Our Little Fighter

All packed and Ready to Go!

Arriving in Taiwan

The View From the Roof Of Our Hotel

Meeting Mommy

Who Are These People?

Playing With Daddy

Favorite New Toy

What a day this has been: wonderful and incredibly difficult! When we arrived at Cathwel we were met by Penny, the adoptions fascilitator at Cathwel. She took us to a little room and talked to us a little. She said that Ai-Mi's foster family would be arriving with her soon. While we waited she gave us a brief tour and we met our caseworker and the head nurse at Cathwel, both of whom then joined us in our room when Ai-Mi's foster family finally arrived with her.

I didn't know that we were going to be able to meet the foster family and it was wonderful to meet them. The foster mother, father, and their 3 year old daughter arrived with Ai-Mi. We spent a few minutes playing with her while she was held by her foster mother and then she let me hold her. We all sat and talked and the foster mother talked about her schedule and habits. She is also a nurse and explained that Ai-Mi has to wear the tubes in her nose that we've continued to see in pictures. Our pediatrician had told us that he didn't know why they would be in so long term, that that wasn't standard procedure. But they explained that her nose sort of "collapses" and it is difficult for her to breathe without them. She showed us how to change them, and that was the first trauma of our daughter's day. It was absolutely brutal, and our poor baby screamed bloody murder. They immediately handed her to me afterward to comfort her and, after a few minutes, she was okay again. I can't imagine having to do this every day, but we will have to do it ourselves tomorrow. They also gave us a plastic thing to tape over her scars from her lip surgery for 8 hours at night. Her lip surgery was 5 months ago. I am actually going to call our pediatritian tonight (which will be day in the States) because this all just doesn't seem quite right to us.

Anyway, the changing of the nose tubes were the only tears at Cathwel. We thought, how wonderful, she's going to be a little trooper. Boy were we wrong! Bless her fighting little spirit, she has had one rough day. It started out fine. She fell asleep in my arms during the ride back to our hotel. We got back to the hotel and played happily a little bit, then she fell asleep again. She woke up from her nap terrified. We can get her calmed down, but we always must be holding her and whoever isn't holding her must be within her view. We have not been able to get her to take a bottle yet. We know that she is hungry, but she screams any time she sees the bottle. It isn't a bottle she's not not used to: they gave us two bottles and nipples that she's used to and that's what we've tried. She reaches for it, but cries and then pushes it away, wanting her foster mother to give it to her we assume. Dan did manage to get her, while very sleepy, to play with the nipple in her mouth and drink maybe 1/2 an ounce. So we've got a very pissed off baby on a hunger stike! We actually called Penny about an hour ago about her not eating. She called her foster mother to see if there was a "trick" to getting her to eat. She called us back and said that the foster mother says that she normally loves her bottle, so it's probably just that she's upset by all that's going on. When she's hungry enough, she'll eat. On top of that she's teething and I think she's in pain from that.

I'm already exhausted and have been in tears myself today. I've left her crying with Dan to take a break right now to post this. My heart is just breaking for her. She is just so scared and sad and vulnerable and, so far, we aren't the ones who can make it better for her. But, I know things will get better. Right now I'm most concerned that she eats. It's been almost 12 hours now with virtually no food in her.

Well, we have AIT tomorrow. I'll post more tomorrow night, hopefully with news of a less traumatic day for our little one!