Nov 14th, 2008....

It's the morning of the 14th, and I will be meeting Tam (her Vietnamese name) today. It's hard to believe, after so many years, that it is finally happening... It's still the 13th at home, so I am still considering it my birthday. The most perfect birthday present:).
Even though the hotel was umm... I'll say, less than desirable, they did have a nice breakfast, and much healthier than our SAD of Cheerios, fried eggs and bacon... and we wonder why we are all sick. I am not sure what it was that I ate .... some noodles which were crunchy and some soft, a variety of vegetables and herbs mixed in, a quail egg (which is where I draw the line... I didn't eat it), and some kind of meat on top which I didn't eat either. There was some kind of soft gummy sweet molasses type of thing wrapped in a bananna leaf. I only took one bite of that because it was kind of like eating chewing gum. I wish I knew the names of these things. The Vietnamese people were laughing at me because I took a photo of the breakfast table and didn't really know how to use chop stix.
It's pouring down rain here, very humid, about 80 degrees right now at 7:30 AM. I took a photo from the front of the hotel which is overlooking a river. There are horns honking constantly with people busily going to work... I suppose.

An interesting 24 hours....

Just got to my hotel in Danang..... and fell asleep exhausted for a few hours. When I opened one of my suitcases, I found that all of my shoes had been stolen..... so, at least I have the one pair I was wearing:( That... on top of the fact that last week the windows were knocked out of my car at the gym, and my purse with ID and credit cards were stolen... had made me a bit untrusting of people. The reason I was stuck in Economy class in the middle seat all the way is that yes, it was a short notice, but I was also waiting for all of my new credit cards to come in. I won't go into any more of the negative stuff... other than just to vent my opinion that Vietnamese Airlines and the Vietnamese airport is THE most inefficient place I have ever been. Good thing I had a 3-4 hour layover in each city because it took that long just to do things ... like pay for extra baggage.....wait in several lines just to do one thing, then pay them extra for stealing my stuff. I think from what I have seen so far, Vietnam has a long way to go in being tourist friendly. Tomorrow can only be better.

I haven't seen anything of the city yet because it was almost dusk when I got here. Apparently Danang has alot to offer, but I leave early in the morning for Hoi An, about 45 minutes away, where the orphanage is. It is there where I will get to meet my daughter for the first time, only after meeting with the orphanage director, I am told. I am not being cynical when I say that I am sure that they will not let me see her until I pay more money.... I was told to prepare for another $1000.00 cash. This is how Vietnam works. I will never purposely enter into any business dealings with a Vietnamese person or the Vietnamese government again... although the end result tomorrow will be the culmination of a 2 year pregnancy and a very difficult labor:)

Here are a few photos, just from the Ho Chi Minh City airport so far. Tomorrow I will have more. I am so grateful I brought my computer.... I tried getting on the internet and my blog site from their computer. Everything was in Vietnamese.. so it was useless.

made it to Taiwan ....

I've made it to Taiwan and am waiting for my next flight. It has been a frantic week, frantically packing at the last minute, making flight arrangements, re-scheduling appointments. The flight from LA to Taipei was almost 15 hours. Since my flight was last minute, only Economy was available. I was stuck in the very last row in the very back of the plane right next to the bathroom, and the flight was completely full. Lovely smell. All in all, the international airlines are much more customer service oriented though. I think I must have watched 4 movies to kill time, slept, and tried to walk around alot. I have a photo I took at the Taipei airport which I cannot upload right now.
Oh yes.. Happy Birthday to Me:) It is the 13th here, and still the 12th in the US.

I-600 approval......

FINALLY.... I received it....Yes!!!! I kept waiting and waiting and waiting... and nothing... so finally I emailed the US Embassy in Hanoi for 5 days in a row with no response.... then I called them in the middle of the night... which is daytime for them. They were very nice, but told me it had been emailed on October 2:(( but I never received it. They emailed it and I received it in 2 minutes flat. It is a shame that Jasmine has stayed 6 weeks longer in an orphanage than necessary because of an email. I received a Giving and Receiving ceremony date of November 17:))..... so, I am frantically making flight reservations and trying to make hotel reservations... without knowing which dates exactly that I will be in Hoi An, Danang, and finally Hanoi. I found a man who owns a travel agency who managed to get me a one month Visa in about one hour!!! I am not kidding. Then he FedEx'ed it to me overnight and I have it already. Of course, I was obligated to make the flight reservations with him, but it was well worth it. I am finding that many of the hotels with internet access are already booked up, and I cannot get ahold of my in country Vietnamese representative to give me the exact dates I will be in each city. So, if anyone tries to email me... and I don't get back with you, it is because I had to stay in a hotel without internet. I would also would not be able to write on this blog, which would be a bummer:( My regular email is drstolz@gmail.com if anyone needs to get ahold of me when I am gone.... barring the already mentioned obstacle. Oh yes..... I get to meet my new baby girl on my birthday!!:))

Waiting for I-600

So much has happened since last I posted in June. Not very positive, which is why I waited so long to add a new post. Basically, right now we are just waiting for 1-600 approval (Immigration) and we are set to go. Here is my little princess looking at a book I created for her. I think she is wondering how she got in that picture:)

Spirit Dance

I just returned home from a 10 day "Spirit Dance" at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona. www.treeoflife.nu. Actually, the dance was on state owned land just outside of the Tree of Life. The first four days were "preparation" which consisted of camping, preparing the dance site, as well as ourselves. We really had been preparing for the dance with a 40 day vegan diet, no chemicals, daily meditation, etc The four days of the dance were spent water fasting, in total silence with no eye contact. We danced in 3 hour shifts twice a day. My "shift" was 6-9 PM and 6-9 AM, which was really the easiest. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed since it was a Native American ceremony. The whole idea of the Spirit Dance is to call forth the Spirits for peace. After fasting and having no outside communication for four days, no conversation and no eye contact, you kind of go into an altered state of consciousness and are able to be in tune with the Spirits. I had some interesting conversations with my neighbor the spider, as well as bears, coyotes, my "dead" and live animals and "dead people". I hear dead people... ha:)
Here is a picture of the front and back of my dress which was made by Roger Merritt www.MerrittAirBrushArt.com

While camping, the cows (actually bulls) were really interested in my tent. One of the bovines had on a large cow bell that kept me up all night as they rummaged around chomping loudly in my ear. I was just thankful they didn't trample my tent... with me in it. All in all it was an amazing experience, and I always come away from my Tree of Life experiences with amazing reverence for life in general.
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Here is our Inipi tent. Two Inipi's (sweat lodges) a day with 2-4 rounds each was pushing me to the brink, I will say.

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The images on the dress are how the Spirits see you when you are dancing. I had my horse Handy to remind me of him as well as all horse energy, a Native American clown for fun, my doodles which when I looked them up had to do with the maiden, mother and crone, as well as infinity, Earth on the front with all of the peace symbols I could think of around it, my cat Miss Kitty to represent all cat energy, my medicine bag filled with love, health, and abundance, a serpent on the back which is my Native American totem having to deal with spirituality and healing, bear paws so that I could be embraced by Bear Energy while dancing, several alchemical symbols such as agrimony which has animal tendencies, copper which is feminine, magnesium which is almost impossible to extinguish when ignited which represents the unextinguishable light in all, phosphorous... light and airy, and to balance out the feminine energy was a Ken Rune which is the Celtic symbol for passion and war. There were others such as a cactus flower which is the Native American symbol for romance and lastly the Lakota Souix symbol for tortoise.... connected to the Earth... newborn babies, with a Jasmine flower in the middle, below it a Vietnamese flag. On the back is a Ganesh Yantra to remind me about "ease"..... I could go on.... but those are the main ones. Dylan is the little neighbor boy in the photo next to me. He wanted to be in the picture, too, as well as my dog, Spirit.

A milestone....

Wow, yesterday was a milestone in my paper chasing journey. I received the "Order of Certification of Acceptability to Adopt Children" renewal from Pinal County. It had expired, and I re-applied about 6 weeks ago. This particular leg of the journey involved having the home study updated which is described below including the Child Protection Services background re-check, Department of Public Safety re-check, as well as a home inspection and psychological evaluation. All of that paperwork sat on a legal aides' desk for 3 weeks prior to her submitting it to the Pinal County judge!! I can't imagine how these people justify getting paid. It took the judge one week to look at the paperwork, then it sat on the aides' desk again for another week. Finally, I received it yesterday. Now all we have to do is send it to United States Immigration Service along with the Vietnamese paperwork. They will then do a "background check" on Jasmine to look for her parents. If her parents are found, which they won't be, DNA testing is required.

The Vietnamese leg reached a milestone yesterday too. The Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco, for two weeks, had lost an addendum to my homestudy. Since Jasmine had ended being a little older than originally stated in my home study (0-12 months), an addendum had to be added saying 0-24 months. This form had to go thru the same process as every other form... notarized, apostilled by the Arizona Secretary of State, then authenticated at the Vietnamese Consulate ... $65.00 per page. I originally had around fifty pages... so, you can do the math:) The document was supposed to have been sent directly to my agency, Commonwealth, but after 6 weeks, they still had not received it. I called the Vietnamese Consulate every day and only got a real person one time. We didn't really understand one another, but I did understand that my document was not able to be located. Miraculously, it ended up at Commonwealth today. Yahoo!!!

Here is a edited photo with my only photo of Jasmine. I can't wait to see what she looks like when she smiles:) Oh yes, I bought her a tricycle today:)