HOME, sweet home.

We survived! the trip was just as bad as we possibly could have anticipated! worse, perhaps! don't let the sleeping baby pictures fool you- she was probably awake for 16 of the 20 hours we travelled. And she was NOT happy at being on the plane - fussing and crying, and letting out the occasional tortured shriek. In penance for almost making us miss the plane from Taipei to San Fran (last minute shopping at the airport museum shop), I was on diaper duty the whole time, and changing five or six poopy diapers by myself in an airplane bathroom was profoundly unfun. Especially on those domestic flights that don't even have changing tables- you try balancing baby on a changing pad half-covering a small toilet seat.
The flight did give us the chance to learn more about Helena, however. We found that she loves to be propped up against cushions and have toys, or pretzal packages, or plastic cups- whatever is on hand, placed in front of her. This is my favorite picture from the trip home:

























The flight from SF to Chicago was late, and the flight from Chicago to Milwaukee was cancelled, so my sweet saintly sister Mary drove down to O'Hare to pick us up. Baggage arrived today. And my parents came down from Green Bay to meet their grand-daughter Helena! Her other set of grand-parents arrive tomorrow. She did fairly well, but she really is nervous around strangers, and bursts into tears at a moment's notice. Following the adoption experts' advice, we are trying to avoid anyone but us holding her for the next month or two - unless she's asleep, as she is in this pic.
She did have a rough first night here, waking up crying every 30-45 minutes, and I had the sense she was just frightened to be in such an unfamiliar place. As for us, I think she's starting to accept us as her care-givers, and we're able to get her to stop crying when we pick her up and hold her. But she's obviously frightened and unsettled, as would any alert baby be, having been taking away from everything familiar. We were reflecting that the pick-up process couldn't really be more traumatic for a child- handed suddenly to strangers, taken to a hotel room environment totally different from the kinds of spaces they know (air conditioning, smells, etc), and then taken on an airplane where all schedules are totally disrupted. Throw into that mix a set of inexperienced parents who can't even make a warm enough bottle, and you've got a bad time. But she's handling it really well, and we're managing to get little smiles from her - and aren't those the currency by which parents are paid?
We've started her on a good schedule, and are going to hibernate for a month or so- keep all external stimulation to a minimum and avoid crowds and strangers as much as possible. She needs to relax and feel comfortable here at home, and with us, before we try anything new.

Final day in Taiwan!

No time to write! packing up to come HOME. but wanted to upload a few pics, to show you what we did today, and who's boss around here...

Helena always crosses her fingers - for luck?

Day three

Helena is a joy! We dote and dance around her, and are happy to dedicate our every waking moments to anticipating her every need…

The AIT appointment went well, but was horribly long- we waited for a couple of hours for our ‘interview’ with the American embassy guy, who was very nice and asked us to raise our right hands and swear that everything in the home study was true, and asked us a bunch of questions and made us sign a bunch of documents. They’ll issue Helena’s visa tomorrow, and we’ll get her Taiwanese passport. She becomes an American citizen the moment we land in San Francisco. We met two other adopting couples in the waiting room.

After the AIT we came back to the hotel, did bottle and nap, then ventured out to the Tapei 101 building – one of the former tallest buildings in the world. We didn’t go up- its expensive and if you’ve seen one cityscape you’ve seen ‘em all (okay, I know that’s not true, but we just weren’t all that interested), but we did go into the shopping center that makes up the bottom levels of the building, and had an excellent meal – imagine a shopping mall food court, but make it the size of a football stadium, and fill it with top-notch fabulous food and a big ritzy organic grocery store, and there you have it. We picked something rather at random and ended up with delicious peanutty noodles, and pork-stuffed dumplings in some sort of soup. Oh- and there were clothing shops galore- every big name you can think of from Gucci to Dolce.

Major successes of the day: getting the bottle temperature right (I was making them too cold and the formula wasn’t dissolving), and getting the bath temperature and level right- again, too cold before, and not enough water. She LOVES baths!

Tomorrow we wander a bit- nothing scheduled. We haven’t done any shopping or bought any souvenirs, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Would like to see some gardens or temples, however.

Helena videos!

Here's Helena in the hotel crib...

Day two in Taiwan with more pics!

I think as quickly as baby learns, we’re learning too. What works, what doesn’t, what REALLY doesn’t – what she likes, what makes her laugh, what games to play. She is a talker. She drops her pacifier and launches into long, complex baby discourse – usually concluding with an emphatic DADADADADA. It makes us giggle hysterically every time she does it. She’s smiling more and more as we create little routines with her- like when I lay her down and dangle my hair over her so she can pull on it, and when Nikolai talks to her in deepest baritone. But she’s also pretty fussy- arching her back, rubbing her head, and mock-crying often. Its pretty distressing, not to know what’s wrong. And we find ourselves wondering what to DO with her- there are only so many little games our tired brains can come up with… But our biggest concern is that she hasn’t gone #2 since we got her- a day and a half ago. Our agency rep told us this is extremely common for babies when they’ve just been picked up, but we're a bit worried about it and don’t quite know what to do. I’ve given her a few licks of the prune baby food I brought, to no avail. But she loves her bottle and otherwise seems fine physically.

Anyway – yesterday we hung out here in the hotel room, mostly, and I was glad we did. We did go for a short stroller walk around the hotel, and she conked right out (yay! A stroller-friendly baby!), and later went out to find some grub- ended up with a good meal from a little local shop. But the roads around here are so loud, crowded, and polluted, she seemed to go into a bit of shock – although she was quiet the whole time, she was really fussy for a long time after we got home. Oh, and in the morning we Baby-Bjorned our way to a nearby shopping complex for some diapers and baked goods. (For some inexplicable reason the foster mom’s set of instructions for Helena ordered us to buy her extra large diapers. We did, and they fell right off her- they are for babies that weight 10 pounds more than her…)

We’ve decided to divide and conquer. Last night Nikolai was on baby duty, so I could get some sleep. Ah, blissful sleep… I slept from 9 to 5, and awoke feeling refreshed. Helena had just woken, so I relieved Nikolai, gave her a bottle, and she’s now lying asleep again in her crib. Life is good!!

Our hotel

learning to eat one-handed.

Day two in Taiwan!

She's warming up to us!!

We become three

What an amazing day we’ve had. We arrived in Taipei late last night. Our hotel is gorgeous – a large corner bedroom with curved windows looking out over Taipei, and a nice sitting room and kitchen. Two balconies, too. The agency rep, Mei Ru, said she’d be back for us at 8:30am. I tore the suitcases apart getting everything ready – diaper bag, camera, video recorder, journal, questions for foster family, agency, and birth mother (who could not come, to our disappointment), gifts for the same, spare sweaters, toys, blankets, wipes, the works.

This morning we awoke early, so had time for a nice buffet breakfast downstairs. Mei Ru picked us up and the two hour drive went quickly. The route to Taichung is all industrial highway, but is surrounded by mountains and interesting towns. Some beautiful temples with gilded roofs nestled into the hillsides.

We finally arrived in Feng Yuan (pronounced Fung You-ann), and pulled up to the Taiwan Womens and Children’s Association building- which looks like a small shop front on a crowded commercial street. Samantha from the agency greeted us, and handed us a single sheet of paper, half full of typed instructions and tips on caring for Helena. Bottle every four hours, 5 scoops of formula and 1 scoop of rice cereal. No teeth yet. Not crawling. Is “quiet emotional”: rub belly when she cries, and hold her so that head rests on shoulder. We jumped in the car for the quick jaunt around the corner to Helena’s “nanny” – a nice woman called Mrs. Chang. Samantha mentions that Mrs. Chang had a hard time with Helena at first as she cried so much. Our first view of Helena was as she sat, struggling and squalling, on Mrs. Chang’s lap, who was trying to get her into an outfit. I sat next to the Mrs. Chang for a while, and cooed to Helena, and we asked whatever questions we could thing of – how she liked to be held, if she’d ever been sick or had a high fever, how old she was when she came to the nanny, etc. Already it seems blurry, that time at the foster mom’s – but eventually I was holding her, and I cannot even describe the feeling.

Helena nuzzled in to my shoulder, wrapped a small fist around my arm, and lay there prettily happily for the next hour or so (later that night, the muscles in my left arm began to burn and throb and I realized I must have done some damage, with all that lifting, holding, and jiggling of baby! Should’ve been lifting weights- she’s quite the dumpling).

We signed our names and a message on ‘the wall’ on the third floor of the agency - where so many other new parents had left their messages. And we drove back to Taipei, stopping at a very nice highway rest area where Samantha helped us give Helena her first bottle, and had lunch. On the drive, I handed Helena to Nikolai for the first time, and she quickly realized he was a much comfier resting place than I am, and she snuggled in immediately. She even slept briefly. When awake, we dangled toys before her, but she disdained them all, apart from the crunchy, noisy book called the Fuzzy Bee, and the plastic book of photos, which she found very tasty.

We spent the afternoon trying to amuse her. We played with her, we gave her ‘tummy time’, we walked and carried her, we put her down for a nap – she slept for an hour - and we fed her a bottle – which she happily spat up all over me. I use big towels now, for feedings.

She’d had her pacifier in her mouth the entire day, and after her last bottle, I found myself unexpectedly seeing her whole face for the first time. As I played with her, she gave several of the most beautiful open-mouthed smiles I’ve ever seen. Breathtaking, this baby! Nikolai is enchanted as well. She watches us as we move around the room, and she loves to be held, and walked, and jiggled - though I could barely lift my toothbrush by the end of the day.

And here I am- at 3am – wide awake! Helena, I’m happy to report, is fast asleep. Perhaps Nikolai will cover for me tomorrow if I grab a few power naps, alongside Helena..