One Month In...

Lincoln is just about one month old now. We've survived two kids thus far, and I only had to wake up once last night to feed him...happy birthday to me! He's getting huge: 10lbs 13oz at four weeks! How does that even happen?

Anyway, the point of this post is to thank all of you for bringing food and gifts and entertaining Timmy while I recovered from the not so great labor and delivery experience that brought us such a blessing. Especially big thank yous to: Mom & Dad, Jim & Cindy Nelson, Sarah Erickson, Lauren Johnson, Jean Rezutko, Amy McGann, Samantha Johnson, Elaine Nelson & Cheryl Wedyck. We feel very loved!

Poor Kid

So Timmy has been a crazy man lately and jumping off of anything he can climb on. Well today he jumped off of that ledge by his window (about 2' high) and fractured his Tibia in 2 places (he broke his leg). The kid's a trooper - he took a nap with his broken leg before Katie took him to the hospital, but woke up still crying and wouldn't walk on it. Katie did a good job of getting him to the hospital in a taxi with his broken leg before I could get there for them to put the cast on and take pictures of the xrays on the wall and the doctor putting the cast on. We'll see how it goes with living out here. If anyone has any ideas of how to attach wheels to his leg let me know...I need to figure out how to make this restless kid mobile again soon before he gets too stir-crazy!

DQ Something Different.

Yesterday I took myself to the doctor because I've had a sore throat for 12 days. Its not strep so she said its either a virus or mono. I opted not to get blood tests done to find out if its mono because either way there is no actual treatment so why waste the time and money. Anyway, I'll be fine and I'm not contagious (unless you kiss me!).

After the doctor I needed to go buy a new toilet seat since ours broke. There is an new B & Q (Chinese Home Depot) in a mall near our apartment so I went there. It took ten minutes of wandering to find the entrance to the store because the place is huge. During my wanderings I happened upon a brand new Dairy Queen in the mall. It was open and I decided that ice cream would feel great on my sore throat.

I ordered a small Oreo blizzard and paid for it. I watched them start to make it and that is when it got weird. The employee opened a package of Oreos and started breaking them in half with his hands (wearing gloves, thank goodness). He puts the huge chunks of Oreo in the cup with ice cream and then goes to the blender. The blender wasn't plugged it, so he reached for the cord and it has no plug - just wires with nothing on the end. Hmmmmm. He says something to the manager and she looks for herself. After fumbling with it for a minute and apparently looking for a hole to jam the wires into, decides its a lost cause. She then hands a spoon the to the other guy to mix my blizzard by hand. You can imagine how efficient this is with giant pieces of cookie in the mix. After about 30 seconds he hands me my treat, not really mixed at all. I must have been their first customer ever. Anyway the ice cream was good, but I wouldn't call it a blizzard.

Timmy's 1st Doctor's Visit (In Shanghai)

Tim's been coughing all week and having a bit of a hard time breathing normally, so I decided to take him to the doctor and get it checked out. We've been here over 6 months and have not had to go to the doctor or hospital for anything yet, pretty good, huh? When we told people we were moving to China, many of you asked about the health care. I gave my best answers from research, but until today had not really known anything first hand.

The whole experience was pretty decent. Everyone spoke English, it was only 15 or so minutes from our place, the place was super clean (compared to the local hospital I volunteered at a few months ago) and they billed my insurance directly. The pediatrician we saw was an African American guy from New York named Tyrone. He is apparently the Chief Medical Officer in Pediatrics at Shanghai United Family Hospital. He was super cool and turns out that Timmy most likely has allergies that are flaring up from the intense humidity. No biggie, but I feel better after going and checking out the lay of the land.

Welcome Back to China...grrrrrrrrrr

So I think that blogger.com is now blocked by the Great Firewall of China. This means I have to use Scott's computer (that does not store our pictures) or a proxy website (which I hate) in order to post here. How annoying! I guess it was bound to happen someday, hopefully it will get unblocked soon, sometimes this happens. This is China, so who knows. So for now, no pictures since I'm on Scott's Mac and I keep all our pictures on my laptop.

Our flight back to Shanghai, via Toronto on Air Canada was okay. Timmy did not sleep as much as on past flights, but he was tolerable nonetheless. The most eventful part of it was when we landed guys in white jumpsuits and masks came on board with laser thermometers and took everyone temperature. It was straight out of the movies. Even the flight attendants were taking pictures. I guess the swine flu is still serious around here.

The time change has been a bit of a beast this time around. Yesterday and today Timmy took a huge nap in the afternoon that he had to be woken up from, and he was not happy about it at all. We all ate popcorn and pop-tarts at midnight and watched cartoons on Wednesday night before going back to sleep. Similar activities last night, but it was granola bars at 2AM instead. I'm hoping to get through tonight a little better.

It was 90 degrees and super humid yesterday. Its going to be a long hot summer in Shanghai.

Adoption Update & Heart To Heart Shanghai

So as many of you know, Scott and I came to China with the hope of adopting a Chinese baby at some point during our time here. In conjunction with that hope, I was looking forward to getting involved with volunteering at an orphanage to better understand the system and where the babies come from. After more in depth research, all doors have been shut (for now) on the idea of us adopting a baby from here during the next 2-3 years. China has pretty strict rules that both parents be 30 years old before they can adopt a child, so that rules us out until 2011. I also did some brief research on orphanages in Shanghai and volunteering at them is not a casual thing. There seem to be some serious requirements and commitments of time involved in such an endeavor. So, seeing that I have most of my time committed to Timmy, that door has been shut as well. Maybe we will revisit all of this sometime in the future.

Instead of volunteering at an orphanage, I decided to try something different. Through a mom's group called IMSG (International Mother's Support Group), I learned of an organization called Heart To Heart Shanghai. This organization helps raise funds to pay for kids that are born with congenital heart defects to have heart surgery. The kids that it sponsors would otherwise not have the opportunity to receive the care they need because their families cannot afford it. One surgery costs 25,000RMB (only 3650USD!) at the Shanghai Children's Thoracic Hospital.

Today I started volunteering at the hospital. Its incredible to see how different a children's ward at a Chinese hospital is like compared to the USA. All the monitors that the little babies were hooked up to were just propped up on chairs next to their beds. Also, there was virtually no security to get into the hospital or the children's floor. I was told by my orientation guide that there was no artwork of any kind on the walls until Heart To Heart donated it, and all the furniture and toys for the playroom. Unfortunately, the kids only get to play with the toys from 2-3:30 each day when the volunteers are there. Without supervision, all the toys would just disappear because of the lack of security. The place was clean, and had decent equipment, but not all the amenities (like carts for the equipment, furniture, artwork, phones) that we would expect to see in the US. I briefly met the chief surgeon, she seems to really love her work and the kids. She even speaks English and came in to say hello to me and the other new volunteer. Anyway, if you are interested in reading more about Heart To Heart, check out their website .

The Violation

Scott and I went to have a medical exam today that is required to obtain resident status in China. What an experience. First, we had to bring 9 passport-like photos with you, but they took another picture when we got there. Then we waited for about an hour in a waiting room that at first had only one man in it (and no receptionist at the desk). By the end of the hour there were at least 30 other people (all foreigners) with us, all standing around with no explanation of what was happening. We somehow managed to be the first two people in line, praise the Lord!

They took us to a little locker room like place where we had to take off our shirts and put on little robes. In a new room, they took 3 tubes of blood (after we were required to have fasted for 5 hours - not a good combination). The blood-taking nurse was not very good at her job, our arms are still sore.

Then we each went in another little room to have an ultrasound done. I think this was to make sure we had organs. I don't know what else they could have been looking for because they were probing the wrong area to be looking for a baby. Not to mention Scott had this done as well. He asked the nurse, "No babies?" She confirmed this for him, thank goodness.

In another little room we had and EKG done, complete with thingys clipped to our ankles, wrists and chest. Odd. Yet another little room brought an ear, nose and eye guy. He made sure I wasn't color blind, or blind and looked in my nose. Apparently he looked in Scott's ears, but not mine, hmmmm. Then we had our blood pressure taken in a different little room.

This next part was even stranger. Still in our pants and robes, we were given winter coats to wear to walk across the parking lot to a different building. This was the x-ray building. We got chest x-rays done, then walked back across the parking lot to the other building.

We were finally done, and by now, so was Timmy. He was not happy about being passed back and forth between MaMa and DaDa while all these tests were being done. Although a nice nurse gave him Hershey kisses. We topped it all off with a much needed, 2:30pm lunch at good old McDonalds.

For pictures from our first week here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15202&l=6d5c9&id=1145683473 (you DO NOT need to be a member of Facebook to see these)