For those of you who can access this, obviously, the name of this page is Waiting It Out In Viet Nam.  I’ll be posting pictures and info about the trip. 

April 23, 2008 – We’re going home!!!  Part of me is still concerned that we’ll be stopped at immigration at SFO and be told that the visa was denied.  Such paranoia!  Off to finish packing. . . . Update – we’re at the Taipei airport waiting to board our final flight.  I upgraded us, but it’s pretty clear to me that Oscar is going to have a meltdown at some point pretty soon.  I just hope we get some sleep on the plane.  I feel like all of the stress I’ve kept bottled up for the past two months is finally going to overtake me.  That’ll be fine so long as it happens at my house.  My cute little house!  So, so happy to see it and my precious dogs.  

April 22, 2008 – Sometimes I think the Consulate is simply trying to screw with me.  I awoke this morning a bit apprehensive about my visa interview, and lo and behold, what happened?  My agency rep called this morning telling me that the Consulate asked for copies of all kinds of docs that they needed in order to grant the visa.  I had most with me, but I’m afraid I didn’t bring all of the documents that supported my I-600a application.  So, I sweated out the morning until my 2:00 appointment.  What happened then?  Not much, they made me wait for 45 minutes (no one else there at all) and then called me to the window for my “interview.”  This consisted of David Mattingly telling me to date here and sign here.  That’s it.  My visa will be ready in an hour.  By the way, he doesn’t have a tail or horns or anything.  Seemed like a very personable guy from the very little he said.  I’m now in the process of packing my diaper bag for the trip.  I have formula ready for five bottles which I think will be enough, don’t you think?  This time tomorrow we will be on a plane bound for California.  I’m not considering this over, though, until Oscar’s little feet touch down on American soil.

April 21, 2008 - Oscar and I are both sick.  Nothing major; just colds, but I had forgotten how annoying being sick is.  I also found out that both of my dogs have been seriously ill.  The vet thinks they picked up a parasite (giardia) and after a week of being ill, the dog sitter finally talked to the vet.  Max, my whippet, has developed colitis and has blood in his bowel, poor baby.  Riley is getting better.  I tried to get my travel agent to change my return flight, but as he is seemingly the laziest person in the world (keeps telling me there are no flights after 7:00 pm, when I can see differently on the internet), it doesn’t look like that will happen.  Hopefully they’ll be ok another 24 hours without me.  I’m really happy about leaving here.  Oscarand I had a nice day at the hotel.  He took a couple very long naps, we went to lunch, he had a fit and I rewarded it with vanilla ice cream (his throat sounded so hoarse).  I know I’m not supposed to do this, but we also went swimming.  I didn’t get his head wet and I dried him off immediately after we finished up.  He was going crazy before, since even while sick he has an amazing amount of energy.  The swimming just burned some up.  We met a couple new people today, including a lady who lives just a few miles from us on the beach!  We’re going to take her up on her offer to go visit her when we return.  Having a kid is the biggest ice breaker in the world.  Is it just having a kid, or does it help that the baby is not the same race as I am?  Tomorrow is visa day.  I hope my appointment is as perfunctory as everyone says theirs was.  I’m not in the mood to discuss why I traveled without approval with the people responsible for my delay.  I think I am honestly nervous that they’ll deny the visa.  I packed up almost everything today and set aside clothes for the flights.  Think I’m ready to go home?  The hotel people are checking on how much it will cost to upgrade our flight home.  Considering what I’ve spent these past two months, I’m thinking it’s likely that an upgrade from EVA’s “deluxe” (which is anything but) to real business class will likely be worth the cost – especially considering that Oscar will NOT sleep in the bassinet.  It seems very odd to be going home.  We’ve got a good routine, such that it is, going; I don’t know how I feel about losing that.  I guess the reality of real life is setting in.  I’m just happy that I have at least 4 more months maternity leave.  I think I’m going to need every last day of it to recover from all of this (yes, I know, there’s not much sympathy considering the trip to Bali, etc., but still . . .).

April 20, 2008 – We’re going home in THREE days.  So, after we got the news, I decided I would see how I felt about cutting our trip to Bali short and going back to get the visa.  We got up the next day (after I had had almost NO sleep whatsoever), checked out of our hotel, had lunch and moved into our new hotel in Ubud town, where I was going to do all of the shopping for friends/family that I have not yet done.  We walked into our little villa, and as soon as the bellman dropped off our luggage, I called the concierge to see if he could get us a flight out to Kuala Lumpur immediately.  I thought if we could leave that evening (it was already 4:00 pm), we might be able to catch a flight to Hanoi in the morning, drop off our visa application when we arrived and then be able to leave early in the week.  And that’s what we did.  We have a visa interview at 2:00 on Tuesday afternoon and should be able to pick up the visa an hour later.  Unfortunately, we can’t fly out Tuesday night, but we will be leaving on Wednesday morning.  We’ll be home Wednesday night.  It’s still hard to believe it’s true.  Three other families adopting from our province are arriving on Tuesday, so we should be able to meet them, but not their babies.  I certainly hope that the approvals last week mean that things are going to start to move again for my friends who are still waiting.

We spent the day today with another single mom from California and her son.  He’s four months older than Oscar, but they seem to get along fine (especially in the pool when they’re splashing each other).  Oscar hadn’t shown any interest in any other kids before, so I was happy to see him smiling and laughing today.  Tomorrow I think we’re going to try to do some shopping.  There are a lot of things I still haven’t done in Hanoi (because I really haven’t done much sightseeing here), but I am simply not in the mood.  I like our laid back days playing on the bed, swimming and taking naps.  I thought we’d end our trip in style.  Since I’ve spent such an incredible amount on this phase of the adoption, I figured why scrimp on our last few nights.  We’re at the new Intercontinental, which is built directly on top of Westlake.  If you’re going to be in exile, it’s not such a bad place to be.

April 16, 2008 – I knew last night that I would be getting news today.  I was completely stressed out in the way I get when I know something big is going to happen.  Oddly enough, when I got the email from Hanoi Adoptions, I was not as excited as I think I should have been.  I’m just so tired of all of this.  I hate the fact that this process has taken so long (and cost so much) as a result of questionable allegations of unethical conduct.  I hate the fact that I cannot enjoy great news because I know so many other people who have waited even longer than I have are still waiting for their news.  I can’t decide whether we’re going to rush back to Hanoi or finish our vacation here in Bali.  We’ve been to so many amazing places in the past six weeks, but I don’t think I’ve really relaxed and enjoyed things.  This process has been constantly with me; I was getting a pedicure this afternoon and it occurred to me that I had not thought about whether the email came yet in at least 15 minutes.  That’s how bad it’s become.  I’ve been trying to make the best of this – when life gives you lemons . . . but it’s tough to be so far from home with the anxiety that you might not get to go back home (at least not with your child).  Although it’s been tough, I do think it’s been easier than it would have been if I had continued to wait back in the US.  We have return tickets leaving Bali on the 24th.  I think I might want to go to Hanoi before that and start the visa process.  Any of you BTDT’s (including you, Dawn!) have any info on how that works.  I (or Martin, really) apply and pay my $400, two days later I have an interview and two days later I get a visa and can go home?  So, theoretically, if we applied on Monday, I might be able to fly home on Friday?  Sounds pretty good to me right now.  Potentially even better than a few more days in Bali.  Crazy.  I’m trying to imagine our life back home and it’s really quite difficult.  Today marks the end of the sixth week Oscar and I have been a family.  In that time, we’ve been constantly on the go.  Our only daily ritual has been our playing for hours every day on the bed.  I’m so looking forward to getting both of us on some sort of schedule once we’re back and recover from jet lag.

April 15, 2008 – Big day today.  Oscar sat up on his own AND he pulled himself up to a standing position. I’m obviously a little concerned about the latter.  So, I’m still in Bali.  Going to stay until I hear something from the Embassy, whatever it might be.  It’s unbelievable to me that I’m concerned that I might get a NOID when I’ve actually met the parents and had a conversation with them about why they couldn’t care for another child.  I’ve even been present when the provincial authority asked them if they understood the baby was going to the United States and if they wanted to change their minds and keep the baby.  I was concerned because I wasn’t sure what they would think about my being unmarried.  When someone explained that to the birth father, he just shrugged his shoulders and told the translator that it didn’t matter.  My concerns, of course, have nothing to do with the reality of the situation.  They are predicated on NOIDs having been issued based not on the facts of a given case, but on the belief that there is corruption in adoptions in Vietnam.  Perhaps we’ll hear something tomorrow.  

April 14, 2008 – Two posts in one day while I’m in Bali?  You know something’s going on.  I actually connected with a human being at both CIS and the Embassy.  Well, I presume they’re human.  My file has been sent to Hanoi to communicate CIS’ “recommendation.”  Of course, I cannot get anyone in a position of authority in Hanoi to actually talk to me, so I’m stuck obsessing over what the recommendation is.  Approval or further investigation?  I honestly feel ill.  I’ve spent the morning looking for flights to Whistler, BC (Four Seasons is CHEAP in the off-season).  Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.  We have another 10 days here in Bali and I just want to leave.  I am a freak.  I am also a freak who hasn’t actually paid her taxes, so I guess I should hit Turbotax next.

April 14, 2008 - Ok, so many of you have emailed me noting my fairly obvious homesickness.  Here’s the deal, I’m considering flying to British Colombia and spending the rest of the wait there.  Horrible idea?  I’m in Bali (somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for many years), and I’m wanting to cut my visit here short and fly 14 hours to go to Canada in April.  I think that tells you kind of where my head is.  I was thinking it would be nice to be closer to home, where my parents and friends could come visit us if they wanted to.  Hotels cost about the same as in Hanoi (how insane is that, BTW?), so the real consideration is the flights.  We would have to fly to Canada and then from Canada to Hanoi if/when we get approved and then from Hanoi to San Francisco.  Oscar’s great on planes, but that’s a lot of travel time.  I just don’t know; I’ll think more on it today.  Anyway, I’m no longer the meanest mommy in the world. I fed Oscar linguine last night and he was insane for it.  Actually kept crawling across me to grab the bowl from me.  Wonder what I’ll have to bribe him with tonight after the next babysitter episode (actually, no bribe needed, as I cancelled all of my appointments in fear of another tirade).  The hotel people here love Oscar.  For those of you who have been to VN with your kids, the phenomenon is not limited to that country.  People grab your kids here, too.  Even men want to hold him and teach him to shake hands.  The guy we had assigned to be our personal assistant, Agus, had to take a couple of days off, but before he left, he wrote Oscar a note introducing the new PA, telling him that the new guy was a very nice man and would take good care of him, and left him a Baby Einstein DVD.  So sweet.  We’re staying in what they call the “water residence,” since it is located above the river and has many ponds around it.  I asked Agus the first day we arrived whether any of the ponds have koi because Oscar really likes them.  They didn’t, and I didn’t think anything of it.  When we returned to our room from breakfast this morning, Oscar started “talking” and getting excited.  I looked down and there were four large koi and two huge, strange-looking fish in the pond for Oscar.  I like it here very much.  Too bad we have to leave on Tuesday (no more room at the inn; they’re booked up for some huge event).  Here’s a pic of what I deal with every time I try to get a shot of my son.  He’s obsessed with the camera.

April 13, 2008 – I am the meanest mommy in the world.  After taking Oscar to a brunch where an Indonesian dance group entertained him, I took him back to the room to introduce him to his first official baby sitter.  Seemed fine when I left, but when I returned from my hydrotherapy class and consultation with the center’s nutritionist, he refused to look at me.  I finally got him to sleep after half an hour of crying and ripping at my face (there was also what I suspect might have been a punch thrown at my nose, connecting with my eye).  When he awoke, he was all smiles and seemed to have forgotten about my desertion of him. I hope so, as tomorrow I have four appointments (including an Indonesian massage, a one-on-one yoga lesson and another of those hydro things).

April 12, 2008 -  I’m going to go ahead and type it.  Bali is nicer than Hanoi.  We spent the first few days in Jimbaran Bay.  Oscar was a huge celebrity there, everyone wanted his picture.  There was even some sort of tour group that came through the resort and at least half a dozen of them took pictures of him on the chaise lounge sleeping next to the pool.  They were from Beijing and were absolutely convinced Oscar was Chinese – refused to believe me that he was from the Vietnamese side of the border.  As one of them said, “that boy Chinese, too cute for Vietnam.”  My son is a source of national pride for China.  I don’t know what I think of that.

We’re now up outside of Ubud in the jungle (for real, it’s a jungle) having a great time at Como Shambhala Estate.  I chose this resort because they have tons of classes – yoga, pilates, hydrotherapy, etc. AND you get a personal assistant who will watch your kid as much as you’d like.  Perfect, no?  Not when your child is going through what looks to be separation anxiety.  He won’t even let Agus hold him if I’m not in the room.  That’s fine, though, as Oscar and I went for a long hike down the mountain (and by that I mean that we went down a mountain gorge and then had to climb back up it, not so easy when you’re wearing an 8 kilo kid around your neck and there were no handy safety rails; we won’t be doing that again).  Very pretty, though.  No word about our visa situation.  CIS and the Embassy won’t even return my calls, so I have no idea what’s going on.  No use thinking about it until Monday, though.  Have a great weekend, and enjoy the new pics of Oscar.  I think the second one below kind of looks like it has one of those cheesy backdrops you’d see in the photo “studio” in a department store.

April 7, 2008 – So, if you can’t beat ‘em, go to Bali.  Oscar and I leave for Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning, with a flight to Bali the next morning. I don’t want to sit around here waiting any longer.  We’re on day 74 now with no end to it that I can see.  We’re going to spend some time at the beach and up at Ubud. I may actually take some time to learn yoga.  I don’t know if my blackberry will work, and really I don’t care. Maybe we’ll get approved while we’re away.  Oscar and I met another family from Santa Barbara today. They have an adorable little girl from the same orphanage as Oscar.  I’m pretty sure I saw Oscar checking her out.  At least he has good taste in women.  Thank you guys for the email.  I’m sorry I’ve sounded so pathetic lately, I’ll stop the whining now.  I promise, I haven’t lost sight of the fact that I’m here in Asia with what I’ve wanted for so long.  Sometimes, I’d just like to be at home with him and our dogs.  Will post from the tropics if at all possible.  

April ?, 2008 – I have now lost track of time.  Days just run into one another, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason to actually know even what day of the week it is.  Still in Hanoi.  Couldn’t get a visa to go to India.  Well, Oscar could get one, but the Indian Embassy actually told me I would have to go back to the US to apply for mine.  So, that’s obviously not going to happen.  Perhaps I should tell our Embassy here that I need visa approval for Oscar so we can go get an Indian visa?  Another approval for the LS group – Jan got hers yesterday.  D is here with her baby – hope to see her early next week.  Oscar and I are definitely leaving VN this week.  It’s kind of hard to watch other people come in, get their kids and go home a few days later.  Not that I’m not happy for them; I am.  I’m just envious.  Now looking seriously at Bali.  We’d need to fly to either Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, but Air Asia has fairly cheap tickets from both cities. Oscar is a riot right now.  He’s taken to lying on his stomach on the bed (still refuses to get onto the floor), pounding the mattress and crawling to the edge of the bed.  I have not showered in days.  When we were in Hue, I snuck into the shower while Oscar was taking a nap.  HUGE mistake.  While I was rinsing my hair, I kept thinking I heard him screaming.  I kept hearing it, so I got out to check and he was screaming like he did when I first got him.  I think he thought I was gone for good.  He’s been really touchy since then.  Won’t let me out of his sight again, even to go to the bathroom or to the kitchen to make his bottle.  I tried to get off the bed today during his nap and he wouldn’t have any of that.  He’s going to have to cope with it either later tonight or in the morning.  This isn’t fair to the people of Vietnam.   

April 3, 2008 – APRIL – Yes, I’m still in Vietnam.  We arrived back in Hanoi today and I actually told Oscar we were going “home.”  Unbelievable.  I just spent a bunch of money at a market that sells some western food.  Since I don’t really want to engage in a lot of cooking (why start now), I bought chili in a can and white bread.  I don’t even buy white bread at home.  I also got peanut butter and grape jelly.  I want to go home.  Still trying to decide whether we’re going to travel any further.  I’ve been talking with people in Bhutan, but I’d really like to do that trip with a side-trip to Nepal.  Just don’t know if now is the right time.  I’m also looking at Bali and India (tiger safari!).  The wrinkle with the latter is visas.  We’re off to the Indian Embassy here in Hanoi tomorrow.  Wish us luck.  Of course, if we had any real luck, we’d be back in our cute house with our two beautiful dogs.  Enough whining.  Guess who learned to crawl???  Yep, now that I have some video of it I’m trying to teach him to forget that he knows how.  

March 29, 2008 - Oscar and I had tea yesterday with our new friends from northern California.  Here’s a new video of Oscar talking with his cousin Angela.  We’re heading out to Hue tomorrow to see the “Emerald City” and its ruins.  More from there.  Oh, yeah, obviously no approval yesterday. Whatever.  We’re applying for visas to Bhutan, and they take at least two weeks, so you know that we’ll get approval either right before we go there (and, yes, we’ll still go) or while we’re there.  Again, whatever.  We won’t be anywhere near here for a few years, so we should make the most of it while we are.  

March 27, 2008 - Guess what?  No approval today either.  Oscar and I are at the lovely Park Hyatt in Saigon and I found out something about my son today.  He tolerates the heat about as well as I do. His poor little face broke out in a bright red rash and he actually vomited a little.  Mind you, this was before 9:00 am, in the shade, after about 10 minutes outside.  I think we’ll be hitting the pool for the remainder of our stay.  Perhaps we’ll go back to the beach.  Everything seems better at the beach.  And maybe this time the beach will be in Thailand.  I’d like to go to Bhutan, but that seems like a lot of work, although there is a flight to Paro from Bangkok.  Hmm. Must think about this a little more.  Should probably stay in VN, and I still haven’t gone to Hue.  Any thoughts?  

March 25, 2008 – Well, it’s a quarter to 1:00 pm and I think I’ll go ahead and concede defeat for today as well.  I’m not getting my approval today.  Oscar and I are going to go to Saigon tomorrow to see what’s going on down there.  The downside?  No flights between here and there have any available seats, so we’ll be driving 6 hours.  My friend Connie from CA who was here yesterday made the drive with her boyfriend who had food poisoning, so if he could do it I’m hopeful Oscar will be able to do so as well.  Either way, I’m going to consider it training for our eventual return flight home.  It’s got to happen sometime, right?  

March 24, 2008 – It’s 1:00 pm on Monday in VN and I still don’t have my approval. Tomorrow will be day 60.  I’m pretty convinced I’m not getting approved any time soon. I might need to get better at using chopsticks.  Think I’m going to go to Saigon for a few days.  I think it’s more fun for him (and me) to walk around the city and look at people/things.  And Saigon has a zoo, so that could be interesting.  Oscar made it through his first thundershower – with thunder and lightning and everything – and we weren’t even in our room.  We had gone down to the pool and got stuck in the poolhouse for probably two hours.  I wrapped him in a huge towel and stuck his hat on him and he seemed as happy as ever just sitting there watching the rain fall.  Here’s a video of pretty much what we do around here (aside from flying or bouncing Oscar in the air).  

March 22, 2008 – We had a great day today.  Oscar is almost over his cold, so we ventured out to the market in Dalat.  Completely overwhelming.  Tons of people all over and I’m pretty sure I was the only American anywhere in the vicinity.  That didn’t bother me, but unlike Hanoi, where people would point at Oscar and ask “Vietnam?,” here women would encircle us and shout things in Vietnamese to me.  My favorite was “You not his mama.”  Crazy.  Anyway, we took a long walk (to be honest, it should’ve taken maybe half an hour to get where I thought we were going, but I made a wrong turn and ended up walking almost three hours with Oscar around my neck sleeping).  Not feeling so slothful today.  It occurred to me that we haven’t really ventured out of our two resorts in over a week.  Sadly, I’m fairly sure we’ve exhausted the tourism opportunities here in Dalat, so we’ll be back to making the rounds here at the hotel.  Oscar is coming around.  He giggled and played by himself for a few minutes today, although I had to be sitting next to him watching him while he did it (he screams when he sees the computer, so I have to check email while he sleeps).  Most importantly, I actually got a picture of him smiling.  Kind of blurry, but the moment didn’t last long. 

March 21, 2008 – Our government is useless.  I’m starting to wonder if Oscar and I are going to have to use the six-month visa the visa service mistakenly got for me.  I hit 60 days on Tuesday with no end to this in sight.  I wouldn’t mind if I had some clue when we would be going home.  My dogs are at home with a sitter, but if we’re talking months more, I’m going to have to do something about them.  Oscar’s feeling much better.  He actually spent quite a bit of time today playing on the bed on his own.  We took a nap and apparently he awoke before I did, since he was staring at me when I finally got up.  No screaming today, just regular baby crying.  Oh, and we actually managed to eat two meals in the restaurant without any crying.  Trying to decide whether I’m going to go back to Hanoi soon.  I’m getting eaten up by bugs and I didn’t get the malaria meds.  Might have to head back to the city to play it safe. 

March 20, 2008 – Guess who visited a Vietnamese hospital today?  Oscar has been crankier than usual, and this morning (after refusing to eat his favorite breakfast of peas and crying in the most pathetic hoarse way possible), I broke down and did the first-time mom standby of taking my kid to the emergency room.  I know, it’s such a cliche, but he kept pulling his ear and I’ve been wondering whether he has some sort of infection.  So, the hotel gets a car and sends a translator with me and walks me through the process.  It was completely bizarre.  The hospital itself looked new and was very clean and orderly.  We were first seen by a doctor out in the parking lot (I think the hotel had arranged to get me past the dozens of people waiting), and he took us upstairs.  He and the translator spent an inordinate amount of time looking at Oscar’s rashes on his face (one by his eye and one around his mouth), both of which he’s had for weeks and the SOS doctor said I could wait to have a dermatologist at home look at.  I keep asking the translator to ask the doctor about his ear and whether he thought it was just a cold, and they kept looking at his skin.  We were taken into a tiny little examining room, where my knees butted up against the second doctor’s knees.  He had this contraption literally taped around his head with a tiny little lightbulb right over his nose.  He looked at Oscar’s face and again I asked if he could look at his ears and throat and after rolling his eyes at the translator, he finally did it.  The two guys talked for a few minutes, the doctor wrote what looked like a prescription and sent us to a third doctor.  We walk down the hall and are met by another guy in a white coat, presumably a doctor, who looked at Oscar’s skin and started this long conversation with the translator.  After that, we went downstairs to a pharmacy and got a bunch of packets of medicine for $1.  We hopped in the car, and I asked what had just happened, the translator said the medicine was for the baby’s tongue (um, ok) and that I needed to go to my room right away and boil some tea (he would tell my butler what kind of tea he should buy me at the market) and rub cloths soaked in the tea on the rashes.  I was to do this as soon as possible, as it was an emergency to get the tea on Oscar’s face.  Strange.  From googling the medicine, looks like all I got was some paracetamol and an antibiotic, both of which I gave Oscar after I’d read up on them online.  You really didn’t think I was going to pour unknown medicines down his throat, did you? That was our big outing for the day.  After two long naps and his first real bath in a bathtub, Oscar seemed a little better, but then went back to the hoarse crying. Hopefully, he’ll be feeling well enough tomorrow to scream at his usual ear-splitting levels. 

March 19, 2008 - I’ve now been a mom for two weeks.  I can’t tell you how much longer it feels like I’ve been at this (and, no, I don’t mean that in the best way).  Oscar and I have moved to a hotel in Dalat, where it is much cooler and even less humid than Hanoi.  I thought it would be a great place to hang out and go for walks, but young Oscar has decided he does not like the sling and he doesn’t like to be on my hip, so the only way he wants to walk anywhere is with me holding him in front of me while he’s lying down looking up at the sky.  Really not a comfortable situation.  Anyway, the hotel here is a bunch of French-Colonial villas that have all been restored.  Our room has a balcony that overlooks the town and a huge four-post bed and fireplace.  We’re also just off the villa’s communal living room, which we’re pretty much taking over.  I’d like it even more if I got to use the big claw-foot tub, but that’s not happening just yet.  

Still waiting for news on our approval.  I’ve heard that ‘they’ went to LS to investigate and were told by the director that I had already had my G&R.  Will have to see if they use that to slow down our process.  Senator Grassley’s office is doing an inquiry, but I suspect all I’ll get from them is a status update.  The upside to the delay is that a friend from California is actually going to be in Dalat next week (staying at the same hotel – bizarre coincidence), so we’ll get to have dinner with her one night.  Oddly enough, I’m sort of missing Hanoi.  The air sucks, but there is a lot to do and Oscar’s attention was at least diverted.  It also doesn’t have the bug problem of Dalat.  I have a bunch of little bites and Oscar has two.  If we get any more, I think we might have to have another change of venue.  Perhaps Sapa.  Definitely want to sit tight for a little while, though. Here’s a pic of Oscar on the beach at Nha Trang:

Oh, and I finally solved the bath problem – he just needed his own private plunge pool:

March 11, 2008 – OK, so blogging has obviously been difficult.  Oscar has not had an easy transition, and he has literally been attached to me physically since we left the G&R (well, other than the few minutes last Friday when a sweet lady from housekeeping held him while I endured my first experience with food poisoning in a developing country). Things are getting better each day, although we seem to have had a bit of a setback today.  Last night Oscar decided to sleep next to me instead of on my chest, so I thought that was great, but he’s been cranky and just had what I think was a night terror.

I really like Hanoi.  It’s filthy dirty and the pollution is worse than I’ve ever experienced, but the people are incredibly nice (other than the old ladies who chastise me for not having a hat on Oscar when it’s 85 degrees out).  Having said that, we’re going to head out of the city on Friday in search of cleaner air and less noise. Probably going to go to Dalat.  Not much to see there, but I think it’ll be a relaxed place to hang out for a few weeks. And even better, the rooms at the Evason Ana Mandara are free every other night and they come with a “butler.”  If the only thing he does is hold Oscar while I take a shower a couple of times a week, I’ll be happy.  Mom, the link is here; see, it’s nice.

Oh, those of you who will be going to Hanoi soon might want to consider the Hanoi Elegance 3 Hotel.  It’s in the Old Quarter, just opened a couple of months ago, is a cute little boutique hotel, has amazingly helpful and friendly staff and it’s incredibly cheap.  What more could you ask for?  WC does like people to use their hotels, but the Hong Ngoc isn’t all that nice, IMO, and it’s literally a $1 cab ride to the Somerset, where you can eat/drink the ice at Highland Coffee.  Also, definitely eat at Cyclo restaurant.  Went to Alfredo’s today, and it’s ok, but nothing special. Definitely as close as you’ll get to “American” food here, though.  Going to Bobby Chinn’s tomorrow and possibly Green Tangerine the day after.  Oscar’s surprisingly well-behaved in restaurants until about the time I finish eating. Will try to get some pics posted.  It’s been difficult to take pictures with Oscar on my arm, and he’s not the easiest subject.  Every time I pull out the camera he starts to frown, but I’ll post something anyway.  

March 3, 2008 – G&R is tomorrow!  We leave Hanoi at 5:45 am and the ceremony is at 1:00.  Spent most of the day looking around Hanoi and getting gifts ready.  People here are very nice; the city is very smoggy, though.  Probably should’ve brought an inhaler, but I’ll be going to Sapa, Hue, Hoi An, etc., and I don’t think it’ll be a problem there. Shopped at a Vietnamese supermarket for diapers, wipes, formula, water and Coke Light.  I have no idea if the formula/diapers are what I’m supposed to bring, but I guess we’ll make due.  This time tomorrow I’ll be a mom.  I know, it sounds strange to me, too. 

February 29, 2008 – leaving tomorrow night (less than 24 hours from now), but still haven’t packed for myself yet.  I did, however, start my maternity leave.  Kind of upsetting, actually, but I took a nap and things don’t seem as strange now.  Everything looks better after a nap.  Hoping to pull things together by the time the driver shows up tomorrow.