March 7, 2008 Having the time of our lives!

I got in trouble with some people after the last email for not including any pictures. We're just having too much fun to take the time to upload pictures! Plus, I have a few videos and they take about an hour each to upload (they're only 1-2 minutes long). I really wanted to share those. That's why I haven't sent an email in a couple days.This trip is going SO well. It's been an awesome vacation. Last time was so hard. We didn't know what we were doing (with the baby), I was sick half the trip, we were both homesick, and we just wanted to go home. Now we can't believe our trip is over halfway over! We're really having a blast. Dylan is really warming up to her, and has started giving her kisses without our prompting.We had Madison's visa medical exam. Basically, they look at her, ask us if we've noticed anything unusual, listen to her heart/lungs, weigh her and send us on our way. No looking in the ears, down the throat, in her eyes, etc. It's not a medical exam for her, it's just to make sure she's not going to bring some crazy disease into the US. She's 18.5 pounds (75th %tile) and 27.5 inches long (75th %tile). I don't know if I mentioned it before, but she has 4 teeth. The 2 front bottom ones and one of the front top ones and the one beside it. She's cutting her other front top tooth.We're thinking about taking Maddie to the international hospital. (If you have a weak stomach or are eating, don't read the next part.) She has oozing sores on the crown of her head. She scratches them and they bleed (we had to put socks over her hands), but every half hour or so, we blot her head with a napkin and get a lot of yellow pus. I don't know what it is. This is not scabies. She had that on her face and arms and it was treated. It got better pretty quick. It is probably some sort of infection. I don't know if antibiotics are needed (we have some, just in case). We're going to call our pediatrician when they open in a couple hours. If he thinks we need to take her to the hospital, we will. She's been running a low-grade fever off and on since we got her, but never over 100. She's cutting a couple teeth, so that could be causing the fever.I also think she may have ringworm on her back. She has a couple raised red circles about the size of a silver dollar on her back. And it looks like she has eczema on her chin. It doesn't look like the scabies. We have hydrocortisone ointment that we're using, but you can only use it once a day on babies (we had to use it on Dylan's eczema). So we're definitely dealing with some medical issues, but all are minor and can be fixed. We already have an appointment at the Vanderbilt Int'l Adoption Clinic for the Monday after we get home. The next (and LAST) step is the visa interview in Hanoi. This has to be scheduled, so we can't just fly up there and walk in to the embassy. Our appointment is scheduled for Tuesday. We'll fly up to Hanoi Monday at noon (Sunday night at 11pm your time). For now, we're just enjoying Saigon (despite the heat). The pool here is fabulous (pic is from our room window). The kids love it (and so do mommy and daddy!). Everyone is relatively healthy and happy. Everyone is sleeping great (in fact, all 4 of us took a 2-hour nap at lunchtime, which felt wonderful). Madison does wake up once or twice in the night to feed, but then goes right back to sleep. And her crying does not wake Dylan up. He sleeps like a rock.Most of you remember from last time, I'm sure, about the traffic over here. It's pretty insane. 90% of the people drive mopeds (tiny motorcycles). There are no 'lanes' in the road. It's like a game to see how close you can get to the person next to you. On a road the width of 2 lanes in the states, you'll see 5-6 bikes across. We saw a baby about Dylan's age sandwiched between two adults on a bike yesterday. The adults had helmets, but the baby did not! Anyway, I got a couple videos of us crossing the street, just to better show the 'experience.' Unfortunately, I've left this email waiting all day for the videos to upload and they still haven't, so you'll have to wait for the next installment for the video of us crossing the street! (it's really not as boring as it sounds!)So why did we cross the street, you ask? To get diet pepsi! The grocery store is right across the street. And how I wish I could've taken pictures there!! They didn't allow cameras, but it was wild. It was a grocery store, like walmart or kroger. But in the fresh meat section there were whole baby suckling pigs. And chickens with their heads still attached. In the seafood section, there was just a big case of ice with raw fish laying on top. You just walk over and bag up whatever you want. Oh, and they had eel, snakes, all kinds of fish (with heads still attached, of course). There were some things we couldn't figure out and probably didn't want to. We also went to the local mall. We bought several bigger ao dais (traditional VNese dresses) for Maddie and lots of toys for Dylan. We lost a couple of his Thomas trains along the way somewhere, so we got him a few toys to make up for it. And to wrap up for the flight home. We're looking into upgrading to business class, since there are 4 of us in 2 seats, but we'll have to see how much it will cost. It sure would make the trip home easier!! Oh, and this is Quoc, our facilitator and translator. He's been incredible. He takes us through all the steps we need, books our hotels and flights, and even gave us a cell phone to call him if we need.Here are some videos that I finally got uploaded. Dylan LOVED playing in the ocean at the Sandy Beach.Here is the video from my first meeting with Madison.Here is the one where they were getting her dressed for the G&R before handing her over to me.
Below are links to all the pictures of videos in this email.Videos:http://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/videos/?action=view&current=080301049.flvhttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/videos/?action=view&current=080303037.flvhttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/videos/?action=view&current=080303025.flvhttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/videos/?action=view&current=080303001.flvPictures:http://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306045.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306041.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306039.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306026.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306023.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306019.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306017.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306015.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306003.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306007-1.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306002-1.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306001.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306007.jpghttp://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/DylanAVWright/Vietnam%202008/?action=view&current=080306036.jpgI hope this satisfies you picture hounds! I'm uploading 50+ more from today, plus the video of the street, so I'll get another email out when I get those ready. And if the hundreds of pictures I've sent so far aren't enough, just browse around the album. I've got over 500 in there. I'll be sorting them out into sub-folders to keep them a little more organized.
Stephanie