Journey to China

This blog documents the Spitlers' progress towards the adoption of Xia Ping He (Noah Spitler) from the PR China. It also documents Noah's medical process in pursuit of a total repair to his CHD (congenital heart defect).

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Day Three and Four Part II











Hello everybody,
We had a small gap in our blogging - so please read this blog and the next one down, as that should get things caught up.

Wednesday started off with Robin and Noah walking over to the clinic to have his TB test evaluated. Thank God - the test was determined negative, so he did not have to have any X-rays or extra paperwork! As he's been exposed to TB in the past, we'll probably have this looked at again in the States.

After the TB test and a check of the weather (it was drizzling), we decided to press on with the group's plan to visit Guangzhou's 50-yr old zoo. It was a good trip, though very humid, hot, and exhausting. We saw many animals that we hadn't seen in zoos in the US, and many more tigers and lions than normal. And - we saw the panda! Robin got some video of him eating and walking around - very neat. The mosquitos there were rather aggressive, and we had left our "Off" in the hotel room; so Jason (our guide) helped us buy some insect repellant - a small glass bottle of oily perfume. A few dabs of the pepper-minty liquid fought off the insects, but then 3 minutes later, we also found it had an "icy-hot" burning feel (like Ben-gay). Ouch!

We got back to the room, got cleaned up, and put Noah (and Dad) down for a quick nap. Noah only cried about 20 minutes this time - yeah!

At 2:15, we had to meet 30 other people for the bus ride to the US Consulate for the oath. The reason we are here at the White Swan Hotel is that the US Consulate was formerly located directly across the street. However, they moved to a temporary location across town - and that was a 40 minute bus ride for us. Up escalators (did Robin mention Noah loves escalators - like any other 6 yr old boy), then through security and a 30 minute wait. We signed a simple paper, heard a short speech from the foreign service officer, and stood and took the oath. A few "Yeah - congratulations!" went around, then we boarded the bus and returned to the hotel. That was it! Like Robin said - the time here in GZ has been rather anti-climactic; after all the waiting for appointments and paperwork - we are in a serious "wait mode" here.

Speaking of "wait" - that's the last thing left for today's agenda...wait until 5pm, at which time we'll receive Noah's Chinese passport and US visa...which will let him enter the US. So - one night left in the White Swan, then tomorrow we'll head to Hong Kong!

Since I don't know what our internet will be like - here's a pre-view. At 9am tomorrow, we'll take a hotel bus to Guangzhou's East Train Station. There, we'll board an express train (1 hr, 50 min) to Hong Kong's Kowloon Station. The train tickets are very reasonable - and only cost us $100 usd. (total!) Many other families here are flying to Hong Kong, and wish they were on the train.

In Hong Kong, we'll be staying at the Marriott out near the airport. We were told that we couldn't depart Hong Kong until Friday at 1pm, and the last United flight left at 12:25pm - great...so therefore the extra night out. Perhaps this will give us a 1/2 day to see some sights in Hong Kong. None of us have ever been there, before.

Okay - I'll try to post some pictures from the past couple days.




Thanks for your support and prayers. Noah's grieving and goings-to-bed seem to be getting MUCH better. Last night he only cried for 8 minutes before falling asleep. Oh - and we put the pulse oximeter on him twice - his oxygen saturation levels were 69% and 76%, as expected - much lower than a normal +98% (which the rest of us scored). We'll get a few more data points today, in hopes this will assist our assessment of his condition while flying home.
Adam

1 Comments:

Blogger Clay and Stacey said...

Glad to hear all the wonderful news. We are still praying for you all and hope everything goes as smooth as possible. So, are you still coming home on the same plane and the same time? I was not clear with your comment on "the extra night".
Love yall,
Stacey

July 29, 2010 at 9:00 AM  

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