Our Journey to Maggie
Part 2 of 3
By Erin Henderson
It was such a relief to know that everything was ok with the paperwork and we hurried over to the orphanage for our visit. Parents are only allowed to visit from 1pm-5pm and it was already 4 when we got there, so it was a pretty short visit, but it was very nice. Maggie was awake and I got some more photos and some video of her laying in my lap.
I got to feed her again and I was a bit worried about the way she coughed and choked when drinking her bottle, but since she did not cough at all when she was laying down or sleeping I figured it was a problem with the bottle. Sure enough, the hole in the nipple was HUGE! I figured that they had so many babies to feed that they had to get the milk into them as fast as possible.
Tuesday was my last day in Vietnam. I spent the morning shopping and planned a long visit at the orphanage for that afternoon. I wanted to get every minute that I could with Maggie! I walked around the shops that were close to the hotel and got lots of neat souvenirs. The people were so very friendly, and I felt very safe the entire time. I also got my film developed so I could show it to Josh and our family as soon as I got home! I brought all of my orphanage donations to the orphanage with us that afternoon and I got to give them to the orphanage director. She was very kind, but very stern and you could tell that she took her work very seriously. She had pictures of children that had been adopted all over her office, and I smiled at the thought of Maggie's picture being up there one day.
Being at the orphanage that day was bittersweet. I knew that it was going to be a nice long visit, but I also knew that I was going to have to say goodbye at the end of it.
There were 5 other sets of adoptive parents in the visiting room that day, one from England and 4 from Germany. It was really neat to see them all with their babies. The orphanage doctor came in and had a chart for each of our babies, which she went over with us. Maggie had been very healthy since her birth. She has been tested for HIV, Hep B and like 8 other things, all of which was negative. Her birthmom was only 18 and had had a c-section, so they also had done bloodtests on her, and she too tested negative for everything, which was a wonderful peace of mind.
I
had a wonderful afternoon caring for my baby. She was wide-awake and very
snuggly. You could tell she was starting to really like it! The nannies were
late bringing the bottles in and all of the babies were crying, but I was
able to rock Maggie and sing to her to keep her calm. She would fuss at me,
and then just look up at me and listen to me sing. She liked "Somewhere
over the Rainbow"! I loved the fact that I was able to comfort her when
she was upset. It really made me feel like her mom!
There were things that I couldn't do though. I could only feed her when it "was time" and the nannies did all the diaper changing. They had a station set up with piles and piles of little clothes, bags of disposable diapers (which they only seemed to use when parents were visiting), stacks of cloth diapers and towels, and two towels laid flat to change babies on. I was really impressed with how clean it all was and how good they were about changing sheets and towels and stuff. The laundry pile was constant and every so often some of the older children would come in with a bag of clean laundry and leave with a bag (or two) of the dirty stuff. It was pretty funny to watch them change her, because they took the diaper off of her, wiped her bottom with a tissue, and then hung her over what I fondly called "the baby-butt washing sink". I did not see a single baby who enjoyed their trips to the sink! Then they smothered their bottoms with lotion and slapped a new diaper on.
At the end of the visit I had Duong video tape me holding Maggie and while he was taping us she gave me her first crooked little smile! She had been watching my face really intently all day, and finally she responded with that smile. I was in Heaven! (and it was everyone's favorite part of the video when I got home!)
Saying good bye was awful. I had convinced myself that I was going to be ok. that I knew going over there that I was just getting to visit her and that since I knew I would be back in 40 days it would not be too bad.boy was I wrong! She was wide-awake when I had to hand her back at the end of our 4-hour visit and she cried and cried when I handed her back to the nanny. I couldn't even see for the tears that were filling my eyes. The nanny stood there and held her while I rubbed her hair and kissed her goodbye, and I finally had to turn away and walk out the door. I would have to say that leaving the orphanage that day was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
My trip home was very, very long. I just wanted to be home, since I could not be with Maggie anymore. I cried pretty much the whole way. People must have thought that I was nuts! All I could think was that, "I had to leave her" and I could not hold back the tears. It just felt wrong to be going away from her.
When I got back to the Salt Lake airport Mom was waiting for me on the other side of security and I fell into her arms and just sobbed. It had been quite the rollarcoaster 5 days.
Back at home, the wait went SLOWLY! Everyone said that since it was the holidays that the wait would go quickly, but it didn't. In fact, the holidays made it that much more emotional of a time. I normally am not one to cry a lot, not even when I was pregnant, but I cried at least once a day during that 40-day wait.
We did get weekly emails to let us know that she was doing well which really helped and the day after Christmas we got a new picture of her. It was great to see her! Christmas was tough, because one of our family was so far away, but it was also exciting because we were getting so close to that second trip!
Two days after Christmas we got an awful phone call. Barbara called to tell us that Maggie was in the hospital with pneumonia. She said that her and four other of the babies in her nursery had gotten it and that her nanny from the orphanage was staying with her. I was heart broken! I cried and cried and our family prayed and prayed that she would be ok and that she would get well so that I could bring her home.
I was hoping that Maggie would be back at the orphanage by the time I got there, but the day before I left we heard that she was still in the hospital on medication, but that she was eating well and feeling much better. I still felt like I could not relax until she was in my arms again.
I left for trip number 2 on January 4, 2002 on the same flights as I took for the first trip. I was less nervous about the trip so I slept much better on the flights. I almost skipped out of the airport in Saigon and had to force myself not to run when I spotted Duong waiting for me like old times! This time I was staying at the Evergreen Hotel because I had heard such good things about it from so many other adoptive parents, and it was almost $20 a night cheaper than the Bong Sen. I liked the hotel very much. The room was beautiful, the staff was wonderful, and my bill, which included 9 nights, 3 meals a day, all of my laundry and the baby's laundry, countless sodas and bottles of water from the minibar, email twice a day and three short international phone calls came to only $379!
The hospital was just a few minutes from the hotel and was unlike anywhere I have ever been. The emergency room was outdoors in a parking lot type place. Beyond that were iron gates with guards into the actual hospital and you needed a pass to get in and a discharge slip to get out with a child. We walked past all different types of people and children, some of which looked very, very ill. We wound our way through an outdoor section of the hospital where parents slept on the ground and then turned and went up a blue concrete staircase. We went up 4 or 5 flights and then emerged into a hallway full of Vietnamese people holding sick babies and children. It was a bit awkward standing there as they all looked at me as though they had never seen a caucasian person before!
All of a sudden I looked up and Duong was coming down the stairs with the nanny, who was holding my Maggie! Her hair was standing straight up and she was wide-awake. I took her and immediately knew that she was not very sick, if sick at all, at that point. She was not congested at all and she seemed very content. It was amazing to be with her again and I instantly felt that mother-daughter connection that I felt on the first trip.
There was no where to really sit with her by myself, so I just kind of walked the halls, talking to her and singing to her, with a trail of Vietnamese people following me! If I stopped and looked at anyone they would try and talk to me. I wish very much I could have communicated with them. They all seemed to just be dying with curiosity over why I was there. Mrs. Dao told me that all of the parents and doctors kept asking her why she was coming and spending so much time with this orphan before I got there, and she finally told them that her friend from America was coming to adopt the baby. She said they all flipped out and wanted to hold her and kiss her and wish her luck. They certainly also wanted to see me! We were quite the attraction.
After a while I got called over to talk with the doctor. She told me that Maggie was doing much better but that she wanted her to stay in the hospital for 3-4 more days. I was crushed! Our G&R was the next day and although we could still have it, it seemed sad to have a G&R without a baby! And I was very concerned that being there with all of the other sick kids that she would end up catching something else, and not be able to come home with me as planned. But there was not much I could do. It was very frustrating, but I could not take her out of the hospital until the doctors said she could go, so I just tried to be as nice to them as possible!
I visited Maggie everyday, and usually spent many hours. Her "room" was one of many rooms with peeling blue paint and dirty floors. Each room had 5-6 cots with sick children on them, and usually the rest of the family. I was told that many of the families had traveled for hours to bring their child to this hospital. Laundry hung all over and bowls were stacked for meals. I cannot imagine having to live in that hospital for weeks as some of the families were.
The beds were cots that the older babies were tied to so that they wouldn't roll off. All of the children had IV ports in their hands or their feet and 3 times a day the nurses came around and injected their medicine into the IV ports. I was VERY relieved to see that the needles were new. I watched the nurses everytime and for all of the children they unwrapped a new needle and then disposed of it when they were done. Most days that I came the same families were there, but occasionally someone would be gone and a new family would be in its place. Maggie and I had constant visitors of people who wanted to see "the lucky baby who go to America". Even the doctors came to see her and me. It was usually ok, but occasionally very uncomfortable. Some of the children looked very sick and I felt very sad for those parents. Other children looked as well as Maggie, and certainly would not have been hospitalized back home. I could not understand why they did not separate they very sick kids from the almost well ones, and I prayed every day that one of our new roommates would not infect Maggie with something new.
Everyday I asked when I could take her back to the hotel with me and everyday I was told 3-4 more days. URGH! It was very hard to not break down and cry.
Back at the Evergreen I was staying with the now famous 8 IMH families that were stuck in HCMC trying to get visas for their children. I became very friendly with several of them and their beautiful children and I could not imagine what they were going through. I must admit that hearing their stories made me quite nervous about my upcoming visit to INS. I spent a few nights up in the computer room at the Evergreen holding babies so IMH parents could use the email. It helped keep me busy! Without anyone traveling with me I was not overly adventurous as far as going out, and I usually spent my nights eating room service and watching Discovery Channel (one of the only 3 English channels) and counting down the hours until I could get back to Maggie.
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