Doctor Day

It's Saturday afternoon here. It's rainy, dreary, and only 55 degrees, but I guess it's better than winter.

Yesterday was a free day, which was very nice for us. We did lots of laundry, which is mostly still wet and hanging all over the hotel rooms. We skyped, so Grandma and Grandpa Roux and Grandma Zellman and Michael's family got to meet Sophia. That was very fun! We also did some shopping. We are looking for 17 little Chinese gifts to give Sophia every year until she turns 18 on "Gotcha Day." It's actually really fun to shop, as that sort of stuff is very inexpensive and we can bargain with the shop keepers. Here is a picture of Lauren displaying some of Sophia's future gifts. The cool thing is that this dress, shoes, and fan cost about $8 total. It is kind of like garage sales, only in a different language, with new (albeit cheaply made) stuff.

Last night we slept a little more, but Sophia has still been bothered by a cough adn a lot of congestion. This makes her a little fussy but mostly just affects her sleeping. She has trouble staying asleep, it seems.

This morning, it was off for the offical medical check. China requires this for her to leave, and the USA requires it for her to get a USA visa. And she needs that to get in on Thursday! Because we started this adoption eons ago, we are a pre-Hague case. That mean, we have fewer requirements and a bit less paperwork to do. Because of that, Sophia didn't have any vaccination requirements today. Some of the kids in our group had to get 6, 7, or 8 shots! These were 1-3 year olds! So glad we didn't have to do that, especially since she's feeling kind of icky anyway. We were at the Travel Medical Clinic for over 2 hours and there was quite a bit of standing around. Sophia was very good, took some little mama's-arms-naps, and screamed for the doctors. Thankfully we were only with the doctors for about 3 minutes! The doctor was concerned about Pneumonia. Oh no. She recommended to our translator that we take her to an international clinic. I don't know why she couldn't prescribe something, but off we went in a taxi, this time just the 3 of us as Lauren and Marcus wenet with the Subletts to the department store with the rest of our group. Have I mentioned how much we love Uncle Stacy and Aunt Kim Sublett? They are God's gift to us!

At the clinic, a very nice English speaking doctor from Singapore checked her out. He didn't think it was pneumonia or even bronchitis, but probably a sinus infection. She has a lot of colorful snot (I know, TMI, but all you moms out there were wondering. Oh, her ears are clear too.) and this hacking cough. No fever either. So, he prescribed Augmentin and some sort of baby cold medicine to dry her up and keep things moving so she doesn't cough so much. Anyway, that is the whole of the Doctor part of our day. She's doing fine really. It's just like my other two babies when they would get a cold. You can pray that she'd be a little more tolerant of the medicines. She hates them. Screams like she's in horrible pain.

She really doesn't like to eat anything besides her formula and rice mixture. She's doing better at eating more of that, but she isn't interested in anything that might come delivered to her mouth via a spoon--we've tried bananas, rice cereal, yogurt, oatmeal. She also doesn't like cheerios, bits of bread, or french fries. I am assuming she just hasn't been exposed and all that will come in time. Lauren and Marcus wer eating ground up meat and potatoes at this age! It kind of feels like I got a younger baby this way, which is totally fine! She's very snuggly, loves to look me in the eyes, and enjoys imitating.

She also likes her older siblings quite a bit. The 5 of us were playing right before bed last night on Marcus' bed. She was laughing at them and copying them and waving her arms and legs and wiggling and rolling like crazy. We were all in stitches. Wished we could have gotten that on video, but we knew if we got the camera out, the fun would surely stop so we just lived in the moment.

After McDonalds for lunch, and traumatic medicine administration, naps for Dad and Sophia and in process. The kids are working on homework and I'm doing this! I'm so glad to report that the Roux's are doing well! 5 days till we fly home!