Another day

Well, we survived another day! Jetlag seemed to be worse yesterday for some reason so Maiya is crashing at 4pm then up at 2am, and since my mom is sharing a room with her she is getting the worst of it. Everyone napped this afternoon and despite some resistance I managed to drag everyone out for dinner for our first dinner outside the room. Hoping we will maybe be on track for tomorrow now.

It was another interesting day in the world of infant contacts! The good news is we got them in again, and didn't lose any today. The lenses cost about$140 per lens (not per pair! ) so we are constantly on the lookout to make sure they stay put. We brought a backup pair just in case but would prefer not to need them! It is scary to go anywhere as we worry about finding them if they fall out somewhere, so we have to get used to that new reality. We are starting to feel more comfortable that they will stay in with regular activities, but haven't gotten used to the panic every time he wakes up or rubs his eyes. I am sure that will come in time but it's definitely a learning curve! The bad news is we couldn't get them out tonight so he is sleeping with them in. It isn't that big of an issue but we want to get in the habit of daily removal and figuring all this out without anyone showing us what to do makes it a bit more challenging! We will hopefully see his opthalmologist before we leave but don't know when that will happen yet.

He had a good day today and we definitely see a difference when the lenses are in. He still can't see much, but he definitely tries to focus more when they are in. I think he's probably around the 6mth mark developmentally. They say there is often a 2 month delay for every month in an orphanage, so given that plus the vision, he is a actually doing ok. He played with toys a bit more today and loves to be thrown up in the air. He did a bit more babbling today and we tried to teach him how to pick up Cheerios, but he doesn't have the fine motor yet for that.

Tomorrow is the big day and we head to our Giving and Receiving ceremony at 10am. After that he will legally be our son and we move onto the immigration paperwork part of things.

We still can't access the blog so hopefully posts are showing up ok. Here are some pics of us at the orphanage Saturday - one is our last pic as a family before meeting Lucas, a happy big sister shot after we saw him,and one of his crib with the gift our friends delivered for us in June.

Day 2 with Lucas

Well, it was a good and bad sort of day! Lucas slept well, only up for a bottle at 1:30am then slept until after 7. We had to do the Nix treatment for his skin last night which is always fun but are hoping that we can get away with not treating ourselves this time. His skin is a million times better than Maiya's was, and mostly the spots are on his feet which is typical. We decided to throw out the schedule from the orphanage as 2 sponge baths and 6 bottles a day were going to be a little crazy to manage for him. He has had very little solid food or finger food and has a hard time even moving a Cheerio around in his mouth. He did a little better today so hoping that will continue to improve as we very gradually introduce more textures to him. Finger foods are tough because he hasn't had the experience with it, can't see what others are doing in order to mimic it, and can't see the small pieces to then coordinate his eyes and hands to pick the food up.

The next big task of the day - the first contact lenses insertion. The good news - I managed to get them in in a relatively short amount of time(I think in under 10 min). This feat did require Maiya's help with the first eye and Brett's with the second to help hold him down. The great news is that we noticed a big difference in him playing with toys and actually trying to visually focus on toys and do some cause and effect kinds of things. He babbled a bit more today it still not a lot. He was generally happy and loves to watch Maiya and was much more interactive. I think we may have to go buy a walker for him to save our backs for the next 3 weeks - he just wants to walk!

The bad news - taking out the contacts was not so fun! He was really rubbing his eyes tonight and after checking for them a million times decided to take them out since his eye was getting red. We tried but no luck, just lots of crying. A baby's eyelids are unbelievably strong and even the ,"jaws of life" would have been given a challenge with these little things! We then lost one of the lenses, slight panic (VERY expensive lenses!) but fortunately found it in the other room. After lots of fussing and tears (some Lucas's and some mine) he finally fell asleep and Brett was able to get the other one out.

So over all a good day (other than the meltdown and overwhelmingness at the end!)- going to get some sleep since Maiya crashed at 5 and will likely wake up raring to go at midnight! The joys of jetlag!! She had a blast in the pool today and loved the ice cream and popcorn party this afternoon by the pool!

Hopefully will venture out more tomorrow - can't do too much before the ceremony since we have no official documents for him yet.

It's a Boy!!!

We are sitting in our hotel room while our baby boy is having a nap in the crib! We had a great visit to Go Vap this morning and met the little guy. The nannies quickly got him dressed and we got our first look at him. My first thought was that he seemed so little - still lots of baby in him! The nannies clearly love him to bits and I think they are sad not to be able to celebrate his birthday with him on the 27th. They all took a ton of photos on their cell phones of him and gave him lots of hugs. He didn't cry the entire time - except when Brett put him back in his crib! He is a mover and wants to be on the go. He loves walking while you hold his hands and crawls like crazy. He loves looking out the windows - our guess is he is responding to the light. He doesn't look directly at us too much at this point but hopefully once we put the contacts in he will attempt to focus more. Maiya got him laughing pretty good playing peekaboo and I think the movement from her hands was drawing his attention. It will be a huge learning curve for us getting used to the fact that he is really only seeing light and large shapes rather than a detailed image but hopefully more visual stimulation will help a bit. We haven't braved the contacts yet and wanted to give him some time to settle in before going through that with us newbies!

We can't post pics of Lucas until the ceremony on Tuesday but will try to add a clip from the orphanage. I. Can't see what the posts look like with the issues we are having accessing the blog but at least the posts are going though. We are thrilled to have him with us finally and he's stealing our hearts pretty quickly!

An hour to go!

In one hour we will be meeting Lucas for the first time! The trip was long but went well, and Loan met us at the airport and helped us get to the hotel. Maiya was a rock star traveller and my mom was very relaxed too! She was excited to finally make it to Japan, even though it was just for 45 minutes! The room is comfortable, pool looks great and breakfast buffet was so good Brett wanted to stay and eat there all day! Having trouble getting the blog to come up with our wifi so am trying to get around it. Hopefully this will work and we will post more details later. Loan says he is such a happy little guy and we are starting to get the butterflies in our stomachs that the big moment is almost here!

3 Days To Go

The countdown is on! Just checking to see if we can post pics using the PlayBook and it looks like it will work. Can't post of Lucas so used Buddy instead! Everything is booked - now for the packing!

What's In a Name...

Things are starting to fall into place and we are on track to leave for Vietnam on Thursday, August 16th. We will arrive around 9:30 pm on Friday night and are hoping we will be able to see Lucas and have him with us on Saturday. Typically we would likely have to wait until our Giving and Receiving Ceremony (the official adoption ceremony) which is scheduled for August 20th, but because he does not have contact lenses until we get there, they will hopefully allow us to take him with us.

We had a bit of a scare last night when we heard from another parent scheduled to travel at the same time and with the same ceremony date, who is now delayed until September 4th! After some panic we were able to get confirmation that our plans would not be affected, and are glad to hear that the other parent was able to get travel plans re-booked and will still hopefully have some overlap with us in Vietnam.

Many people have asked about Lucas' name. With Maiya, we had several names picked out, knowing that we wanted to include at least some of her Vietnamese name if possible. When we heard her name was Mai, we both looked at each other and said, "Maiya". Mai means cherry blossom in Vietnamese, and Maiya means springtime. Thanh means bright light or brilliant sun, and my middle name is Lynn, so Maiya Thanhlyn became our springtime cherry blossom in the brilliant sun. We hadn't come up with any boy names and when we got the referral, we referred to him as Khanh, which is his Vietnamese name. The closest pronunciation we could get was "Kane", although I think it is actually more like "Kawn". We couldn't find a clear meaning for his Vietnamese name, but "Kane" means warrior, and with his vision needs, we figured he's already had to be a little fighter and will have to continue that throughout his life. About 10 minutes before we told Maiya about her little brother, I was trying to put together a book on iPhoto and we still didn't have a name. I came across "Lucas", which means "bringer of light" - and and it just seemed to fit. Something about the meaning seemed to click with the vision piece, and since Maiya has "light" in her name too, it was decided. So he will be Lucas Khanh (pronounced Kane). For both, we wanted something that was relatively easy for them to switch back to their Vietnamese names should they ever choose to do so in the future.

It has been a crazy few days, between Canada Post not delivering our passports last Friday to our travel agent and some frantic phone calls to them over the weekend trying to track them down (they arrived back to us today with the visas, so record time getting them done!) and finding out the contact lenses that we just purchased are no longer the right prescription! We just received the new prescription today, so we'll see if it's enough time for our optometrist to get the new ones ordered in and return the others. They have been AMAZING helping us out with all the contacts stuff, so that has been great. The nursery is about as ready as it's going to get, last load of baby laundry is waiting to be folded, cutting myself off from my work email as of today (trying at least!) - so other than everything being dumped in a pile in the basement all that's left after some last minute errands tomorrow is the packing!

This picture of Maiya just after she found out about her baby brother kind of sums up how we are all feeling right now!

The much anticipated email....

We will finally become a family forever on AUGUST 20th!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just got the email at 9:30 tonight and freaking out just a little!! Hopefully will have flights booked tomorrow and we will be in the air in less than 19 days!