3 months old already!

I don't know where the time has gone.  Our baby girl is three months old already!  I never updated that she had her follow-up appointments with the children's hospital here in the U.S. and she has perfect hearing.  Changing how we fed her made all the difference in the world.  Thank you to everybody for your kind words and support. 

Home Sweet Home

We are home and settled in.  Oh microwave, toaster, hot showers, clean water, how I missed you!  Our little peanut is settling in quite well.  She loves EVERYTHING.  Big smiles all day long.  She is sleeping 8 hours in a row at night in her crib and waking up so happy. 

I forgot to update that she was seen by the pediatric audiologist that flew in from Hawaii while we were in Majuro.  Bottomline, she most likely has reversible hearing loss.  Her nerves and brain work fine, but her middle ears don't contract to sound.  Most likely cause of this is fluid in the middle ear.  Apparently very common in Marshallese babies.  They reflux their liquid food (breast milk or formula) into their eustachian tubes because of their unique anatomy.  We were told to start feeding her at 45 degree angle or higher to help prevent this.  As she gets older, her tubes will get larger and longer and this fluid should drain on its own. 

We changed how we fed her and now we think she can hear sometimes.  Not soft sounds, but loud sounds seem to startle her.  Yeah!  We are having her rechecked here by specialists at home, but it looks like she will be just fine and will grow up with normal hearing afterall.  Phew!  We would have loved her regardless, but we are so happy for her.

That will be all from us.  We hope that you find our blog useful for your pathway towards an international Marshallese adoption.

Yokwe!

Hawaii

Our little baby girl is officially a U.S. citizen!  The flight from Majuro to Honolulu went smoothly.  She slept the entire time.  The immigration portion in Hawaii took a little while, which was frustrating at 3am!  My husband, mom, myself, and two other daughters all passed right through, of course.  We handed over our packet for our baby girl and they said to have a seat and that it would be "awhile".  They couldn't narrow down the timing any better for us.   Thankfully, not all of us had to stay so my mom and husband took our older two girls to the hotel while I waited.  There is NO bathroom in the wait area so I recommend you taking your time getting off the plane and use the one in the plane!

A little over 30 minutes later, the same immigration guy came over, picked up our packet.  Opened everything up.  Glanced at the paperwork for about 2 minutes then stamped her passport and said that we were free to go.  Really?  30 minutes of sitting for something that only took him 2 minutes.  Grrr!  But, we were officially on U.S. soil and she was officially a U.S. citizen!

Now hanging out in Hawaii enjoying the little things like hot showers, water you can drink right from the tap, good IPA beers, and a swimming pool!  We finish our final leg of the journey tomorrow.

Hard to believe that I started this blog over a year ago and now here we are, with our beautiful little girl.  So many ups and downs, plans and pathways derailed, but in the end, it all led us here.  Here is a photo of our little island baby:

Last Day in Majuro

We got our visa last week, but since our original flights home were in just a few days, financially it didn't make sense to pay the change ticket fee for everybody to fly out early.  My mom also flew in last week to help us out and travel home with us.  It has been fun showing her around Majuro and it's really lovely that she got to meet the birth family as well.

Three other families flew in last week as well, to adopt.  All of them also brought kids from home.  We have gotten together several times.  So much fun sharing this experience with others who are going through it too.

Last night we had a Yokwe Dinner.  Our Marshallese family sang songs and gave us little gifts.  There were a few tears shed, but mostly smiles and laughter.  It was a beautiful time.

Now time to pack!  Amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in such a short period of time!

Still in Majuro

Well, I wasn't going to post anymore, but given that our visa has been delayed again and again and again, it looks like we will not be leaving sooner than anybody else might be.  Nothing is really being expedited.  Apparently, Manila generally takes 5-7 days to process the visa paperwork.  Our paperwork was delivered to Manila on Wednesday.  Opened on Thursday and assigned to an agent which was then going to be process "in the order in which it was received."  As in, it is not being expedited, despite assurances from Manila that they would.  Now it is a holiday weekend.  Everybody had Friday off.  So, we are still waiting.

We are hoping to get our child seen by the hearing specialists from Hawaii when they come this week.  She has not been seen by a doctor since we discovered that she had hearing loss, as there is nobody here that can do that.  So sad for her, but also so very sad for all the other children here with inadequate medical care!  Just breaks my heart.

While we wait, we are trying to stay busy.  We now have a list of suggested activities for other families heading out here:

--day trip to Eneko Island (arranged through RRE.  They leave daily at 10am.  $30/adult; kids free)
--rent a car to visit Laura Beach ($70/day for the rental)
--walk through the ocean to neighboring islands on the atoll from Rita at low tide
--picnic and swim at Stone House beach (where the now closed Stone House Restaurant is)
--swimming at Long Island Hotel Beach (where the now closed Long Island Hotel and Restaurant is)
--swimming at Delap Beach Park
--Alele library (next to the courthouse.  Air-conditioned.  Children's reading room.)
--Alele museum (small but interesting.  Underneath the library)
--Canoe House (actually a skills program for youngsters that teaches wood working skills, including canoe making)
--Scuba diving (arranged through the dive shop at MIR.  $150/person for 1-2 people, $50 for each additional person.  Includes all equipment)
--Clam Farm
--Copra Factory
--Rubar Beach (BBQ and snack shack on site with covered picnic tables; good tidepools but not swimming)

As for restauarants, here is our recommendations:

Best Atmosphere: Chit Chat Room at the Marshall Islands Hotel
Best Pizza: Marshall Islands Resort.  Go during lunch.  Their lunch menu is way more extensive and reasonable compared to their dinner menu
Best Chinese: Enno's Restaurant (on right hand side, towards Rita from RRE)
Best American: Tide Table at RRE

The internet at the apartment works MUCH better now.  Somebody from NTA came out and did something.  Now we get a decent signal.  Set up your NTA wireless for $35/month.  Well worth the $5 charge to do so.  Unlimited wireless all over the island, and even covers Eneko Island!   To set it up, you need to bring your device, $40 cash, and a photo ID.  They set it up within one hour, Monday-Friday.

In Majuro

So much has happened since I last wrote.  It has been a whirlwind, and the internet connection at the apartment is non-existent.  So, we got here on Saturday.  We settled into the apartment.  It is a two bedroom apartment. Nicely furnished.  One bedroom has two twin beds. The other has a queen sized bed.  There is a wrap around couch in the family room.  Newly updated throughout.  Full kitchen with stove and oven, no microwave, dishwasher, or garbage disposal.  There is AC and fans in each room.  Very comfortable space.  One pot, one pan.  We have added a strainer, a spatula, a spoon, a broom, and a dustpan.  Nice comfy bath towels.  Intermittent room cleaning.  It is about a 15 minute taxi ride from the downtown area and the internet connection is awful, except between 6am-7am on the weekends.  There is a laundry mat in the parking lot and a grocery store too. Beware of expiration dates!  There is a bigger, nicer grocery store closer to downtown where things aren't as expired.

We settled in and met the birth family and our baby on Saturday afternoon.  She is just so beautiful!  We got to keep her overnight and for much of the next day.  Birth mom came back on Sunday afternoon and took her home.

Monday morning, we all met at court.  Court went pretty smoothly.  There was an issue with birth mom not knowing her real age.  Turns out that she is 14 months older than she thought that she was.  After court, birth mom took our baby to go get passport photos while we signed paperwork. 

Two days later, we went to the Embassy and applied for our visa.  Now the wait began for our return trip home.  We have been exploring the island.  We rented a car and drove out to Laura Beach. The car rental cost $70 plus gas.  Laura Beach is pretty, but really not a swimming beach.  Only swimming beach that we've really located was Delap Beach Park.  We went there once and got SWARMED by local kids.  Made us a little nervous having our 4 and 6 year olds in the water where the kids were just trying to crawl all over them.  Neither is a strong swimmer and our 4 year old wears water wings.  The kids had fun but we have been reluctant to return.

We have seen the birth family several times.  Really nice people.  They came over on Father's Day and sang songs to Mike.  (=  It was really sweet.

The only real problem that we've had is that our new daughter appears to be deaf.  She was marked as having passed her newborn screening exam.  We noticed that she wasn't responding to sounds at all.  No startle to loud noises.  Didn't track sound.  We took her back to the hospital yesterday and had her retested.  She has almost 100% hearing loss (100% in one ear, 80% loss in the other).  We don't know if the first test was wrong, done incorrectly, or if she has some sort of rapidly progressive process causing her to go deaf.  Regardless, there is no further testing that they can do here.  We are now trying to get our visa expedited so that we can get home and have her tested appropriately.  She is beautiful, and perfect, and wonderful and we will do all we can to get her the best medical care possible.

This will probably be our last update as our visa processing time will not reflect actual times for others, based on our need to get home for medical reasons.  We hope to explore as much as we can between now and the end of this week.  After we get settled, I will write one last post with our recommended packing lists and things to see and do.

For those of you who are still on this road, it is challenging in so many ways, but is also a blessing as well.  We wish you all luck with the paper chase, the wait, etc.  If you are looking for an agency, I cannot say enough good things about Adopt International.  They have been very supportive throughout this whole process and really receptive to our concerns about our daughter's hearing.  Their local contacts and staff are wonderful as well. 

T minus 14 hours...

14 hours before we fly out on our greatest adventure to date for our little family.  Bags are packed, well, mostly.  Last minute shifting of things from one bag to another and back again.  Nervous, excited, nervous.  We are renting a two bedroom apartment while we are there.  It will give us space to spread out a bit since my mother will also be joining us for a week.  The apartment is $800/week which is better than the $140 a night for a bungalow quoted to us by RR.  Will be nice to be able to do some of our own cooking.  Packing some comfort foods like mac n cheese, peanut butter, etc. for our girls.  Will check back in when we get to Majuro!