It's a girl!!

Greetings from a new (and exhausted) mother of three. I thought I would take my turn at this blog while Doug is out running around the streets of Ho Chi Minh City trying to hunt down a pacifier for our newest arrival.

Right now, all three kids are sleeping and I feel a little like I should be taking the advice that new mothers get – sleep when your kids are sleeping because you can’t guarantee how the next sleep will go. We will see what this night has in store for us.

It has been quite a day. We started out with breakfast at the hotel and then went to the care center for one last visit. Julia was still not our biggest fan. I let Doug have a shot with her this time and she kind of cried/whimpered until she finally fell asleep. She woke up, got a bottle and promptly spit up all over Doug. That brought the nannies back into the picture and our time with her was pretty much over.

We have both been very impressed with the place where she has spent the first part of her life. It is very clean and the nannies love the children immensely. The children get held a lot and receive much interaction. In fact, Julia apparently loves to be held so much that she wraps her legs around the waist of the person who is holding her and has quite a tight leg grip for someone so tiny. This is a great and unique thing for this kind of situation and we are extremely thankful.

After that, we went back to the hotel, packed, ate lunch, changed into our nice clothes and checked out of the hotel. From there, we drove around her town for a few minutes and went to the care center to pick up the two children. The other child is having a little easier time adjusting so that is good. We were able to get back the blanket that Doug’s mom made (Thanks Terrie!) and Julia seemed to like snuggling into that a little bit (by that I mean that she wasn’t crying all of the time). Then it was time for the Giving and Receiving Ceremony.

We went to the government center and went upstairs to a room where we met with 6 others including 2 provincial officers and the director of Julia’s care center. They took Julia from the room and we signed some papers, promised to raise her to the best of our ability and to be proud of her heritage and promised to send yearly developmental reports back to the VN gov’t on how Julia is doing. After that they brought Julia back in and handed her to us and she was ours. Grand total: 4 happy Atkins family members and 1 not-so-happy Atkins member. =)

After that we got on the bus for the 3 hour trip back to Ho Chi Minh City. This at times proved to be very overwhelming for our newest daughter as she has never been outside the orphanage center gates since she arrived there. She didn’t cry but just sat very still and almost catatonic as she tried to take it all in. We finally arrived to back at the Lan Lan 2 around 7:00 with three hungry and tired children and no food. We threw together some snacks for the older kids and some rice soup from the restaurant downstairs for Julia (which she again spit up all over Doug). Then they were all jammied and put to bed.

One funny story on the bus ride back to HCMC. Thomas was talking to Julia and saying that she was special because she was the newest member to our family and that he was special because he was going to teach her a whole bunch of stuff. And then a little voice (Helen) pop up from the seat behind us and said “Hey – wait a minute- I’m special too!”
How lucky are we to have three special children?

Well, it’s 9:00 local time and way past my bedtime. =) Doug has not arrived back yet from his pacifier hunt so you will have to wait to see how that turns out.

We are thankful for all of you and appreciate the support that you have given us through this process. We look forward to introducing our darling daughter to you all.

Barbie

Note from Doug – I got the pacifier…how incompetent does she think that I am that I can’t get a pacifier in Saigon at 9 pm on a Friday night (by the way…scooters were out in force!) I also got some cheap knock-off BBQ flavored Pringles. Nice and greasy. Now I will attempt to upload a few pix.