At the hotel that night we called the grandparents over the computer. We emailed a cyberfriend who also has a child with spina bifida and is part of a yahoo group for people adopting children with spina bifida from China. We told her of what we learned from the nannies about the hydrocephalus and what we could observe of him having trouble standing by himself, and walking as well as falling asleep all the time. In the middle of the night, she called our hotel room and told us that she had called her child's neurosurgeon and and had asked other people in the spina bifida group for advice on what to do. Some people said to get him seen in Beijing and some said to get him home first. She had already called our agency to try and get us home quicker. We called our agency, then our pediatricians office to get a letter faxed to us stating that he needed to get home as soon as possible to receive medical attention and called our homestudy agency to get an addendum to our homestudy that specifically mentioned that we were approved for a child with hydrocephalus just in case that was needed.
By the time we got up on Wednesday morning everything was in motion. I quickly packed everything up while Jamey went to exchange money then we went to the airport to go to Guangzhou.
We arrived in GZ too late to get the medical done, but we were short a couple of pictures that we needed for the consulate appointment so we stopped and did that then to the hotel to sleep. We had our guide meet us at the hotel with a stroller, which was our greatest investment while in China, other than our son. He was so heavy to carry and couldn't walk very far without tiring and would trip and fall so easily also, he also would fall asleep anytime that we slowed down or sat down.
Thursday morning Jamey and one guide went to the consulate to work on the visa and any other things that needed done there to get us expedited and home, while the other guide and I took Ethan to get his medical exam done.
He was seen by several different doctors then one woman doctor started talking to me telling me that Ethan was slow and that there was something wrong with him mentally, without actually saying the words that he was mentally disabled or retarded. I had heard that China deemed children with any mental deficiency to be unadoptable and I was afraid that they would try to tell me I couldn't adopt him and bring him home. I had seen several different things that he was doing cognitively and kept downplaying anything mental and stressing that it was all related to the hydrocephalus. Finally they pass him.
We got back to the hotel and had some time before Jamey would be back so I put Ethan in the stroller walked around the island shopping. Jamey got back and had met another adoptive mom who was an American living in Germany and was trying to get a German visa but was unable so was trying to get an American visa to go to the US then get a German visa from there. We went to Lucy's and had lunch with Amy, her mom and her new daughter Sarah.
Later that afternoon we went to the consulate for the swearing in and to receive Ethan's visa. We were the only family that they processed that day. It was done, Ethan was free to leave China with us and go home. Again to Lucy's that night for dinner then the hotel to pack and be ready to leave in the morning.
Friday morning we flew to Hong Kong. Our flight from Hong Kong back to Chicago was cancelled after we sat on the plane for four hours. They had to get a part in from San Francisco. The Hong Kong airport is not that close to the actual city and they were busing all of the passengers except first class, which we were not into the city to a hotel. We didn't want to take Ethan on an hour bus drive to get to a hotel and only get a few hours of sleep, so we went to the hotel that was attached to the airport and were able to get one of the rooms there that the first class passengers didn't use.
We called our agency and they wanted us to take Ethan to the hospital in Hong Kong to be seen. We called our neurosurgeon and told him everything that we were seeing with Ethan and he said as long as he isn't throwing up, he was fine to fly but to take him to the ER right away when we got to town for a CT scan.
Saturday morning the 21st we got up and walked back over to the airport. Several people from our flight had found other flights so there were a few empty seats. We were lucky because we had three seats in the middle section by the aisle and the aisle seat next to us was empty. Jamey moved to that seat so that Ethan and I had three seats for the two of us so Ethan could lay down and sleep better.
By that time, a lot of people on the flight had heard about Ethan and we had several people come up to us and tell us that they were praying for him. Our flight was delayed . . . again, so we were late getting into Chicago and still had to go through immigration with Ethan. Our stewardess knew that we might not make our connecting flight so she told us that our stroller was broken and she would get us a wheelchair for Ethan and that would get us to the front of the lines.
We got off the plane and a wheelchair was waiting for us. Off to get our luggage and go through immigration. We were practically running through the airport to make our flight and made it, but only because it was delayed as well.
We landed at Kansas City to meet big brother Brandon and both sets of grandparents.
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