We arrived yesterday breezed through immigration and customs and off to the hotel for a good night sleep. We have one more day of travel and we will be home at last. Our flight arrives in CR at 5:55PM. It will be so good to be home at last with our girls. Can’t wait to see our boys at home and introduce the girls to all.
More to come!
After the I-600 approval, we had to rush to the embassy again to drop off the sealed medical reports from the SOS clinic, the girls’ passports and our application for their VISAs to enter the United States. We dropped the paperwork off on Wednesday and had our VISA interview on Thursday. The VISA “interview” took a total of 10 minutes. We just had to confirm all the data was correct and sign the application in front of a U.S. government official. As soon as we signed it he said we could come back on Friday after 4:00 to pick up the VISAs and two sealed envelopes we needed to give to the immigration officer when we reached the United States.
When we went back on Friday all we had to do was pick up the girls’ passports and make sure the right VISA was glued into the correct passport. It was great to see the VISA in place making it a reality that we could bring the girls home. After we picked up the VISAs, we were able to meet with the Chief of the unit handling all of the adoption issues. We had a nice visit about policy issues and he had some great ideas about making the adoption process better and more ethical throughout Vietnam.
The weekend was my last power shopping event. On Saturday morning, we got a linen suit for P and some more keepsake items for the girls. In the afternoon, we went on a tour of a traditional silk making village. They showed us the silkworm cocoons, the way they got the individual strands of silk and how they weaved it into cloth. It was very interesting and very loud. The village, of course, had numerous shops for buying silk ties, shirts and other items. P bought a number of new ties. I think some of his last bargain silk ties from Korea will be replaced. One of the interesting things we saw and experienced was the silk worm wine. Yes, after the silk worms have produced all they can, they are “retired” to a jug, where they are covered with high grade alcohol and allowed to ferment. The wine was strong smelling and tasting. P was the first to volunteer. He described it like a strong whiskey that warms you all the way down. Even I had a taste. T. had the camera and took photos of my reaction. The tour guide gave us a nice history of Hanoi as we drove to the village.
Sunday was set aside as P’s packing day. I went shopping with one of the other moms and we left the men to watch the children. After I left, P told me Sophie was a little upset Mom left without her. That is either a good sign of attachment, or that she really likes to shop. P packed all morning, with the help from the girls. We will need to go through all the empty plastic bags to make sure his helpers did not help him by putting things in the bags he thought were empty. After they had lunch, it was naptime. Lily decided she had to fold their pajamas from last night before they could lie down. Of course, as Lily was folding, Sophie was unfolding and laughing. Eventually, P distracted Sophie long enough for Lily to finish straightening up so they could take their naps. Lily had to tuck her doll in under a fuzzy blanket before going to sleep. She slept curled up next to the doll, with her hand on it. Very cute!
Sunday night we were invited to a dinner hosted by the hotel for the families staying here while our adoptions are being processed in Hanoi. It should be an interesting event. This will probably be our last post until we get home. We leave Monday morning at 9:00 for the airport. Our flight to Taipei leaves at 12:30. After a short lay over in Taipei, we board our flight to San Francisco. We land about 2:00 local time in San Francisco. We will then go through customs and immigration. Once the girls go through immigration, they are officially U.S. citizens. To make it easier on the girls, we are going to spend the night in San Francisco. We will also be able to see my sister and niece. On Tuesday we finish the journey to Cedar Rapids. The little, southern country girls may find it a bit colder weather outside their new home, but they will find their home is filled with the everlasting warmth of family and friends.
When we did our I-600 interview last week on October 31, we were told it would take 4-6 business days to get it approved. When we called on Monday to check on the status, the embassy said it may be at least another week, because of a backlog in the CIS office. Needless to say, we were not excited of the potential that we would have to delay our homecoming, but took it in stride and emailed our travel agent with the news.
After checking on the I-600, we hung out in Hanoi and let the girls take it easy. The trip was tough on the girls’ schedules so Monday was a good recovery day. M went shopping during nap time. The girls made out well.
On Tuesday, we went to the Temple of Literature, which is the oldest university in Vietnam. It was founded by four of the original students of Confucius. It was a beautiful setting with ponds filled with water lilies. We took a cab ride over which cost us 30,000 dong (about $1.75). The cab ride over was an adventure. The cars in Vietnam all honk their horns when they pass another car. The cab honked its horn as it passed a car trying to pull away from the curb. The car came out and they brushed fenders. Our cab driver said something, that we are sure was unkind, but kept driving. The other driver just pulled out. The ride back was eventful in a different way. Although the cab was metered, the meter was spinning like a Las Vegas slot machine. By the time we reached our hotel the meter was at 85,000 dong, almost three times the fare over. P was livid. He was not going to pay it, so he gave the driver 30,000 dong and started to walk away. The driver explained it was a different route. P said the driver chose the route just to increase the fare. P gave the driver an additional 2000 dong (12 cents) and said that was it. The driver left, I am sure not very happy. The moral to the story is stick with the Hanoi Taxi company. Their fares are reasonable and always consistent.
On Wednesday, we started the day straightening up the room before we left. We had not seen the remote control for the TV for a couple of days, so finding that was part of the goal. We looked and looked, until we finally found it in the freezer compartment of our refrigerator. I guess the girls thought it needed to stay fresh. After breakfast, we spent the morning in a different part of the Old Quarter. We went over to the travel agent to pay for our hotel stay and then decided to walk back to the hotel. Along the way was the prison where U.S. prisoners of war were kept which was nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. When we got there, they were closing for lunch, maybe tomorrow. We walked back to the lake. I went shopping and P and T room the girls back for their naps. The girls were great until they got back to the room. Then it was a tag team on who wanted to be cranky, happy, or just refusing to sleep. By about 3:00 P received a call from Thuy, a woman who works for a different agency, but was helping when we first got to Hanoi. She said the I-600 was approved and we had to go immediately to the embassy and drop off the visa paperwork for the girls. She said she would be at the hotel in 5 minutes. P woke Lily up and convinced Sophie that it was O.K. to go. He grabbed the paperwork and filled his pockets with goldfish crackers, dum dum suckers and the crackers the girls like. Thuy had a cab downstairs. She put P in the cab with the girls and said her assistant, Hao, would meet him at the embassy. Hao met P at the embassy and first took him to a photo place because they thought they needed more photos, but they later found out they did not. After the trip to the photo shop, they went to the embassy and turned in all the visa paperwork. The appointment is set for 2:00 on Thursday. When we got back, P called Hein to tell him of the developments and also ask that Hein accompany them to the appointment. It would be good to have an employee of our adoption agency with us. The girls had a long, long day and everyone was very tired by the time P got back with the girls. We had supper in the room. P slipped out with T to go to the French bakery on the corner and get some sandwiches. After supper it was bath time. The girls love their baths and getting lotion rubbed on before bed. It was all splashing and giggles. Another thing the girls love to do is brush their teeth. They ask to do this and are good at brushing all by themselves. The girls allowed P to finish up the brushing just to make sure they didn’t miss a spot. The girls are very accustomed to brushing their teeth. The night we stayed in Phan Thiet with the nanny I got to observe the bathing and teeth brushing ritual. All done by the nanny, but I’m sure they have done this many times before. I think this has helped to the easy transition to bathing and teeth brushing.
So why did it take us only 5 days to get I 600 approval? On Monday, the embassy told us there were some people waiting over 2 weeks for approval. My personal opinion is that we have an ethical agency because of the Hue, the program director. Our agency has had fewer referrals than other agencies and longer waiting periods for a referral, but I know that I will be able to look my girls in the eyes one day and say your adoption was ethical. No bribes were paid, no moving children from province to province to hide the identity of the children and where they came from, children are not warehoused in holding centers then sent to feeding centers to add weight before G&R, children are not bought in China and brought over the border to be sold to the highest bidder to unethical agencies. Our agency has had no NOIDs (notice of intent to deny an I-600) and I don’t foresee this in the future. The paperwork is clean and the embassy knows this. The orphanages are in good condition with 2 to 3 kids per nanny and the kids are in general healthy. It is very rare to see lice or scabies in our agency’s orphanages. Another reason for our paperwork going so smoothly is that we are adopting older children who have been in the orphanage for years. As I recall, the youngest referral coming out of our agency is at least 6 months old much older than the very young infants coming out of some provinces with less ethical agencies who are getting NOIDs. The embassy takes all this into consideration when giving approval. If your paperwork is in order and you work with an ethical agency you should not have a problem. I realize this is not what some of you want to hear but it is the truth whether you like it or not. So check your agency before you sign with them. The quickest, youngest referral maybe more trouble than what it appears to be.
We had a 2:00 p.m. appointment to pick up the girls’ Vietnamese passports to be immediately followed by a trip to the SOS clinic for their doctor’s appointments. We had to have the passports before we could go to the clinic.
We arrived at 1:45 and waited until 2:00 when lunch was over. Soon Hein (our new guide from the agency) went up and asked about the passports. They said yes they had it. “It” Hein asked. Yes they had one passport done. They saw that the birth date and all the identifying information was the same (except the names which is only 2 letters difference in the entire name) and just made one not thinking there could be twins. Hein convinced them to make the other passport while we waited. About 2:45, Hein took all of us over to the SOS clinic and Hein convinced them to see both girls even though we had only one passport. The clinic was great and took them both in for their scheduled appointments. P and Hein then dashed back to the immigration office to wait for the new passport. One gentleman kept going up to the desk and asking about his passport. Hein told P the clerk was getting upset and the more he asked, the longer he would have to wait. Sure enough, about 3:30 a clerk came running up to the desk with a shiny new, green Vietnamese passport in her hand. It was open and she was blowing on the ink to get it to dry. It was our second passport. As soon as the desk clerk got it, she asked P and Hein to come up and sign for the new passport. The impatient gentleman was still waiting and asking about his documents. I wonder how long he waited.
P and Hein sprinted back to the SOS clinic in time for P to sit through and help get Sophie examined. The clinic was great and the girls took P’s absence pretty well. Hein would pick up the health reports for us on Monday. The doctor told us they were in excellent health, although just a little under weight.
We just love Hein he is a soft spoken man who knows the adoption process like the back of his hand. He understands most all of our English and speaks better English than I do Vietnamese. He is defiantly a plus for this agency.
On Saturday, we had arranged to go to Ha Long Bay, which is on the coast north of Hanoi. We got up early to leave by 8:00. It was a 3 hour bus ride to the coast. On the way up we stopped at a store/work shop for handicapped individuals. The hand-stitched embroidered paintings and made beautiful silk clothing. After our break, we finished the ride to Ha Long Bay. We had lunch at a tourist restaurant. Sophie had had enough of traveling and was not a happy camper in the restaurant. We were seated in a large room with about 8 other tables. Another missed meal for P. After lunch, we checked into a 3 star hotel to rest before we took a tour of one of the islands in the bay. P said the 3 star rating was awarded by the Baghdad Gazette. The rooms were nice, with one peculiar feature. In the bedroom P and I shared with the girls, the wall separating us from another room did not go completely to the exterior wall. When you pulled our curtain back, you could see about a 4 inch gap, and the curtain in the other room. We later learned (through sound and smell) the room on the other side of our wall was the other room’s bathroom. As our neighbors were going through their evening and morning bathroom rituals, all we could do was laugh. What a story! We would not believe it unless we saw it.
After our nap, we went to the island that is the convention center and high end beach area. It had a dolphin show, a laser light show and beautiful beaches and gardens. Since it was after season (we did not know this) the laser show and dolphin shows were closed. We did get to walk on the beach and around the gardens. It was a little overcast and foggy, so it was too cold to get into the water, at least for us. We did see some Russian tourists in the water though. After the tour, we went back to the same restaurant for supper. I guess in response to Sophie’s hard morning, we had a private dining room.
On Sunday, we started the day with a cruise of Ha Long Bay. We arrived at the dock and saw cruise boats 3 deep at the pier. We boarded one and followed our tour guide as he crawled from the first boat to the second boat back. The girls were not excited about the climbing over the ship rails and hung on for dear life. Once we settled into our boat, the girls sat at the table with P. It took a good 15 minutes of pushing and maneuvering to get out of the pack of boats at the dock. It was like Hanoi traffic with fewer rules of the road. After we were under way the girls had a great time watching the hawks hunting for fish and the other boats. Our first stop was an island with a large cave. When we thought cave, we though cool temperature. Not this cave. The girls needed to be carried. They both wanted to be carried by P. He got his work out that day! By the time we finished the cave, he was exhausted and ready to sit on the boat with the girls. After the cave, we went to the floating houses of the fishermen in the Bay. They catch fish, squid, clams, shrimp, etc. and put them in live wells on their floating house boats. All you do is pick out what you want and they give it to you live. We did not buy anything special. For lunch on the boat, we had clams, shrimp, hard shell crab, fish (yes, the whole fish, head and all) rice and fruit for desert. The girls ate well, and snacked a lot as well.
After the cruise, it was back on the bus for the drive back to Hanoi. On the way back we again stopped at a workshop/store run to support people with handicaps. Sophie and Lily both were very tired and fell asleep in the van. We hoped they would sleep, but as soon as we stopped they were awake and Sophie was not happy. P ended up sitting with the girls while I shopped. He was helped by a number of store employees who came to play with the babies. Eventually, Sophie calmed down and drank some juice. After we were again under way, the girls finished their naps. We arrived at our hotel at about 4:00 p.m. It was an interesting weekend.
Our Week in Hanoi
Sorry we have not been good this week on keeping our blog up to date. It has been a busy week with good progress every day. The girls are really coming out of their shells. They are eating well and now want to feed themselves and use spoons to eat. Each girl has to have her own plate and have really liked their introduction to milkshakes. They have each eaten a little pizza too. Their favorite foods are yogurt, fruit (bananas especially) and fried spring rolls.
Initially, they had to stay in the same room with P, but now they are starting to leave the room and even follow me to a different room.
On the schedule of events this week, here is what we have done. On Monday we dropped our paperwork off at the Embassy Annex. It is in a private apartment building. From the outside it definitely does not look like an embassy, or government building. The paperwork drop off was necessary so the embassy staff had time to review it before our I-600 interview. We had to give them a copy of the home study, our dossier, and the girls’ dossier, which were comprised of Vietnamese and translated copies of their birth certificates, the relinquishment papers accepting the girls into the orphanage, a letter from their birth mother, and the adoption papers showing that we were their parents under Vietnamese law. Y was down south with some other families. T, who is a friend of Y’s who I think works for another agency, was to help us with the drop off, but she was also gone, so T’s part-time assistant, H, arrived with a friend of hers from college to take us to the embassy. H’s friend came with us for the document drop-off. T did not even sign into the embassy and waited outside of security. After dropping off the paperwork we went shopping for groceries and took afternoon naps.
On Wednesday we had our I-600 interview. We arrived about 2:00 and were done by 2:30. The interviewer was very nice and said all the paper work looked fine. She went through each piece and told us they would fax it to the CIS office in Saigon. They would review it and then give their immigration decision in 4-6 business days.
On Thursday we spent the day with the girls. We had no appointments and could just explore the old quarter in Hanoi. We found some web pages to help us find the silk shops in the old quarter. Each block on the street has a different name, depending on what is being sold. Any given street will change from Silk Street to Cotton Street to Basket Street. A good map is a must. We went to purchase the tickets to the water puppet show for Thursday evening’s show.
On Thursday, Sophie woke up a little crabby. It was going to be a long day. We were moving to a different hotel. The first one was small and a distance from all the older part of the old quarter and the grocery store. Sophie was not happy about us packing bags. The new hotel is within walking distance of the lake and the shops we have been going to over the past week. The old hotel was near a fair number of metal working shops and other tradesmen. The new hotel is closer to the tourist area and the shops I want to frequent. Once we got to the new hotel, both girls were better. We walked down toward the lake where the water puppet theater was located and ate a late lunch. The girls ate well and were insistent on feeding themselves with their own spoons. The banana shake was a big hit with both of them. I am doing a great deal of shopping for the girls. The water puppet show was interesting. It featured native music and songs. The puppets are attached to a long bamboo pole and are operated by someone behind a bamboo curtain. They did some amazing things with these puppets. They showed a number of folk tales. The puppets swam, fished and played in the water. The girls were fascinated, at least until they fell asleep. In this hotel, we took two rooms so T could take a break from the sometimes loud activities of the girls. With the move and the water puppet show, the girls were exhausted. P and I decided to try a new sleeping arrangement. The girls fell asleep with P on our bed as usual, but in this room we had a single bed available, so we moved them to the single bed to sleep together. Much to our amazement, they stayed asleep while we moved them. That was good.
They slept from 7:00 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. on Friday. They both woke up happy and smiling. P and I were also well rested. We went downstairs for breakfast. The girls ate fruit, yogurt, juice and spring rolls. P got some of that thick Vietnamese coffee. After breakfast P and T stayed in the room and played with the girls while I went shopping. P and T made sure I had a good map. They played and the girls ate the fruit basket. They ate a banana and a large apple. The apples and pears here are huge, about the size of a large grapefruit. They are also very sweet. Today, we have a 2:00 p.m. appointment to pick up the girls’ Vietnamese passports. After that we go to the health clinic for their immigration physicals. That is the last thing we need before we get their visas to come home.
Playing with Ba at the orphanage. 
