A Moment to Reflect

Whew! What a whirlwind 36 hours...Thanks for all the beautiful thoughts from everyone - it makes us feel right at home.

I'd just like to take a moment to try and capture, in words, what we all saw on the video...or at least I will try. Monday morning we went to the lobby of our apartments and met the other families. You could tell right away who they were! As we boarded the bus together, we trades stories of travel and general chit chat - all nervous chat I might add. But the feeling was there - we had all waited so long for our children and they were all together - 5 babies!

Once we reached the outskirts of the city, the noise subsided as we saw the landscape turn from urban to a definite more less fortunate area. The further we got from the city, the more apparent it was that we were in an area filled with poverty. As drove past fields of farmers, we turned down a lane - very narrow lane for a van - and pulled up to Dong Anh. The adrenaline gave way to a weird fear....a mixture of fear and hope that this place where my child called home from his 3rd day of life would be somewhat "okay".....

As we turned the corner past a very run down area of buildings, you could see 5 sets of green doors. Our doctor opened the first set of doors and it literally took my breath away - you can actually hear me suck air in on the video! Laying on 3 cots were all these little babies; some rolling around, some in bouncy seats and 2 sets of cribs with 2 babies per crib. It was completely overwhelming. It was also a mad rush to find your baby!

Three families total had their children in that room and we all were clamoring to find our child....as you can see by our video, I think Kenny found us. He stared right at me, then at Bud; those deep soulfoul eyes never wavering for a moment. Everybody starting laughing, crying and reaching. As he came into my arms I was in total disbelief that we finally had him...I, of course, had trouble holding it together! So badly that my filiming of Bud's first moment of Kenny came out horrible because the camera was shaking - he'll not forgive me for that.

As we made our way out into the open area, I started to peek through the other sets of green doors, and the same image appeared in each room, babies younger and younger as you moved down a concrete hall. The last room held the true infants - can you imagine how I wanted to hold them all.

The Nannies all came out and laughed and played with the kids, as they were letting go of children that they had cared for since birth; it was emotional for them, but our translator told us how happy they were that these kids were on their way to homes of love. We handed out gifts to all - the baby blankets I had made this summer came out and the Nannies wanted me to wrap some of the children in them right away; so i had the task of laying some blankets on the kids. Each child I spoke to and told them that they would have a family soon.

One little girl in a red hat, who was in Kenny's room, was about 9 - 10 months old I think because she was standing in a crib the whole time watching this whole experience unfold before her eyes - her little look still haunts me after I put a blanket next to her and rubbed her face. ...

As we left the infant area, we walked upstairs to the reception room. Looking around at all the buildings, we could see numbers where each child, toddler to 18 yo, slept 3-4 in a room. The director and vice director sat with us around a u-shaped table and we drank tea - wow, puts Lipton to shame with its strength! The director gave us a beautiful speech, once again thanking us on taking these children on a new journey to life - we in turn couldn't stop thanking him! Off to the bus and back home! quick change of clothes and on to the G&R to become Kenny's official parents; photo's which we've posted. He became part of our family.

Kenny wasn't feeling well by that time - he had a fever and bad cough and breathing difficulty. he didn't want to eat....Mom and Ken got to know eachother pretty well through our first night together as neither one of us slept more than an hour at a time (Dad got a full 12 hours, hmmmmm). by 6am he wasn't faring much better so we dressed and took him to the SOS Clinic. A very nice doctor decided to put Ken on some antibiotics, fearing that he could have been sick for some time. He has some skin issues, lots of little bug bites and some other lesions that we are keeping our eyes on. As you can see by our latest picture, he seems to be doing a bit better!