Getting better.

Friday morning, things started off on a much better note.  A good night's sleep certainly helped.  And there's a certain comfort in the house.  I was there when she woke up, and made funny faces for her.  She seemed to like that. 

 

She started warming up.  Still wouldn't let me hold her, but its a start.

 

My parents - yaya and papa - came over to meet her.  They fell in love instantly, and my mom was able to take her without an issue.  She was very happy.  She liked papas beard, but otherwise gave him a similar reaction to me.

 

When the boys came home it was playtime again.  The three of them had fun with the various 1-year old toys and riding toys we have in the house.

 

Still, Julian wants his private mommy and daddy time, and shows a little jealousy.  Its not all bad, but its interesting to watch him react and interact with Megan.  Andrew is doing great.  At 9, he has really taken to having a little sister.

 

Throughout the day, I could see Megan was warming to me, though when she was really tired, she wouldn't let me near her.

--David

David & the boys meet Megan

Thursday morning, I drove down to Miami to pick up Jessica, Barbara, and Megan from Miami International.  Its a little before rush hour, and the traffic is about as bad as I expect.  I pull into the airport a few minutes after their flight lands, and pick a parking location near the American Airlines terminal.  I head in, and walk a few paces to see the board for arrivals.  It turns out that they are one carousel away...and it turns out I picked the perfect location to park, because they have *A LOT* of bags, plus a baby!

 

I'm off to a good start.

 

I meet Megan, and she's a cutie.  Jessica had been raving about how she takes to everyone, and she seems really friendly.  I say hello and spend a few minutes with her before we head home.

  

We get home, and everyone is pretty tired.  Time to get cleaned up and get a nap.  I offer to give Megan a bath.  Except now that she's home she decides she's *not* going to take to me.  I get close.  She screams.  I pick her up.  She screams louder.  She hangs on Jessica for a while, until finally I coax her into the tub.  She doesn't like the bath, or maybe its just that she doesn't like me giving her a bath.  In any case, she screams throughout.

 

I get her changed, and she lays down with Jessica. 

 

A while later, the boys come home, and they want to meet Megan.  She's thrilled.  They're thrilled.  She takes to them right away.  They read to her, play with her, whisk her around the house, and she's happy.

 

But she's still not sure about me.  I come in the room and she crys and crawls away.

 

Okay, let's be honest: in high school, I experienced a similar reaction from girls.  So that's not exactly new. And here I thought I had changed.  Maybe not?

 

So, we'll just have to find another way. 

 

I made her some congee, hoping to win her over with food.  She liked that, but...she wouldn't let me feed it to her.  Only Jessica could. 

 

Later, she has a full tummy, and is clearly in a good mood.  She played happily with everyone, except me of course.  Its clear that for now, I can't be in the room with her without eliciting a reaction.

 

The first day is not going well for me.  But if there's a bright side, its that the situation makes the boys laugh - 'she doesn't like you, daddy' they'll say giggling.

 

I know the answer is time, but its tough because I can't give Jessica a break, and I would like to bond with her.

 

The boys are happy to have her around, and I can see that they'll be good siblings.  That makes me happy, even if its going to be like this for a while.

 

Oh, and the by the way, in the afternoon, I got a jury summons!  And of course its for the time that I'll be off, caring for Megan, assuming she'll have me.  I'm sure I can get a postponment, it just figures that my day would go like that.

 

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

 

-- David

Day 9 – April 23, 2009

We arrive home today! We land in Miami at 7:40 a.m. exhausted. Megan slept about 2/3 of the flight, I didn’t even close my eyes, and my mother slept a little bit. Flying halfway across the world with a baby is hardly a picnic, though of course it is totally worth it. We take the elevator down to baggage claim with a woman who keeps muttering for us to hurry on to the elevator and then proceeds to keep pressing the open door button instead of the 1st floor button. We finally descend to the first floor and walk to the baggage carousel where we meet Daddy! How exciting! All goes well until we get home where Megan screams whenever Daddy gets too close. Poor Daddy is so upset.

Megan’s brothers, Andrew (9) and Julian (6) have an early release day at school today and arrive home shortly after noon. They are so excited to see her. I am practically comatose at the time, after have been sleep deprived for a couple of days, but I can see that they are enjoying their introduction. They fetch board books and toys and sit on the bed reading to her and playing with her. Meanwhile, Daddy is still eliciting screams from Megan when he gets within 10 feet of her. He does give her a quick bath, but I wouldn’t say she is exactly pleased.

Today is Megan’s day to get acquainted with her family, her house, her room and her toys. She is very mommy focused, but that is probably to be expected given that I have been her security blanket during this past week of life altering events. She particularly enjoys being pushed on a ride on toy by Julian all over the downstairs. I ask Julian who he thinks will get tired first, him or Megan. He says Megan, but I think it is a tie. They keep it up for quite a while.

Daddy makes congee in the rice cooker. Very impressive! Megan eats a little but still prefers her formula. David does some investigative work on the computer and learns that on the English language versions of the Asian rice cookers, the congee setting is called porridge. Now, we have a reason to use that setting. We spend most of the day trying to make Megan feel comfortable. My mother and I nap on and off, trying to feel human again, and of course there are piles of laundry awaiting me. David did do some while I was away, but laundry is one of those things which multiplies by itself. Megan isn’t too happy about sleeping in her crib. She does for a little while but then starts screaming. Julian, who is camping out in Megan’s room in a sleeping bag next to her crib, says his ears hurt and returns to his room. Megan continues to scream, and David fixes her a bottle which she promptly throws up all over herself and me. We get both of us cleaned up and then let her sleep in bed with us. I was trying to avoid doing this as I really want her to get used to sleeping in her crib; however, we realize that what she needs most right now is to feel secure. She sleeps peacefully the rest of the night next to me.

Day 8 – April 22, 2009

Today is Megan’s first birthday, and her longest day (33 hours) yet since we will be gaining time as we travel to San Francisco in the evening. We pack up our things, have breakfast and then visit the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. This is a really big place and one which warrants a much longer visit. However, much of what there is to see is outside (the gardens and the buildings), and it happens to be a miserable, rainy day. The inside of the hall has historical items of interest about Chiang Kai-Shek though and was worth visiting even though we didn’t have a lot of time. Next time…..

We pick up our luggage from the hotel and have a few minutes to wait in the lounge before our transfer to the airport. We had been told by a saleslady we had befriended in one of the hotel shops that there was another family staying there who had just adopted a 7 month old boy from Tainan and that they were leaving the same day. As we are sitting in the lounge I spot this family as they walk toward the elevators. Two Caucasian parents with an Asian infant stand out in the hotel filled with business people. I run out with Megan to say hello and they join us for a few minutes until we have to leave. They are from a Chicago suburb, and we exchange stories and email addresses.

The airport is virtually empty, and we fly through check-in and security. We’re not sure about how secure the security is though since we both forget that we have several bottles of water between us, and none of them are detected during the security check. The duty free section in Taipei goes on for miles, and we keep ourselves busy strolling through it. Then we board. It is an evening flight and since Megan is a good sleeper, we figure Megan will sleep though most of it. Boy, were we wrong. She wants nothing to do with the baby meal, and she doesn’t want to sleep in the bassinet that they install on the wall of the bulkhead. The flight attendants take her from me for I don’t know how long, but it must have been at least a half hour. When they return, she’s fast asleep. We put her in the bassinet where she sleeps peacefully for about 15-20 minutes and then she gets fussy again. I end up sleeping with her in my seat though she wakes up about every 15 minutes because she can’t get comfortable. It was a very long flight. Did I mention how wonderful EVA Airlines is? We would fly them everywhere if only they had domestic flights. Every single person we came in contact with from the check in people to the flight attendants to the people who helped us with their bags couldn’t have been nicer. The flights themselves were long (not their fault) but otherwise excellent.

When we land in San Francisco at around 4:40 p.m., the airport is mostly empty. The Homeland Security employees who take and review our immigration documents for Megan are as nice as they can be. We go right through customs and turn in the banana I forgot I still had from the hotel to the USDA area.

We go right to the American Airlines lounge to wait for our 11:35 p.m. flight to Miami. Megan enjoys having more space to wander and happily munches on her cookies leaving behind piles of crumbs wherever she goes. We try desperately to take a photo of her in her birthday hat before she takes it off. We have to be fast, but I think we got one. She even receives her first set of wings from the ladies who work in the lounge. We hope she’ll sleep on the flight tonight.

Day 7 – April 21, 2009

After breakfast, we return to AIT where we pick up her passport with her immigrant visa inside and a very large packet of papers which I am instructed to present to immigration upon arrival in the US. Everything is ready when I get there, and we leave a few minutes later. Megan will become a permanent resident upon entering the US. Had David traveled with me, she would have become a US citizen immediately. The rules differ when only one parent travels. She will gain her citizenship after we complete the readoption process in the US. We’ll get started on that right away.

It isn’t a bright, sunny day, but it isn’t raining either so we catch a taxi to the Taipei Zoo. Both my mother and Megan are free, so it costs just under US$2 for us to get into the zoo. Some of the merchandise inside the zoo approaches US prices, but the admission price can’t be beat. The Taiwanese have gone panda bear crazy. The current president accepted the gift of a pair of panda bears from China toward the end of last year, and they went on display in January this year. The previous president had rejected the gift. They give you a piece of paper upon entering the zoo indicating what time you can see the pandas. It’s kind of like the fast pass at DisneyWorld. We wander around the zoo which is beautiful. There is a lot of greenery and beautiful orchids hanging from the trees. Many of the animals have room to roam though there are some exceptions such as the elephants. The zoo is filled with groups of school children of all ages dressed in their school warm up suits. Megan is more fascinated with the children and people in the zoo than she is with the animals. We wander through the zoo until it is time to see the panda bears. You walk in a line through the panda house, and you only have a minute to actually see the pandas. My photos didn’t come out, but they are such beautiful animals. One was munching on a pile of bamboo stalks, while the other was lounging with his back toward us. They were completely oblivious to all the attention they were attracting. I suppose celebrity status gets a little old after a while. Even though both my mother and I have seen pandas before, they never fail to enchant you. There is just something about these creatures that captivates the world. I had read an article on the EVA airlines site about their travel to Taiwan. These animals traveled in style in a temperature controlled area of the plane stocked with their favorite food, bamboo. Every detail was planned, so as to ensure that the animals did not endure any stress during their flight.

We had really come to see the pandas, so after we saw them we depart the zoo to visit the handicraft mart to purchase a few gifts. This is a 3 story building with each story specializing in different merchandise from Taiwan. We had expected to see a lot of touristy mass produced items, and we did. But we also saw some very nice quality items mixed in. We purchase a few things, including some Chinese style dresses for Megan for celebrating the Chinese New Year, but not too much as we have to make sure we have room in our suitcases. Shopping here has been fun.

We get back to the hotel much earlier than the night before. We deposit our things in our room and head for the Japanese restaurant in the hotel. The buffet is incredibly beautiful and unlike any Japanese buffet we have ever seen. Everything is beautifully displayed, and the food is amazing. The variety is spectacular, and the hard part is deciding what to take so that we don’t fill up before we have a chance to try all the things we want to try. The sushi and sashimi melt in your mouth, and we leave very well fed. The desserts look wonderful, too, but we simply don’t have room except for a few spoonfuls of ice cream which we had really gotten for Megan but who wasn’t interested. Even the ice cream was some of the best we had ever tasted. Megan didn’t dine as well as we did. She spit out everything we gave her, and all she really wanted was her formula.

Upon returning to the room, we start to pack up a few things and leave the rest for tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’ll leave the hotel around 4:00 for the airport and try to see the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in the morning and maybe a temple. I’ll try to post another blog entry when we land in San Francisco.

Day 6 – April 20, 2009

Today, we arrive at AIT at 9:00 for our visa appointment. They have my file, and they ask me to fill out some additional paperwork. I am informed that I am missing two required items. The first is easily obtained. They need two 2 x 2 photos of Megan which I have taken at a Kodak store around the corner from AIT. The second is a copy of my W-2 which I do not have. I had brought a copy of my 2008 tax return but not the W-2 forms. They only need mine but tell me that if David can email it or fax it to them by the next day I can pick up the visa on Wednesday morning. I complete the rest of the process including the brief interview with the officer. We also chat with a family who has an adorable 15 month old girl with whom Megan exchanges baby babble. They are immigrating to the US in September, but haven't decided if they will move to California, Colorado or maybe Texas. After a couple of hours, most of which is waiting, we’re ready to leave. We go directly back to the hotel so I can send an email to David asking him to scan and email the W-2 as soon as possible.

We eat a late lunch at the hotel and then do some shopping around the hotel. We return to Liuligong Fang Gallery to purchase some small glass pieces. We didn’t realize our visit there included babysitting! One of the ladies held Megan and walked her all around the shop. I was afraid we were imposing, so I took Megan back after a little while. The saleslady handed her back somewhat reluctantly though. I do think Megan would go off with just about anyone who would play with her.

We return to the hotel for dinner, and we realize we have kept Megan up too late. She sleeps right through dinner. Back to the room for a bath and a bottle. Megan falls back asleep immediately.

There are two voicemail messages, one from David and one from AIT. Fortunately, David checked email very late at night and immediately scanned my W-2 form and emailed it to AIT. The message from AIT said that they had received my W-2 and that I could pick up the visa at 11:30 on Tuesday. Yeah! We’ll be heading for AIT tomorrow morning and then hopefully to the zoo if it’s a nice day.

Day 5 – April 19, 2009

This is our first down day when we don’t have to be anywhere at any specific time, so we take our time. The breakfast is delicious, though more Western than at our hotel in Kaohsiung. We discover that Megan likes strawberries. She also ate a little bit of egg. If she doesn’t want any more of something or doesn’t particularly care for it, she’ll spit it right back out at you. After our leisurely breakfast we return to the room to pack our things up for the day. We then head out for the Palace Museum which houses all the wonderful antiquities Chiang Kai-shek stole from mainland China when he came to Taiwan. Our taxi driver is very friendly and is the most well traveled taxi driver we have ever met. He tells us he has traveled to more than 40 countries including several trips to the US and Canada. He has probably seen more of the US than I have.

At the museum, the porcelain impresses us the most. The pieces are so beautiful and so artistic and so incredibly old, some dating back to the 5th century. The museum is extremely crowded with tour groups arriving one after another. It seems that the majority of them are from mainland China. We do our best to dart to the pieces when there is a brief pause between groups before being engulfed by them.

After leaving the museum we go to 101 which is the tallest building in Taiwan and one of the tallest in the world. There are 101 floors plus 5 underground, .and as of March 2009 claims the title of the tallest building in the world, “as international architectural standards define a "building" as a structure capable of being fully occupied.” It will lose this distinction to a building in Dubai later this year. We didn’t go to the observation desk, though we did see the long line for it. The lower floors are one large shopping mall with some very exclusive stores. The vast majority are the same ones you can find in the US, so we head to the 5th floor where there are a couple of stores selling art glass from Taiwanese artists. The store which has the most beautiful items is the Liuligong Fang Gallery. My mother had purchased a few items from this artist during her trip to China in November, but the artist is Taiwanese. This artist has a couple of other galleries nearby within different department stores, so we wait to make any purchases as we are told that the different stores carry different items.

We then head for the 5th floor where there is a wide selection of restaurants. We eat at a Chinese restaurant where the food is again delicious. I have shrimp with exotic seaweed, and my mother has beef with bamboo. All of us including Megan eat rice with green vegetables. You certainly can’t go hungry here. The food everywhere we have eaten has been wonderful and has ranged from dirt cheap to relatively inexpensive. As we try to make our way out of 101 after dinner, we accidently end up on B1 which is where the food market and food court are located. Had we known there was a food court, we probably would have headed here first. We walk around, and each restaurant in the food court looks more delicious than the next. This is not your average mall food court in the States. We enjoy walking through the food market and see many familiar US brands in Chinese packaging as well as many products from Japan.

We walk back to the hotel which is about 2 blocks away and get ready for bed. We figured Megan would go right to sleep after such a busy day, but she had other ideas. She wasn’t the least bit interested in sleeping. She kept crawling around her crib, standing up, throwing her toys out and then looking at us to see if we would pick them up for her (which of course we did) and babbling away in whichever language she is speaking. Finally, around 11:00, she decides she is tired enough to go to sleep. Exhausted, we fall asleep minutes later. Tomorrow, we head for AIT (US embassy equivalent) for Megan’s visa appointment.

Day 4 – April 18, 2009

Today we depart Kaohsiung for Taipei. Megan sleeps soundly the whole night without waking up. What a treat to skip the sleepless nights the third time around! We go down for breakfast, and Megan eats a roll and a banana. We take an extra banana and a couple of rolls for the trip. We will have to make sure we bring some bananas with us for the flights home. Baby food isn’t available in Taiwan since parents prepare their own. It does make traveling a little more challenging, but we also have a large supply of formula which the orphanage kindly provided to us.

We had brought too much luggage with us which makes train travel a little difficult, but the hotel arranged to have a couple of bags sent separately by courier to our hotel in Taipei. We pack up those bags and deposit them downstairs along with the crib and baby things we had borrowed from the orphanage. Everyone has been so incredibly kind and helpful to us during our stay. At 1:00, Miss Kau and Mr. Zhen come to pick us up at the hotel to take us to the train station. They have brought “Strawberry” along to say good-bye. Strawberry is about 14 months old and is being adopted by a family in New York. Ms. Kau gives all the babies nicknames when they arrive in the orphanage. There is another baby at the orphanage she has nicknamed “string bean”. Of course there are tears all around. Ms. Kau has cared for Megan for the first year of her life, and she will miss her very much. Ms. Kau gives Megan a string of pearls and tells us it is for when she gets married. We stop briefly at the end of the hotel driveway so that my mother and I can take a couple of pictures of the hotel. Then we are on our way to the train station. We take a few photos of Ms. Kau, Megan and Strawberry, and then Miss Kau and Mr. Zhen help us to the train platform. More tears follow by all of us, except for the babies who don’t really understand what the fuss is about.

The train is express, and Megan sleeps peacefully in grandma’s arms for the 90 minute trip. Grandma, who Andrew and Julian call “Biba”, has been completely seduced by Megan’s charm. Megan has bonded with both of us, and there has been absolutely none of the separation anxiety we were expecting. Upon arriving, we easily find the taxi stand. The taxi driver speaks no English at all, but fortunately, Grace had written all of the places we needed to go in Taipei in Chinese. We arrive at the Hyatt in about 15 minutes. While we are checking in, the woman assisting us asks if Megan speaks English or Mandarin. I’m not sure if there is English and Mandarin baby babble, but we just say that she isn’t talking yet, though she probably understands Mandarin better. The room is very comfortable, and they have a crib made up in the room with a baby sized pillow, sheets and blanket. It is made up just like our beds only smaller. We rest for a little while and feed Megan a banana. We have a light dinner and then decide to take a short walk outside since there are sidewalks in the area where the hotel is located. I ask if there is a store nearby where I can buy some more baby bottles and they give us a map and highlight the route. Once outside, we realize that we don’t feel so comfortable walking on these streets after all. We don’t have any concerns about security, but the traffic is extremely busy, and all the scooters are a little scary. We’re afraid to cross the street. Scooters are the primary mode of transportation in Taiwan. There are many cars as well, but scooters probably outnumber cars. Whole families get around on scooters, and it is a little disconcerting to see very small children riding in front of their parents. Many don’t wear helmets either, even though it is a law here to wear a helmet. I can’t imagine driving here though I suppose it is what you are used to. Grace teasingly says the rules of the road are just “recommendations”. It’s not as bad as in some countries I have visited, but it’s a far cry from traffic patterns in the US, yes even Miami. We walk a short distance before turning back to the hotel without the baby bottles.

Back at the hotel, we head back upstairs to give Megan who is now fast asleep a bath. She doesn’t enjoy the bath tonight either, but we make it very fast so she can go to sleep. We’re actually all quite tired. Tomorrow is Sunday, and we don’t have to be anywhere in particular, so we think it would be a good day to visit the museum which we have been told is about 40 minutes away by taxi.

Day 3 – April 17, 2009

We still have jet lag, though it isn’t as bad as yesterday. We eat a similar breakfast to that of the day before and meet Grace in the lobby at 9:00 to start our day. We pick up Megan at the orphanage and then go straight to see the social worker. The purpose of this meeting is for her to feel comfortable that Megan is going to a good home. We also learn a little bit more about Megan’s birth parents than we had known. We knew that the birth mother was 23 when Megan was born, and we had always assumed that Megan was the birth mother’s only child. However, we learn today that Megan is the birth mother’s fourth child and the third with her second husband. The second marriage failed before Megan was born, and the birth parents couldn’t afford to keep her as single parents. We learn this happens all too frequently. There is another little boy in the orphanage with a very similar situation. Every orphan has his/her own story. The government is very helpful though. Children are not abandoned in Taiwan. When the birth parents are not able to care for their children, they contact the social worker who arranges for the child to be placed with a foster family or orphanage. Grace explains that Taiwan has 6 certified orphanages, of which Ms. Kau’s facility is the smallest. The maximum number of children she can have at any one time is 10 children. With Megan leaving, there will be space for one more.

After leaving the social worker’s office, we return to the orphanage to play with the babies and wait for Ms Kau who will join us for lunch today. We eat a delicious lunch at a Japanese restaurant. For those of you who might be wondering why there is so much Japanese food, Japan occupied Taiwan for 50 years and had a significant influence on the island. Megan ate even more today than she did yesterday. I have never seen a one year old eat so much. She already has something in common with her big brother, Andrew who also has a healthy appetite. For being a restaurant novice, she has truly embraced the dining out experience. Of course, with such a full tummy, Megan falls asleep immediately in the car.

We say good-bye to Ms. Kau after lunch and pick up train tickets for tomorrow’s trip to Taipei. After picking up the train tickets, we are free to do some shopping. The first stop is a tea shop where we sample some Jasmine tea. I buy some tea, and we move on to one of the department stores to look at children’s clothes. We can’t resist some of the adorable little girl outfits by local brands we have never heard of. Megan is going to be one well dressed little girl. Megan seems very happy sitting in her stroller soaking up all the new sights and sounds of her first shopping spree. I think I finally have my little shopper!

After shopping, we head for Seafood Island which is a short ferry ride from Kaohsiung. The scooters occupy the first floor, so we go up to the second floor to sit down and enjoy the view of the harbor. Five minutes later we arrive, and Grace leads us to her favorite restaurant. The seafood is all on display in front of the restaurant, and we walk outside to select our dinner. It doesn’t get much fresher than this. Megan enjoys her meal of rice, noodles and fish. I, myself, thoroughly enjoy the fried cuttle fish. I don’t think I can get this back at home.

After dinner, Grace takes us back to the hotel. We stop to buy Pampers and formula containers so that Megan will have enough pre-measured formula to last us the more than 24 hour trip home to Florida.
Once back at the hotel, Megan is obviously very tired. She has had a very full day and has spent more time out of the orphanage setting than she has ever done before. First we say good-bye to Grace without whose help we never would have been able to manage. She has been the most wonderful translator, helper, tour guide, driver and so much more. We have thoroughly enjoyed the last few days we have spent with her. She has a heart of gold, and she cares so much about the children in the orphanage. She tells us that she often visits the orphanage to help out Ms. Kau when she is short handed. After Grace leaves, we give Megan a quick bath, and this is the first time she has cried for more than few moments. She refuses to sit down, so I wash her quickly while she stands. She calms down immediately when I take her out, dry her off and put on her pajamas. She is fascinated with the box from the diaper ointment tube and refuses to let go so we put her to bed with it. The orphanage has loaned us a crib for the night, and she sits contently in it playing with the box. I hand her a small teddy bear to play with, but true to baby protocol she is more interested in the box. She falls asleep easily and only once wakes up crying for a few minutes when I move her crib. We keep expecting her to start crying when she realizes she is alone with us without the familiar surroundings of the orphanage, Ms. Kau and the nannies, but she seems very comfortable with us. We think she knows she is finally going home. Tomorrow we are traveling to Taipei where we will be for the next few days.

Day 2 – April 16, 2009

Despite our best attempts to adjust ourselves to Taiwanese time, we find ourselves suffering from a classic case of jet lag and waking up in the middle of the night. We force ourselves to sleep or at least lie in bed until 6:00 so that we don’t find ourselves exhausted later in the day.

Included in our hotel stay is a buffet style breakfast with a wide assortment of Chinese and Western dishes, most of which I would classify as lunch or dinner items rather than breakfast. The food is very good however, and we start our day off with a bowl of noodle soup, seaweed salad, dumplings and scrambled eggs.

Grace picks us up at 9:00 a.m. from the hotel lobby and we head for the orphanage where we meet the orphanage staff and get to visit with Megan and the 9 other babies. We spend some time playing with the children and then leave for the first of our two doctor appointments that day. We arrive at the local hospital and make our way to the children’s ward. We wait a short time and then enter a room with the doctor and a number of nurses all wearing face masks which is extremely common here in Taiwan. Half the people on the streets wear them, presumably to protect themselves from the pollution. In the case of the hospital however; we assume it is to protect themselves from germs. The doctor is very nice and speaks some English. He reviews Megan’s medical and immunization records. He reviews her previous hospitalizations for an infection and pneumonia when she was an infant and explains that her immunizations are up to date and notes which ones she will need soon after arriving home to the US. If she had remained in Taiwan she would have received the Japanese encephalitis vaccine because of the bad mosquito problem in Taiwan, but that is one which is not administered in the US. They also vaccinate against TB in Taiwan as opposed to administering the test to see if someone has TB. The doctor also explains that though she appears a little cross eyed at times, she isn’t. That makes me feel better, but we’ll still have her examined when we arrive home. At this time, other patients have already entered the room and are waiting their turn to speak to the doctor. I thank the doctor and we leave the hospital.

Since we have some time before the next appointment in the afternoon, we pick up Grace’s husband, Edmund, and go to lunch. We go to one of their favorite restaurants where they take all the adoptive families visiting from the US. It is a Japanese style shabu shabu restaurant where you select all your vegetables, meats and fish and then cook them at the table in individual pots which are recessed in the table. The food is delicious, though it takes me quite a long time to eat since I am also feeding Megan who is happily soaking up the atmosphere, not to mention relishing her first experience with restaurant food. We learn that she loves to eat and has a good appetite, despite the fact that she only has 4 teeth. I feed her rice, salmon and tofu with chopsticks, though the tofu was her least favorite. I’ve never fed a baby with chopsticks, but it actually works quite well.

After lunch, we drop off Edmund at his home and my mother at the hotel and return to the hospital for the second doctor’s appointment. This doctor evaluates Megan’s development and assesses whether she is on target or delayed in specific areas. This doctor is very young, and I’m not really sure she is even old enough to be a doctor, but she seems to know what she is doing. They weigh Megan, and measure her height and head circumference. The doctor explains that Megan is progressing fine, though she is a little underweight. She also notes that she has a speech delay and recommends that I feed her hard crackers so that she can develop the muscles in her mouth. If I didn’t already have two children, I might actually have been concerned, but since I do, I just had to contain my laughter. Megan will turn one year old next week, and I have yet to meet a child that age with an extensive vocabulary. Her communication skills seem to be just fine. She makes sounds, smiles and laughs a lot and makes good eye contact. The fact that she isn’t actually talking yet is quite okay with me. And if she were, I would need a translator anyway.

We return to the orphanage to pick up some items for Megan but then stay for a while to help out since they are understaffed at the moment. It is non-stop feeding and diaper changing for the staff. Grace runs around picking up all the infants who wake up crying while I try to feed Megan who isn’t particularly hungry after her big lunch and play with the crawling babies on the floor.

We leave Megan at the orphanage and then leave to go pick my mother up from the hotel so that we can visit the night market. Despite the temptation of trying stinky tofu, one of Taiwan’s most well known dishes, I pass. The market is full of delicacies such as various organ meats, stands where every part (and I mean every part) of the duck can be found, whole fried frogs (not just the legs) and other tasty delights. The array of foods is impressive though not exactly mouth watering, at least for me. Since my sole job in Taiwan is to bring Megan home safe and sound, I decide that the risk of getting sick isn’t worth it. After such a big lunch, none of us are particularly hungry anyway so we pass on dinner. Instead I select a delicious snack consisting of a pancake sandwich filled with red bean paste.

After visiting the night market, we decide that it would be best to leave Megan at the orphanage for one more night, and we return to the hotel.

Day 1 – April 15, 2009

After a 17 hour non-stop direct flight from Newark on EVA Airline, my mother and I land in Taipei at 7:00 a.m. Normally, the flight stops over in Anchorage, Alaska but because of the recent volcano activity, flights are now non-stop. After moving very smoothly and quickly through immigration and customs due to the fact that the airport is virtually empty at this time, we make our way over to the ticket counter to purchase a bus ticket which will take us to the high speed rail train station for our next leg of our journey to Kaohsiung. Fortunately, two very nice and helpful Taiwanese women from New Jersey help guide us to the right counter to purchase tickets and then onto the bus to take us to the train station. What we would have done without them I’m not quite sure. We would probably still be at the train station struggling with our luggage. They are headed for Kaohsiung as well and help us with our luggage as we purchase train tickets and board the train.

The 2 hour train ride is very comfortable though the sights from the train aren’t particularly memorable. The terrain along the route is very flat and dotted with fairly uninteresting concrete block structures. After arriving in Kaohsiung we easily find the taxi stand at the train station where we catch a cab for the 15 minute ride to The Grand Hotel Kaohsiung, a very large and imposing Chinese looking building amid a sea of otherwise undistinguishable concrete buildings.

The hotel staff is so friendly and helpful, and the rooms are both comfortable and spacious and decorated in simple Chinese décor with a large balcony overlooking a lake. We settle ourselves in after our exhausting trip and wait for the phone to ring. After a short time, Grace, the translator calls to tell us that she will be arriving with Megan, Miss Kau, the orphanage director, and the nanny at 2:00 p.m. The moment we have been waiting for is about to arrive.

A couple of minutes after walking down to the hotel lobby, in walks Grace followed by Miss Kau, the nanny and Megan. Megan, who they call Intao which means cherry in English, is sitting calmly in her stroller. She is the most adorable and beautiful little girl ever (ok, I’m allowed to be biased). We hold her and walk with her in the lobby. She is just learning to walk and tightly grips my hand and my mother’s hands as we walk around the lobby. She is completely entranced with my mother’s necklace with large beads and keeps reaching for them. She lets us hold her and never once lets out a cry except for a brief second when she stumbles while walking on her own. We even walk outside with her and Grace while Miss Kau and the nanny remain in the lobby. Then, we spend some time watching and holding Megan while she plays with a couple of the toys we have brought for the orphanage. We also have an opportunity to learn a little about Megan’s schedule and what she likes to eat. I think we’re going to have to start learning how to make congee as apparently that is what they feed her now along with formula. Grace describes it as rice soup with vegetables made in a rice cooker with chicken broth instead of water. I hope David, my husband, is reading this and getting out the rice cooker now to start practicing.

Since my mother and I are visibly exhausted from our travels, they tell us to rest tonight while they take Megan back to the orphanage. As much as we want to spend more time with her, we are actually happy to be able to have an evening to rest. When we go back up to our room, we realize how very tired we were. If not for my mother convincing me that we really do need to eat a real meal that day, I probably would never have gotten up for dinner. We wrap up our day with dinner consisting of a wonderfully soothing noodle soup and shrimp and rice dish at the Chinese restaurant at the hotel. Grace is picking us up at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow so that we can stop at the orphanage before heading out to Megan’s doctor’s visit.

Arrival in Taiwan

Jessica and Barbara landed in Taipei a few hours ago, and are making the trek to Kaohsiung as I write this.

 

Once there, they'll check into the hotel, and Jessica will be posting from there.  I look forward to it!

And so it begins...

We finally got all the paperwork together, and have appointments made in Taiwan.

 

Its all for real....and Jessica will be travelling next week!!!