle.

First time at the park

One week as an American

Have we been home one week already?!? The first few days were VERY hard. We had a lot of those thoughts like "what have we gotten ourselves into? Maybe I'm not cut out for this". But now things are calming down. We have more sleep and more good times than bad. Gianna is fast-adapting to life in the States. Yesterday she discovered Cheerios are a delicious take-anywhere snack and added that to her growing list of American foods that she likes. Still when I break out the phở or fried rice her eyes light up like I'm giving her a hot fudge sundae. Yesterday the mattress for her big-girl bed arrived and I bought some pink sheets with green whales to put on it. I don't know if it was the softness of the mattress or the fudgey the whale flannel sheets, but she absolutely loved it. She was jumping on the bed, laughing, caressing the pillow, and last night she slept on it the whole night through. That's the first time she slept all night since Hanoi! God bless that mattress company. And now she has discovered Sesame street on the plasma. She was singing and dancing, having a real good time. I am glad to see her so happy. There are many moments throughout the day that we can see her pain from the days at the orphanage, but it seems like our efforts to make her feel loved and safe are definitely getting through.

Trip to CHoP

Today we drove down to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. CHoP is one of the best pediatrics hospitals in the US and has special meaning for my family as CHoP is where my brother Jason was treated for cancer. CHoP has an international adoption institute where pediatricians are specially trained to deal with issues resulting from institutionalization and attachment to a new family. We met for almost 2 hours with a physician and developmental specialist. They did a play time evaluation to see what stage Gianna is at in different areas. As with most orphanage kids, her fine motor skills are highly developed. The kids are typically left alone for hours at a time and they learn to play with small things to amuse them like lint, grains of rice, and their fingers and toes. Her large motor skills and hand-eye coordination are delayed by a few months, but nothing to write home about. Nutritionally, she is underweight and has some catching up to do compared to her American counterparts. So they want us to feed her lots of high-fat dairy and other high calorie nutritious foods. We talked about what would be best for Gianna once we both go back to work. Since daycare can be much like an orphanage setting (limited individualized attention), they discouraged us from going that route. Instead they suggested either a nanny or a small group day care like the kind people run out of their homes. So we will have to look into that. Does anybody have a nanny recommendation for central Jersey?

For a short time they asked me about my disease and how it impacts my ability to parent. Can I care for her when I am alone? Can I chase her and lift her up? What about my life expectancy? These are things I do NOT like talking about! Unfortunately the doctors were very familiar with fatty acid oxidation disorders (because of newborn screening programs) and I wasn't able to make up nice-sounding answers to fool them.

The doctor appointment ended with her screaming bloody murder in the phlebotomy lab with Dan assisting. They stuck both of her little arms and still did not get enough blood for all the tests. Poor kid. From down the hall, I heard her screaming the Vietnamese word for "no!!". After the appointment was over, we met up with Ryan and Linda at Chick-Fil-A--her first play date. Ryan has not been sleeping well and was in a bit of a testy mood, but he's still extremely adorable even when he's throwing stuff on the floor ;-) Linda kindly brought rice and other snacks for the kids. They are not fans of fast-food, which I guess is a good thing. Gianna wouldn't touch the chicken nuggets even when baited with honey. I guess you can catch more flies with honey, but not more Vietnamese. More rice please!

Trip to the City

Last night Gianna actually slept! After 3 straight nights of not sleeping, she crashed last night and slept with just a few wake-ups and no tantrums ;-) So for the first time since Thursday, we don't feel like we've been hit by a truck...maybe just a Honda Civic. She's also learning some English including "all done", "hello", and "dog". I'm hoping after she learns more English and can better verbalize her many toddler desires, the tantrums will be reduced (??). Today she was in a good mood for our car ride into Manhattan to see an orthopedic surgeon near NYU for my shoulder. Gianna hated the car seat at first, now its more of a love-hate relationship. After the appointment, we skipped the Saigon Vietnamese restaurant right outside the doctor's office and opted for Mexican across the street. Gianna begged me to feed her the rice, but made a horrible face when she found out the hard way that it wasn't Vietnamese fried rice. But, she discovered chips and salsa. She took a chip, dipped a ton of salsa on it, put it in her mouth and smiled.

Two doctors looked at my shoulder today. The good news is they didn't think the rotator cuff was torn and said the bone break was nothing to worry about, it will heal on its own. So I will not need surgery--yay! But the bad news is, there is extensive neurological damage causing the joint to malfunction. As the doctor put it "I can treat people with injuries, I cannot treat people with neuromuscular diseases". Bummer. He wrote up a physical therapy regimen and said he was sorry there is nothing more they can do.

Tomorrow we go to CHoP for Gianna's big appointment and we are planning to meet Ryan and his mom Linda afterwards. Hopefully the two kids will play together and I will get some good pics.

Home

We've been home two days now and things are starting to improve. Gianna is getting more familiar with her surroundings, singing and playing with her new toys. Bruno and Mommy can be in the same room and sometimes she even plays with me without throwing toys at my face. Nobody has been sleeping any regular human hours, mostly due to jet lag. Today we slept from 2pm to 5pm. Dan's internal football clock woke him up for the Eagles game or else we might have slept until the wee hours of the morning. Then we're all wide awake! My parents brought over enough food to last all week, so we don't have to worry about cooking. Like usual, she became really shy when they were here, but bounced right back after they went home. This week we have a bunch of medical appointments for Gianna and my shoulder that have us on road trips almost every day. She is getting better with the car seat too, so I'm not too worried about taking her down to Philly or into NYC.

Escape from Hanoi

During our last night in Hanoi there were heavy rainstorms leading to massive flooding. My pictures don't do it justice. The roads were rivers with stalled cars everywhere. At some places there were several feet of standing water. Cops were directing traffic, but it was just every vehicle for him/herself. At one point our driver took the large van up onto the sidewalk, plowing through motorbikes to short-cut around some stalled cars and buses. He turned off the AC and floored it though deep flood waters that started coming in through the doors! We were getting worried that the van would stall and we'd have to swim for it. We got to the airport late, but the flights were delayed several hours. There was a break in the storm and all the flights were able to take off. The connection in Hong Kong was tight, but thankfully that flight was also delayed by 30 minutes. Gianna was pretty good the whole flight. She mostly slept, played with plastic utensils, and cried whenever she had to put on her baby seat belt. We touched down at JFK right on schedule. For her immigration, we had to go into a separate room where there was one lonely guy named Jose waiting for the immigration officers to clear his paperwork. They looked at Gianna's paperwork, gave it a stamp and said in a melancholy tone "congratulations you're an American citizen". We got our bags and saw Martin and Khanh waiting to take us home. Gianna was scared of the car seat, but Khanh reassured her in Vietnamese that everything was OK. Then she slept the rest of the car ride home. She was also scared of the dog when we got home, but I think she will come around. This morning, we were all sleeping together and Bruno was licking her ear.

Well, the waiting is over and a new journey into parenthood has begun. Dan will be home for 2 weeks. If Gianna is ready, we will put her in daycare Dec 1 and I will go back to work. We hope to make many trips with her to NYC and Philly to see Ryan and Jada. It will be fun to watch them all grow up, see how far they have come from that little orphanage outside of Hanoi. I wonder what life has in store for them?